10 Emotional Needs in Marriage

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

You may be asking why these emotional needs are so important. Several marriage experts refer to a concept called the Love Bank, Love Tank, Love Map. Quite simply, the Love Bank refers to the deposits and withdrawals of love units for all the interactions we have with other people. When someone does something that makes you feel appreciated, love units are deposited into your Love Bank. When someone does something that leaves us feeling anxious or angry, love units are withdrawn. Love unit deposits and withdrawals are directly represented by the degree your partner meets your emotional needs.

When your partner meets your emotional needs; you feel love and romance. The Love Bank has a large positive balance. When your partner fails to meet your emotional needs, you feel insecure, frustrated, angry and neglected. The Love Bank has large withdrawals and may even leave the balance in the negative.

When the Love Bank runs low or in the negative, we tend to look for ways to bring it back into the positive. It makes us feel better. We tend to pay more attention to those who leave us happy and with joy. This is how affairs begin. This is when we start to have emotions towards friends and coworkers who otherwise would not have registered on our radar. When we are not having our emotional needs met at home, we look in other places, with other people. We do anything we can to get our love, emotional and human needs met.

You can affair-proof your marriage by making sure you meet the emotional needs of your spouse, and your spouse meets your emotional needs. You can increase the Love Bank deposits to where it has an abundant positive value. To do this, you need to understand the emotional needs, and how to fulfill those needs within yourself and your spouse.

ACTION ASSIGNMENT
This week let us consciously do some positive deposits into our spouse’s Love Bank. Let us not neglect doing this and thus endanger our marriage.

PRAYER: Lord, help us to prioritise depositing consciously into each other’s Love Bank. Let us give it a priority and not neglect it. In Jesus’ name, amen.