Identifying Emotional Needs in Your Marriage | tolovehonorandvacuum.

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Showing Love to Your Spouse: Identifying 

and Fulfilling Their Emotional Needs 
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Learning how to care for your spouse in a personal, individual way can take your
marriage to new levels of intimacy. Figuring out how to meet one another’s emotional
needs is a great place to start. Print off one copy of this for each spouse to work
through.

Read through this list of emotional needs together, and then separately take a minute
to decide which ones are your top two.

Note: Everybody, to a certain extent, needs all of these. Find the ones that resonate the
most. Not the ones that you love--but the ones that you can't live without.

Emotional Needs List: 

Safety and Security
You feel most loved when you know that you are safe. You love when your spouse gets
righteously angry on your behalf, stands up for you, or intervenes in difficult
relationships. You need to know that your spouse isn’t going anywhere.

Financial Security
You feel close to your spouse when you know you have a shared plan--a vision with
goals that will help you meet your dreams. You feel being responsible is tremendously
important, and want your spouse to join you on this journey.

Sexually Desired
For you, sex is not only about release. Sex is about an incredible connection that comes
from being intimate. You feel closest to your spouse when he or she initiates sex, and
makes sure that it is an enjoyable, mutual experience.

Admired and Appreciated

Above everything else, you want to feel competent, like you are able to take on the
world. When your spouse praises you for things you do--even if they are things that you
should be doing anyway, you feel ten feet tall.

Cherished and Loved

The words "I love you" are the best three words in the world. You long to feel cherished,
and when your spouse shows you that they're with you not because they have to be or
because they like you but because they are genuinely still head over heels for you,
everything is right in your world.
Identifying Emotional Needs in Your Marriage | tolovehonorandvacuum.com
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Shared Activities and Hobbies

You may watch Netflix marathons, but you'd much rather be doing something together,
creating memories. You love spending time together, whether it's out in nature or
volunteering at church. You want to share the stuff of life, not just sit beside each other
on a couch.

Affection and Touch

When your spouse holds your hand, it's magic. You love touch, especially non-sexual
touch. Any opportunity to cuddle will turn your mood around.

Conversation and Communication

You want to know what's on your spouse's heart. You can’t feel truly loved unless you
are also truly known--and you long to know everything about your spouse, and for your
spouse to know everything about you. Conversation is crucial to you, every single day.

Encouragement and Validation

Everybody could tell you that you're doing a good job, but the only person whose
opinion matters is really your spouse. You look to your spouse for encouragement, and
feel so loved when your spouse searches out your goals and dreams, and encourages
you in them. Your spouse makes you a better person.

Priority
Life is busy, and your deepest desire is to be the most important priority to your
spouse--before Mom, before kids, even before work. You want to know that if life gets
tough, your spouse will always be there for you. Even when life isn't tough, your spouse
shows you through gestures and words that you are the most important thing in the
world.

Physical Health and Well-being

You know life is fleeting, and that to enjoy life to the fullest means taking care of our
physical bodies. You enjoy physical exercise, and you love the challenge of making sure
your life is as healthy as possible. A spouse who takes care of his or her health and who
joins you in exercise is a spouse who makes your heart flutter--in a way that won't
require a cardiologist!

Spiritual Health and Well-Being

Your connection with God is the central part of your life, and when your marriage is part
of that relationship, you feel empowered. When you can pray together, share concerns,
talk about theology, or read the Bible together, you feel a closeness to your spouse you
don't feel in any other way.

Exclusivity
Above everything else, you need to know that you have captured your spouse's eyes
and your spouse's heart. You need to feel like your spouse only has eyes for you. In a
Identifying Emotional Needs in Your Marriage | tolovehonorandvacuum.com
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world where everyone else judges your attractiveness, you long for your spouse to find
you, and you alone, exciting.

Personal Time and Space

One of the things you value most about your marriage is the ability to be truly yourself
and still feel peace. You love time alone to think and rejuvenate, knowing that there is
someone waiting for you at home who will always be excited to have you walk in the
door.

Adventure and Spontaneity

For you, life was not meant to be planned and ordered. Life is meant to be a series of
adventures, and you get the thrill of living out those adventures with your spouse by
your side! An active life, filled with lots of people, new things, and something unknown
around the corner, is what you've always dreamed of.

Identifying Our Emotional Needs 

My Top Two Emotional Needs Are:

I think my spouse's are:

My spouse's ACTUALLY are:

   
Identifying Emotional Needs in Your Marriage | tolovehonorandvacuum.com
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Creating Action Steps to Meet Our Emotional Needs 

On your own, choose one emotional need, and brainstorm different things your spouse
can do to help meet that need. For instance, if your need is for shared hobbies and
activities, you might write:

● Play a board game with me at least once a week

● Do an adventure with me every month, like going on a long bike ride, a ski trip, a
hike
● Volunteer together at church
● Have a date night as frequently as possible (say once every two weeks)

If your need is for safety and security, you might say:

● Go to bed at the same time with me every night

● Share all passwords from your computer or phones with me so I know that I'm
safe
● Take the initiative to handle difficult relationships I have with my extended
family and help me set boundaries
● Choose not to leave the house when we're having a conflict, but stay close to me
so I know we'll work it out.

Make these things as actionable as possible--in other words, it's something that your
spouse ​will actually do​. Saying, "Help me feel safe" or "Show me love more" is difficult.
Spell it out ​exactly​.

Write your ideas for each emotional need on the paper provided here.

Once you've made your list of 4-5 things for your first emotional need, do the same with
your second.

Emotional Need #1:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.
Identifying Emotional Needs in Your Marriage | tolovehonorandvacuum.com
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Emotional Need #2:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Share With Your Spouse

Going back and forth, take turns going over your needs.

As you LISTEN to your spouse, remember: they are sharing their heart with you. Many
things on their list may seem silly or needless to you. But they matter to your spouse.
They are giving you a blueprint for how to help them feel safe, secure, and
cherished--​which is like a blueprint for how to have a successful marriage!

If there are some things that you just don't think you can do, then talk to your spouse
about that, but figure out a good compromise. Maybe you just can't go to bed at the
same time because of body rhythms. But maybe you can lie down together and pray
together and have a good night routine together.

Now, here's the hard part: As you SHARE with your spouse, trust your spouse with your
needs. Hand them the papers with your answers, and then let it go. Don't badger your
spouse over the next few weeks to see if they're doing these things. Trust your spouse.

(A smart idea: If you're a phone person, take a picture of your spouse's answers so that
you don't need to worry about losing the paper. Now you always have it with you!)