How should I go about guessing well at his needs until he is willing to tell me what they are? How do I know that I am actually meeting them and making love deposits?
Hi Hope, welcome to Marriage Builders. My first suggestion is going to be to change your screen name to something more unique. There are so many "hopexxx" screen names that is impossible to ever keep them straight. You can change your name by going into your preferences.
There are a couple of things you can do that will make a dramatic difference. You will make the greatest difference, the FASTEST, if you focus only on the top 4 intimate emotional needs and religiously schedule 20+ hours per week of undivided attention time. You will both notice a difference in a few weeks. This program does not work without this step.
People fall in love when they are mutually meeting the intimate emotional needs of conversation, affection, recreational companionship, and sexual fulfillment. [they don't fall in love over DS or FS] The majority of this time should be spent AWAY from home, out on DATES, at a time of day when you are the most energetic. A "date night" won't cut it; it has to be date
nights in order to make a difference. My H and I plan our dates around 5:30, during the week, in 3 to 4 hour blocks and 11 to 3ish on the weekends.
It is best to sit down once a week and actually schedule the time out for the next week. Time that is scheduled is much harder to put off. My H and I look FORWARD to our date nights. I would get the workbook, Five Steps to Romantic Love, and tear out the UA worksheet in the back and make copies. There are SCADS of other worksheets and lessons in there that will be very helpful.
The problem is that most people REFUSE to devote that much time to their marriages. It takes at least 15 hours of UA time per week to MAINTAIN romantic love and 20+ hours to CREATE it.
The Policy of Undivided Attention