After counseling with Steve Harley for 6 months, my wife still believes meeting my emotional needs is foolishness. She says I should love her unconditionally no matter how she is treating me. I worked hard at meeting her emotional needs, and she enjoyed it, but I was getting little or no return for my efforts. Our sex life has been non-existent for months, and she rarely, if ever, says anything positive about me. I am hurt and frustrated. Please pray that she will understand how important it is to meet my emotional needs if she truly wants a good marriage. Thank you.

Hi - <p>I am here with you. Marriage is REALLY hard. I hope your wife appreciates you. I think she will but it will take a lot of patience on your part.<p>It is really strange she thinks emotional needs are nonsense when they seem so logical.<p>Maybe she doesn't FEEL your love though and she feels you are going through the motions, not really loving her.<p>Have you ever read the Five Languages of Love? It talks about how what we want is what we tend to give in terms of love: Physical touch (of all sorts), gifts, quality time, acts of service, and words of praise. Unfortunately, our partner tends to want the opposite. So we think we are being loving by lots of words of praise, for example, and the other wants help with the dishes. Until she gets help with the dishes, she won't FEEL loved, even though she IS loved.<p>It's very similar to Harley's theories of emotional needs. <p>I don't know if I have been helpful, but I think you need to keep going and not give up. I'm amazed your wife won't meet you halfway but apparently, she has some other issues I don't know about. <p>Good luck and God bless your marriage. What you are doing is really important.

Hey, Ranger -<p>Sounds like you've got a difficult case on your hands. Does your wife do email? If so, drop her my email address and have her ask me about the difference that meeting my wifes emotional needs has made in my life. I can also explain how it has helped us make our lives together better.<p>
A few suggestions:<p>Tell your wife that you DO love her unconditionally, but that the satisfaction of your emotional needs brings a great level of joy to your life. I think that the "unconditional love" theory often comes from a displaced sense of a biblical marriage. Above all the messages in the Bible, Jesus wanted us to treat others the way that we wished to be treated. That is, your wife would like to have her needs met, so in turn, she should do what she can to meet yours.<p>Rather than a downward spiral of you feeling rejected for not having your needs met and then you not wanting to meet yours, you can reverse course as a couple - meeting each others needs over and over can be an upward spiral, but both parties have to be ACTIVE in partisipation.<p>
Is there a main point of contention? Is there a specific need that your wife is having trouble meeting or doesn't want to meet?<p>-d