Meeting Emotional Needs

Meeting Emotional Needs

Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Ephesians 5:28 (NIV)

MEETING MY WIFE’S emotional need for love is a choice I make every day. If I know her primary love language and choose to speak it, her deepest emotional need will be met and she will feel secure in my love. If she does the same for me, my emotional needs are met, and both of us live with a full “love tank.”

In this state of emotional contentment, both of us can give our creative energies to many wholesome projects outside the marriage while we continue to keep our relationship exciting and growing.

How do you create this kind of marriage? It all begins with the choice to love. I recognize that as a husband, God has given me the responsibility of meeting my wife’s need for love. Paul’s words in Ephesians 5 make that clear. I am not only to love my wife, but to love her as I love my own body. That’s a tall order, but with the Holy Spirit’s help, I choose to accept that responsibility. Then I learn how to speak her primary love language and I choose to speak it regularly. What happens? My wife’s attitude and feelings toward me become positive. Now she reciprocates, and my need for love is also met. Love is a choice.

Heavenly Father, you have given us high standards for loving each other. We need your help to make the right choices to love. Please refresh us with your Holy Spirit and rejuvenate our relationship.

Choice