Marital Intimacy and Healthy Communication..
Your spouse has made a vow to satisfy his/her sexual needs in the marriage relationship. They have nowhere else to (legitimately) go. Second, because if you don’t someone else may. (Not that this excuses adultery or makes the innocent party responsible). Any of us is vulnerable to temptation. If you want to protect your mate from temptation, you should meet their needs.
Why do husbands and wives often fail to meet their spouse’s deepest needs? Selfishness and ignorance–Ignorance is the inability to understand and appreciate the other’s needs. Selfishness is an unwillingness to meet those needs. One is a heart problem, and the other is a head problem. One can be solved by information, the other only by repentance. But both must be addressed in order for the relationship to improve.
• Men and women have similar needs, but they rank them differently.
Men
Sexual fulfillment
Recreational companionship
An attractive spouse
Domestic support
Admiration
Women
Affection
Conversation
Honesty and openness
Financial support
Family commitment
To a woman, affection represents security, protection, comfort, and approval. It is the essential cement of the relationship. The husband’s greatest need: Sexual fulfillment. It is God’s will that a man be fully satisfied sexually with his wife.
Philip. 2:4
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Matthew 7:12
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
The woman’s 2nd greatest need: Conversation. Unlike the need for sex, conversation is not a need that should be met exclusively in marriage. Our need for conversation can be ethically met by almost anyone. But since it is one of your most important emotional needs, whoever meets it best will be someone you may easily fall in love with. So it’s crucial to your marital happiness that your spouse is the one who meets it the best and most often. This need for conversation is not met by simply talking to someone. It is met when the conversation is enjoyable to both.
Good conversation is characterized by using it to inform and investigate each other, focusing attention on topics of mutual interest, balancing the conversation so both have an equal opportunity to talk and giving each other undivided attention while talking to each other.
We fail to meet this need for conversation when demands are made, disrespect is shown. Name calling, insults and cursing are major deterrents to conversation. Anger will shut down conversation and communication and may polarize the relationship.
Unless conversation is mutually enjoyable, a couple is better off not to talk to each other at all. An unpleasant conversation not only fails to meet the emotional need, but it also makes it less likely that there will be an opportunity to meet the need in the future. That’s because we tend to prevent our spouse from having the chance to meet our needs if earlier attempts were painful to us.
Men and women don’t have too much difficulty talking to each other during courtship. That’s a time of information-gathering for both partners. Both are highly motivated to discover each other’s likes and dislikes, personal background, current interests and plans for the future. It’s also a time when we’re highly focused on trying to get them to like us! So, the way you get em is the way you keep em.’
But after marriage, many women find that the man who would spend hours talking to her on the telephone, now seems to have lost all interest in talking to her, and spends his spare time watching television or reading. If your need for conversation was fulfilled during courtship, you also should be able to expect it to be met after marriage. And if you fell in love because your need for conversation was met by your spouse during courtship, you risk losing loving feelings if that need is not met during marriage.
The man’s second greatest need is recreational companionship. Before you were married, chances are pretty good that you planned your dates around your favorite recreational activities. That’s because it’s an important emotional need. And since you wanted your relationship to flourish, you probably chose activities that you both enjoyed. But you may have made the mistake of doing whatever the one with the greatest need for recreational companionship wanted to do.
Most couples make a crucial mistake after marriage — they go their separate ways. He joins his friends in recreational activities he enjoys most and leaves his wife to find her own recreational companions for activities that interest her. That’s a formula for marital disaster. If someone else of the opposite sex joins either of you in your favorite recreational activities, you are at risk to fall in love with that person. Besides, if you are not together when you are enjoying yourselves the most, you are squandering an opportunity to grow closer and more in love. The need for recreational companionship combines two needs into one. First, there is the need to be engaged in recreational activities and second, the need to have a companion. Both partners need to get away sometimes. Divert Daily – Withdraw Weekly – Abandon Annually. Men spell Romance Sex and Recreation, women spell romance affection and conversation.