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Yelling is My Love Language

How Do I Keep My Kids From Learning It?

Julie Calidonio
Modern Women
7 min readFeb 11, 2024

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Photo from Unsplash by Simran Sood.

Identifying Our Love Language

Five years into my marriage, I was gifted the book The Five Love Languages: the Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman. It went unread for the next five years. Our twenties wasn’t a time for me and my husband to focus on how best to connect with each other. We were both beginning our careers, me as a corporate litigation attorney; him as a financial consultant. We lived in Manhattan in an apartment in Tribeca with our two dogs. We spent the days working and the weekends at fancy restaurants and night clubs.

Trying to climb professional ladders and under the constant demand of being a young lawyer left little time to learn the ins and outs of how to effectively nurture and foster communication with my soulmate.

I knew he spoke English and conversational Spanish. That was all I needed to know. The rest would come later.

Our relationship flourished. Or at least appeared to flourish. We remained married. Ten years in, we moved to Tampa, Florida, taking the book with us where it would remain unread for another fourteen years. I became a stay-at-home mom, gave birth to three children in five years, mourned the loss of our dogs, moved again, had a son diagnosed with type 1 diabetes…

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Modern Women
Modern Women

Published in Modern Women

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Julie Calidonio
Julie Calidonio

Written by Julie Calidonio

Lawyer turned writer, Julie's essays keep it real about motherhood and adulting. Follow her on Insta @julie.calidonio or at https://www.juliecalidonio.com

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