Let’s get something straight: physical needs are important and must be provided for. But, emotional needs are equally important. In my work I have specifically developed an exercise to get couples to begin to recognize these needs and how they can go about them to improve the provision of satisfying the emotional requirements that we all have.

Here are the Emotional Needs:

Control
Love
Respect
Trust
Security
Affection
Purpose
Faith

Every person has a need for these in their lives, but here is where things get interesting.

Think about needs like you would think about food. We all need a certain number of calories in order to survive. We would never look at a person that needs 3000 cal/day and tell them they should just eat 1500 cal/day because that’s what another person needs. We are all different with different levels of need. The same holds true with the emotional needs.

Just for the sake of having a reference point, use a scale of 1-10 and rate yourself in each of the following emotional needs. For right now, don’t think too much, just give yourself a score and reason why you scored yourself that number. (We all have slightly different definitions and territories, or “taste” in each of these areas. Just like food!)

What happens when you don’t get the amount or type of food you need? Hungry, malnourished, etc… The same holds true with not reaching the number you wrote next to your emotional need. You begin to starve emotionally!

Here’s where provision comes in. Within our marriage, we have the responsibility to help meet the needs of our spouse. This includes emotional needs. And as I said earlier, seldom do we see a couple due to a physical need not being met, food, water, shelter, but, we regularly see couples because emotional needs are not being met.


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