Josh Broward
January 18, 2008
December had come again, and Tibodeau and Marie were sitting on their porch watching the gators swim by, and they were talking about what to give everybody for Christmas. Pretty soon, Marie stood up and look at Tibodeau right in the face, and she say, “You know what I want for Christmas?”
“uh ...”
“I say – You know what I want for Christmas? Tibedeau, you old crusty alligator!”
“Keah, woman, what you want for Christmas? I never got no idea!”
“I want a divorce, Tib. That's what I want. I want a divorce.”
And Tibedeau, he didn't even have to think twice about that. He say, “Mais, Marie, I wasn't planning to spend that much on you this Christmas!”1
Marriage can be tough. Sometimes it's hard to know what the other person even wants. Sometimes we know what the other person wants, but it's hard to give it.
Imagine that you went to the eye doctor to get a new pair of glasses. The eye doctor sits you down in a chair in his office. Then, he takes off his glasses and gives them to you, “Here. Put these on. They work great.”
You put the glasses on, but they only make the problem worse. “Oh, no! These don't help at all. I can't see anything!”
The doctor looks a little confused. “I don't understand. Those are my best glasses. Try harder.”
You say, “Doctor, I am trying. Everything is blurry.”
The doctor says, “Well, there must be something wrong with you. I know those glasses work. They're the same glasses I've used for 10 years, and they work great for me!”2
Jesus said “love your neighbor as yourself,” and most of us take that a little too literally. We give other people what we want instead of what they want. We do to others what we would want them to do to us. But the problem is that we're not all the same. We want different things in different ways.
I would love to get a book on poker or tickets to a sports game, but those would be terrible gifts for Sarah. I'm smart enough to realize that, but I forget it all when we are in a conversation. I'm ready to solve every problem she's ever had, but she just wants me to listen.
I'm going to do something unusual for me. I'm going to give you the basic point of this sermon right up front. Here you go. Are you ready? The most basic key to a successful marriage is empathy. Empathy is: “understanding and entering into another's feelings ”3 Empathy is looking at life from another person's perspective, understanding what makes him tick, understanding how she feels and why.
In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey lists empathy as one of the basic habits of success. Covey says the single most important principle for relationships is: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”4 “If you want to interact effectively with me, to influence me – your spouse, your child, your neighbor, your boss, your coworker, your friend – you first need to understand me.”5 This sounds a lot like James: “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (James 1:19).
Men seem to struggle with this more than women. I found a great book a few years back: Everything Men Know about Women by Dr. Alan Francis. The back cover gives a summary: “Famed psychologist Alan Lowell Francis has written a landmark book on men's understanding of that most complex of all creatures – woman. Based on years of research and interviews with thousands of men from all walks of life, he presents the most complete picture ever revealed of men's knowledge of their opposite sex. Fiercely frank and brilliantly insightful, this work spells out everything men know about such topics as: making friends with women, romancing women, achieving emotional intimacy with women, making commitments to women, satisfying women in bed.”6
Sounds like a great book, right? This is something worth reading – everything men know about women! Just look inside … blank … every page is blank. The front cover says, “Fully reveals the shocking truth!” Men don't know anything about women!
This is a big problem for all of us, but especially for married people. If we don't understand each other, how are we supposed to love each other? Understanding each other is the first step toward good relationships.
Everyone has an Emotional Love Bank. Willard Harley, author of His Needs, Her Needs, explains it like this: “Inside all of us is a Love Bank with accounts in the names of everyone we know. When these people are associated with our good feelings, 'love units' are deposited into their accounts, and when they are associated with our bad feelings, love units are withdrawn.”7
Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages, talks about the same idea: “The need to feel loved is a primary human emotional need.”8 “When your spouse's emotional love tank is full and he feels secure in your love, the whole world looks bright and your spouse will move out to reach his highest potential in life. But when the love tank is empty and he feels used but not loved, the whole world looks dark and he will likely never reach his potential for good in the world.”9 When the Love Bank is full, we respond with loving feelings and loving actions toward our spouse or our friends, but when our love bank is empty, we naturally respond with negative feelings and actions.
This is pretty basic so far, but now it starts to get difficult. Every person's Emotional Love Bank is different. It's like we operate with different currencies or different languages. We all need different things in different ways, and we all place different values on the deposits other people give us.
This can be really difficult in marriage. We keep doing all of these nice things to try to show our love. We keep making all of these deposits, but the exchange rate is terrible. We think we're giving a lot, but sometimes it doesn't feel like very much to our spouse. That's because we value deposits differently.
Let me give you an example. For the first several years of our marriage, when I wanted to show love to Sarah, I would do something extra around the house – do the dishes or the laundry or something like that. She would usually say thank you, but she wasn't too impressed. She was working with a different love currency. After a while, I learned that taking time to talk was much more valuable to her. So now, if I want to make a deposit, I try to just sit down and talk for a while.
