Needs

Are you expecting your spouse to meet more of your needs?

You can’t expect your spouse to meet all your needs without you giving up anything. You’ve got to think of it as putting money in the bank. Get away from your old way of doing things if it’s been sinking the ship. Wise up and show compassion by giving your spouse more of your time. Self-denial creates the space you both need for your love to grow. Your goal is having your spouse respond with kindness and then seeing from them that look of love and affection.

When we lean towards wanting the things in our own world, we don’t make room for the other person’s world. Are sports, television, headphones, or possibly cell phones, distractions that take away more time from your spouse than needs be?

Self-denial is the mechanism that helps you shut down the technical items that fill your hands and head. It allow you to say no, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently, to things you are focusing on. The results will be that you create space to hear and respond to your spouse’s wants and needs. An added bonus is that when couples learn to deny themselves, they experience a wonderful and transcendent mystery involving love. “When I deny “me,” I connect with “us.” By doing that you let go of your wishes or demands for the sake of the relationship. It now puts you into a new level of living together, such as seeing “us” together with a smile.

Living a life of just me is pure selfishness and it is the essence of (if you remember) why you left your unattached status to cleave to that special person you chose to devote your life to as one.

Pray that you can be an unselfish person and be the person where “I” serves “we.” Determine if you need to do some recovery or personal growth work in order to feel full enough to want to lovingly empty yourself. It will be worth the effort you put into it. Do more we things than me things (My thoughts with Rescue Your Love Life, pp. 56-58).

Sherry