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The 5 and Beyond: Providing What Your Spouse Really Needs · Doing Marriage Well

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  Doing Marriage Well for August 26, 2026 The Five and Beyond Providing What Your
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  Spouse Really Needs Today I want to look at some of the more commonly thought
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  of things we need from our spouse.
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  Tomorrow we will consider some less tangible ones.
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  A quick, easy list of things we need from our spouse can be found in the five
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  love languages Gary Chapman writes about.
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  Words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.
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  Most folks need all of these to one degree or another, and what we need is not set in stone.
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  My wife has become more and more of a touch person over the last four decades.
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  She didn't get a lot of touch as a child and got some bad touch as well,
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  so she had reasons to not want touch.
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  But I was safe, and as she relaxed, she found she needed and wanted touch.
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  Other times, a lack of something growing up causes a greater hunger for it.
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  The man who is never affirmed may feel a very strong need for that from his wife.
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  The woman who never got gifts as a child may be thrilled with any little gift
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  her husband gives her and feel unloved without a steady stream of gifts.
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  As I said yesterday, why we need as much as we need is irrelevant.
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  If my wife needed a 20-minute back rub every day to feel balanced and loved,
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  she'd get it, no questions asked.
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  I'd plan the time and not wait for her to ask. My wife is the same with me.
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  I was the kid who never got affirmed, and when Lori realized how her affirming
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  me made me feel, she looked for opportunities to do it.
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  Can any of this become manipulative? Of course it can. Expecting gifts,
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  especially expensive gifts, could be selfishness.
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  Saying you need a lot of acts of service could be a manipulative way of getting
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  your spouse to do more than their share.
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  And claiming you need touch because you want sex is dishonest.
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  But it's pretty easy to see when these things are being used in a manipulative way.
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  Watch how your spouse responds when you give them any of the five love languages.
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  At least a couple will really bless them. They may relax, open up,
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  or become affectionate.
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  When you see this, determine to give them more of the same. Flood them with
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  what feeds them, because you love them and they deserve it.
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  This is Paul, and giving abundantly is doing marriage well.