Love is being humble enough to make deposits in the other person's currency or to speak the other person's love language. Love is understanding the other person and giving love in the way that is meaningful to them.
In the book His Needs, Her Needs, Willard Harley explains the top ten most basic emotional needs, especially within a marriage. Men and women tend to need different things.10
Women tend to have emotional needs for:
Affection: This is “the expression of love in words, cards, hugs, kisses, and courtesies; creating an environment that clearly and repeatedly expresses love.”
Conversation: “talking about the events of the day, personal feelings, and plans for the future; showing interest in your favorite topics of conversation,” sharing relevant information, and undivided attention.
Honesty and Openness: “Those with a need for honesty and openness want accurate information about their spouses' thoughts, feelings, habits, likes, dislikes, personal history, daily activities and plans for the future.”
Family Commitment: This is spending quality time with your children to help them grow up to be happy and successful adults (not only academically successful, but also morally, emotionally, spiritually).
Financial Support: This is bringing home the bacon – providing enough money to house, feed, clothe, and educate your family.
On average, women will feel loved and cared for if these needs are met.
Men tend to have strong emotional needs for:
Recreational Companionship: Everybody needs to have fun, but some people really need to have fun with somebody. This can be sharing a hobby, going for walks, or playing games – basically having fun together.
Sexual Fulfillment: There are two factors here: quality and quantity. We need good sex and enough sex. “The emotional need for sex … is a very exclusive need.” We have promised our spouses to meet this need, and our spouses have promised to fulfill this need only with us.
An Attractive Spouse: For many people, having an attractive spouse makes them feel really good about themselves and their marriage. This doesn't mean we all have to be models, but it does mean that appearance does matter on an emotional level.
Domestic Support: Some people crave a home that is a refuge from the stresses of life. They feel loved when someone helps with cleaning, cooking, laundry, and child care.
Admiration: “Many of us have a deep desire to be respected, valued and appreciated by our spouse. We need to be affirmed clearly and often.” If you have a high need for admiration, then criticism is especially painful.
On average, men will feel loved and cared for if these needs are met.
But these are all for the average man and the average woman. We are individuals. Your husband is not the average man; he is one man. You aren't trying to please the average wife. You need to make your wife feel loved.
For example, I like to think I'm a manly man – arggh, arggh, arggh – and all that. Well, this week, Sarah and I did our homework early. On your talk sheet there's a link for a survey to see what your emotional needs are. It turns out that my biggest emotional needs are partly on the women's side. I want affection, conversation, and honesty more than I want some of that other stuff.
You need to find out what your needs are and what your spouse's needs are. Then, you can make your wife feel all warm and cozy inside. Once you know what your husband really wants, you'll be able to keep his Love Bank full most of the time.
Let me finish out with two little stories.
First, when my dad was four years old, his father took him shopping for a Mother's Day present for his mom. Dad kind of wandered the aisles of the store looking at everything and feeling overwhelmed. Finally, Dad said, “I don't know what to get her.”
My grandpa said, “Well, usually, it's a good idea to give someone something you would like to get yourself.” My 4-year-old Dad thought about that for a while, and then he bought his mom a rubber ducky for the bathtub! (We still have that rubber ducky. It's a family treasure.)
Giving a rubber ducky is cute when you're 4. It's not so cute when you're 44. If we want to have successful relationships, we've got to learn how to give the people we love what they want, not what we want.
When Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” he didn't mean love your neighbor just like you like to be loved. He meant, love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Learn how your neighbor feels love and then give your neighbor love in that way.
Last story. One of church folks, Robb, often teaches adult men. One day he and his students started talking about marriage in class. Robb asked, “How often do you say, 'I love you,' to your wife?” Most of them couldn't remember the last time they had said, “I love you.” They said, “Oh, she knows I love her. I work all day. I play with the kids. She knows I love her. I don't have to say it.” Robb gave his students some homework: “Tonight when you go home, tell your wife that you love her.”
The next week, one of the men came back glowing. He had done his homework. That night, when he got home, he looked his wife in the eyes and said, “I love you, Yobo (honey).” He said, “It was amazing. She gave me a big hug, and she cooked my favorite dinner, and she was extra nice to me for the rest of the night!”
It's amazing what a full Love Bank will do!
1John Bergeron, More Boudreau and Tibodeau, (Abbeville, LA: Cajun Folklore Enterprises, 1997), 46.
2Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, (New York: Fireside, 1990), 236.
3empathy. (n.d.). WordNet® 3.0. Retrieved January 15, 2009, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empathy
4Covey, 237.
5Ibid, 238.
6Alan Francis, Everything Men Know about Women, (Laguna Hills, CA: Newport House).
7Willard Harley, Jr., “The Love Bank,” www.marriagebuilders.com.
8Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages,” (Chicago: Northfield, 1995), 19.
9Ibid, 37.
10Harley, “The Most Important Emotional Needs,” and side articles at www.marriagebuilders.com.
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