Affair-Proof Your Marriage By Meeting Each Other’s Needs
Affair-Proof Your Marriage By Meeting Each Other's Needs
By Bradley Bennett
If you knew you were causing your spouse pain, pushing them away, and opening the door to affair, you would stop, right?
I ask because we unknowingly do these things to our spouse on a daily basis. It happens when we leave their emotional needs, ranging from attention to support, unmet. This causes pain, even if neither of you knows it’s happening.
But if we learn to meet these needs, we can flip the script and help our spouse feel pleasure instead of pain. Doing this builds a bond and pulls our spouse closer, instead of pushing them away. It’s a crucial step in helping our marriage become an “Us” Marriage.
By not meeting our spouse’s needs, we leave them searching for ways to have them met. This leaves the door wide open for the enemy to tempt our spouse with an affair.
I want to make myself clear here. The responsibility for your spouse’s choices is ultimately theirs. If they make a poor decision, that’s on them.
What we can do, though, is close the door on temptation and build a stronger bond with our spouse by committing to be the one that meets their emotional needs within our marriage. The rest is up to them.
In order to serve our spouse this way, we have to first put on our detective hat and discover what their needs really are.
Take a love language or needs assessment
Discovering your spouse’s needs may sound daunting, but it can be simple and fun! We recommend taking a “Love Language” or “Needs” assessment together.
These assessments ask guiding questions that help you and your spouse discover your needs and what you desire.
The Love Languages Assessment shows how you naturally speak and receive love. For instance, you may feel loved when someone gives you a compliment and your spouse may feel love when someone gives them a gift.
This is how Amanda and I are. If someone gives her a compliment, she’s thankful but it doesn’t mean a ton to her. The same happens to me when people give me gifts. But if someone gives me a compliment, I’m over the moon! It makes me feel loved and appreciated.
If you’re interested in learning more about love languages, I’ve written a detailed post about them on my personal blog.
You can find a free love language test here.
Another option is the “Caress Needs” assessment developed by Dr. Rick Marks. This assessment pinpoints both your and your spouse’s emotional needs. It’s similar to the love languages test but has a little extra depth to it.
You can find the “Caress Needs” assessment here.
Oh No… None of Our Needs or Languages Match!
After you take these tests, you may find that you’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. You don’t speak the same love languages and have polar opposite needs.
This is normal and there’s no need to panic. You’re not doomed to a failing marriage. You’ll just need to be extra intentional about meeting your spouse’s needs because it won’t be natural for you.
For example, Amanda’s highest love need is “Attention” and it happens to be my lowest need. I appreciate when people give me their full attention, but I don’t think of it as a huge deal. For Amanda though, it says a lot and she notices.
I’ve had to work on giving Amanda my full attention because she values it and I don’t think about it a lot. If left ignored, this can become a big friction point in our marriage.
Having this awareness is important.
Now that you’re aware of your spouse’s needs, it’s time to take it to the next level and actually do something about it.
Create A Needs Cheat Sheet For Each Other
When I was in school, I loved cheat sheets. They’d have all the answers to common test questions and set me up to ace the test.
When it comes to meeting our spouse’s needs, we need a cheat sheet so we can ace the test. We’re basically speaking a new language and will need all the help we can get to start off.
In order to create your “needs cheat sheet” have your spouse write down three actionable ways you can meet each of their top three needs.
Going back to Amanda’s top need,”Attention”, she wrote these three action steps for me:
- Run errands with me once a month
- Talk with me without distraction while I cook dinner
- Have a weekly date night that’s just the two of us, without distraction
I can’t tell you how much this has helped me! I now have three concrete actions I can take knowing they will make her feel loved and appreciated.
The goal is to write three actions for each one of your top three needs. If you’re using the love languages, than do the same but only with your top two love languages.
You‘ll want these action steps to follow the S.M.A.R.T structure:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-Limited
This structure eliminates confusing requests and ensures the cheat sheet contains actionable steps you can take.
Commit To Meeting Your Spouse’s Needs
Being needy isn’t bad, it’s human. If we ignore this fact, it can have serious repercussions on our marriage. Like opening our marriage up to the potential for an affair.
This happens due to a couple of basic concepts. The first one you need to know is:
- When our needs are met, we feel pleasure. When our needs aren’t met, we feel pain.
Makes sense right? When we meet our spouse’s needs, we can help them feel pleasure and when they feel you meeting their needs the marital bond grows stronger. This causes the love between you to intensify.
You tell me… Is it easier to feel love for your spouse when they are the source of emotional pleasure or pain? Set yourself up to win!
The second concept you need to know is this:
- Pain pursues pleasure.
This may seem simple, but it’s very important. If our spouse is not having their needs met at home by us, then they’re experiencing pain.
Because of this pain, they’ll naturally seek our pleasure or a place where their needs are met. This can be in a lot of places. Work, their friends, an emotional affair, etc…
If we’re meeting our spouse’s needs, it eliminates the drive to get them met outside the marriage. It helps to affair-proof your marriage on another level.
This is what makes marriage such a beautiful relationship. We were designed with needs and in marriage were able to meet those needs through selfless service. This helps us reach a new level of love and togetherness.
Conclusion
Seek to close the door on the potential for affairs by committing to meet your spouse’s needs. Let home be a place where they experience pleasure, not pain.
This type of atmosphere creates a place where love can grow strong. As this bond continues to grow, you and your spouse will have your needs met by each other and won’t need to look elsewhere.
Your marriage will be a safe place built on selfless service where you can meet your spouse’s needs while having yours met too.
Start by identifying your spouse’s needs. Create a cheat sheet you can both use. And commit to serving each other by meeting needs.
Do this consistently and you’ll be on your way to having an affair-proof marriage.
What are your love languages and needs? Let us know in the comments!