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The Most Important Needs
by Dr. Willard Harley
When a husband and wife come to me for help, my first goal is to help them identify their most important emotional needs - what each of them can do for each other to make them happiest and most content.
Over the years, I have repeatedly asked the question, "What could your spouse do for you that would make you the happiest?"
I've been able to classify most of their responses into ten emotional needs - admiration, affection, conversation, domestic support, family commitment, financial support, honesty and openness, physical attractiveness, recreational companionship, and sexual fulfillment.
Obviously the way to keep a husband and wife happily married is for each of them to meet the needs that are most important to the other. But when I conducted all these interviews I discovered why that is such a difficult assignment. Nearly every time I asked couples to list their needs according to their top priority, men listed them one way and women the opposite way.
Of the ten basic emotional needs, the five listed as most important by men were usually the five least important for women, and vice versa.
What an insight! No wonder husbands and wives have so much difficulty meeting each others needs.
They are willing to do for each other what they appreciate the most, but it turns out that their efforts are misdirected because what they appreciate most, their spouses appreciate least!
Article written by Dr. Gary Chapman. Based on the book, His Needs, Her Needs by Willard Harley. Published by Revell Publishing. | 
