Every graduate to solid food knows you can’t pour vegetable oil in a car’s gas tank and get very far (without a tow-truck). You can’t deposit IOUs into your checking account and spend off into blissful ignorance.

Yet, daily in our relationships, we start our engines down our respective roads, sending our partners off, tanks half-filled by fuel they can’t respond to. Likewise, we endorse checks of unrecognizable currency we’ve received from our partners, expecting to deposit them into our empty accounts and be filled.

Terrill Peck, WVU Extension agent, has become an expert on love’s exchange table. She knows the highest-octane relationships are those where there’s an understanding of each other’s love language and where that love is spoken fluently.

Peck illustrates with the story of a married couple that had reached their end.

“They were getting ready to get a divorce. Both felt like one didn’t love the other. He spent time working on the car, taking care of the house, the yard. That was his love language — Acts of Service. She was in the house alone while he did these things. He never went anywhere or did anything with her. Her love language was Quality Time.”

Peck further explains how the couple went to counseling and each heard the other claim “my spouse doesn’t love me.”

“‘What do you mean, I don’t love you?’ he asks. ‘I kept the yard, I mowed.’ ‘All I wanted you to do was sit down on the couch and talk to me,’ she responded. In his mind, when you love someone, you do things for them. In her mind, you spend time with them. Those were their love languages. Couples have to compromise when they don’t speak the same love language,” maintains Peck.

The WVU Extension agent is thrilled to let others know about the completely free community seminars she leads to increase the potential for success in their relationships, books and dinner included. The initiative is funded by a grant through the Department of Health and Human Resources, within a program that Peck says “brings the university into the community” — acting in one of her fields of expertise: relationship education.

Her next class, The 5 Love Languages, presenting precepts in the book of the same name by Gary Chapman, is just in time for a couple’s night-out before Valentine’s Day, and its resulting gift is an ability to understand each other better — whether people feel their relationships are sturdy or need reinforcement.

Practicing what she’s learned in her own home, Peck finds it not only helpful to recognize love languages in spousal relationships, but in parent-child relationships as well.

“Unfortunately, we are not taught how to be in a relationship, how to be married or how to be a mother or father.  A lot of the skills you need to navigate don’t necessarily come naturally — listening skills, fighting fair, avoiding unrealistic expectations.

“We give people the tools to be successful. This isn’t counseling; it’s teaching meant to enhance family dynamics. You don’t have to be in a bad relationship or marriage to need couples education.”

This is Peck’s fourth year using the grant funds to promote healthy family relationships. Her attendees are diverse in their reasons for coming, but unanimous in end results.

“Anytime we have people going through these classes, they comment, ‘I wish someone had talked to me about this before!’ That’s my role — to put people at ease and let them know everybody has relationship issues. It doesn’t mean you have a problem. People come to my classes to make their relationships better.”

Peck also teaches from “How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk” (or a jerkette), intended for singles and young adults. One of her favorite chapters is “You Can’t Marry Jethro without Getting the Clampetts,” about choosing a spouse, but marrying an entire family and all the challenges that fact entails.

“I’ve had 40-year-olds on their second marriage with issues come to the ‘How to Avoid’ class and ask, ‘Why do I keep making the same mistakes?’

“Education about relationships is for ALL relationships — not just for people who are having problems. We all come with a set of baggage. You have to learn what your baggage is and how it relates to your partner’s baggage.”



The 5 Love Languages class for Feb. 13 is from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at Mountaineer Conference Center adjacent to Country Inns and Suites, Beckley. Participants can expect to identify their partner’s love language and learn how to speak it. The course and texts are free and dinner is provided. Pre-register by calling 304-255-9321 by Feb. 6. Class space is limited. If more sign up than can be accommodated in one meeting, a waiting list will start to create another class soon.



From churches, to organizations to individuals and large groups, Peck adapts her WVU Extension Service relationship programs to reach anyone, in any relationship. “A lot of times when I offer classes, it is from request,” she explains.

For more information on Peck’s free educational courses, which also include tips on money management, budgeting and leadership, call 304-255-9321 or e-mail  Terrill.peck@mail.wvu.edu.