Love Never Fails: Emotional Currency

Have you ever said to your spouse, “I go to work for you. I’m making all this money, sacrifice, etc. for you,” only to feel like your statement made things worse? I (Kelvin) used to do this frequently but found out there is a better way to communicate. 1 Corinthians 13:3 says, “And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.” That sounds similar to what I used to say, but I still missed the more significant point. Our spouses are just as interested in how much we care about them as what we do for them.

Some spouses derive a great deal of benefit from things being done for them. The previous blog discussed how knowing your spouse is crucial to loving them well. It is essential to know what things you can do for your spouse that bring them great satisfaction. How aware are you of what you can do to build up your “love deposits” in your relationship?

Emotional currency is the emotional exchange that occurs when we subtract or add (love deposits) feelings to each other's love storage (love tank, love bank). When we do pleasing things for our spouse, that is a positive deposit, and when we do things that hurt them, that is a negative withdrawal. When you have a serious argument with your spouse, you feel distant from them and exhausted because you have used up many of your emotional deposits when the negative withdrawals become more than the positive deposits. Guess what? You are overdrawn emotionally, and things will begin to unravel.

This is one area that we explore in depth when we are coaching clients and helping them restore their relationships with each other. We encourage them to realize that they have done many harmful things to each other over the years and have left each other feeling empty (emotionally overdrawn). The only way to restore that emptiness is to replenish their emotional storage with positive deposits.

How much are you depositing into your spouse's emotional storage tank? Discuss with your spouse about one or two things you can start doing for them that will be positive deposits.

Want to know more about how to have a Rockin Christian Marriage? See our online programs at www.coachustoday.com. We offer Christian relationship coaching. Explore music by Celeste when you visit the site. Please feel welcome to follow us on Facebook (Christian relationship coaching).