Objectives: During the time you are together, create activities that will meet the emotional needs of affection, sexual fulfillment, conversation, and recreational companionship.
Time is valuable and should be used wisely. So when a couple schedules time for undivided attention, they should know precisely what they hope to accomplish with that time, Their goal should be to deposit as many love units as possible into each other's Love Bank. And the way to deposit the most love units is to meet each other's most most important emotional needs.
Some important emotional needs can be met without undivided attention. For example, domestic support, family commitment, and financial support can be met without a spouse even being present. However, there are some emotional needs that can be met only with undivided attention. The most obvious one is sexual fulfillment. But affection, conversation, and recreational companionship are also best met in marriage with undivided attention.
For most men, sexual fulfillment and recreational companionship are among their top five emotional needs, and they are usually their top two. For most women, affection and conversation are their most important emotional needs. When all four come together, men and women alike call it romance and usually the combination deposits the most love units possible. My advice, then, is to try to combine them all when you schedule time for undivided attention.
After marriage some couples seem to lose the connection between these four emotional needs. Women may try to get their husbands to be affectionate and to talk to them without necessarily offering recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment in return. Men, on the other hand, may want their wives to meet their needs for recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment, without offering affection and conversation in return. Neither strategy works very well. Women usually resent having sex without affection and conversation first, and men usually resent being attentive and affectionate with no hope for sex and recreation. By combining the four needs into a single event, however, both spouses have their needs met and enjoy their time together. Ways To Make Relationships Stronger
If time is not set aside to meet all four needs, it is assumed that they can be met on the run - with no planning needed. A husband assumes that just because he is in bed with his wife at the end of a day, sex is there for the taking. His wife goes to bed dreading a possible ambush each night, while her husband fears rejection. A wife, on the other hand, assumes that her husband should drop whatever he's doing and be affectionate or talk with her whenever she feels the need. Not understanding that these four needs are best met when combined may make both spouses feel used and neglected.
The right way to meet all four emotional needs is to schedule enough time to meet them all. Trying to squeeze meeting these needs into an existing schedule is like buying shoes that are too small - the pain will be excruciating. You will simply not have enough time to do it right.
When you schedule time for undivided attention, don't forget some of the other important emotional needs that can also be met during that time together, such as the need for physical attractiveness and admiration. When dating, you tried to present yourselves as attractively as possible to each other. You also tried to compliment each other whenever possible. Take a lesson from your courtship days and make sure that when you spend time together for undivided attention, you look your very best and express how much you value each other.
Keeping in mind the importance of meeting so many needs when you give each other your undivided attention, how much time should you schedule? That's what the third part of the Rule of Time helps us determine.
Amount: The number of hours scheduled each week for undivided.attention should reflect the quality of your marriage, lf your marriage is satisfying to you and your spouse, schedule fifteen hours each week for your undivided attention. But if you suffer marital dissatisfaction, plan more time, until marital satisfaction is achieved.
How much time do you need to sustain the feeling of romantic love? Believe it or not, there really is an answer to this question and it depends on the health of a marriage. If a couple is deeply in love with each other and find that their marital needs are being met, I have found that about fifteen hours each week of undivided attention is usually enough to sustain romantic love. It is probably the least amount of time necessary. If you are in love with each other and your emotional needs are being met by each other, you're either newly married or you have already been giving each other fifteen hours a week of your undivided attention.
When I apply the fifteen-hour principle to marriages, I usually recommend that the time be evenly distributed through the week, about two hours each day. When time must be bunched up - all hours on the weekend - good results are not as predictable. Spouses need to be emotionally connected on almost a daily basis to sustain their love for each other. Ways To Make Relationships Stronger
The reason I have so much difficulty getting couples to spend time alone together is that when I first see them for counseling, they're not in love. Their relationship doesn't do anything for them, and the time spent with each other seems like a total waste at first. But when they spend time together, they learn to recreate the experiences that first met each other's emotional needs. And that time is spent redepositing love units into Love Bank accounts that are seriously overdrawn. Eventually, enough love units are deposited to trigger the feeling of love. That makes this time together much more appealing.
But without time to deposit love units, a couple have little hope of restoring the love they once had for each other. In fact for them, fifteen hours a week may not be enough. To jump-start their relationship may require twenty-five or thirty hours a week of undivided attention. This is why I usually recommend successive weekend trips, or a long vacation - this gives a couple time at the beginning of recovery to restore their love for each other.
When I mention trips and scheduling fifteen hours of time to give each other undivided attention, some couples find it unrealistic due to financial restrictions. But even those who have a limited budget can schedule time together, it just means being creative. Here are a few suggestions that might help.
- Baby-sitting co-op. One major roadblock for many is the cost of baby-sitting, added to the cost of going out. Child care is expensive these days. To help couples with this financial constraint, I have recommended joining or forming a baby-sitting co-op in your community or church. Another less formal idea is to simply ask friends with children if they would join in a weekly child swap - you watch their children one evening each week in exchange for their watching your children one evening.
- Rearrange your budget priorities. Many couples I have counseled have a comfortable lifestyle. Yet when it comes down to having money for weekend escapes together, they don't think they have enough. Jon and Sue were certainly in that category. They were in trouble financially but as they came to understand the importance of their time together, they were able to set aside enough money each month to go out a few evenings and occasionally to get away for weekends. The purpose of a budget is to be sure you have enough money available to achieve your life's objectives, and meeting important emotional needs in marriage should be your highest priority.
- Be creative. Meeting each other's important emotional needs doesn't have to be expensive. There are many ways you can get alone with each other to talk, be affectionate, be together recreationally, and make love without having to spend much money. Don't avoid going out together just because money is tight. Go out regularly but find things to do that you can afford. To learn more, you can check out Ways To Make Relationships Stronger.
