Making Marriage Work: Part 1 – The Emotional Bank Account
One of the best ways for making marriage work is to maintain very a high Emotional bank account with your spouse.
An Emotional Bank Account, according to bestselling author Stephen Covey, is a helpful way of thinking about the level of trust within a marriage. Just like you make deposits and withdrawals to your (financial) Bank Acccount, so also you make emotional ‘deposits’ and ‘withdrawals’ with your spouse.
Click here for a Definitive Guide on How to Save Your Marriage
When you have a high emotional bank account with your spouse, then trust is high, and the relationship is strong; when you have a low emotional bank account, the trust is low, and the relationship is tense.
Making your marriage work is so much easier when you both have very high emotional bank accounts with each other.
The following are some ways for you to ‘deposit’ into your spouses emotional bank account, in order to help make your marriage work better.
1) Figure out what the Deposits are for your Spouse
When we want to deposit into our spouse’s emotional bank account, so often we do things that are deposits for us. So for example, if you like to receive gifts, then we automatically think that our spouse would like that too. Or if we like a tidy house, then we think our spouse would like that too. But this thinking is misguided!
Often those things that are deposits for us are nothing special for our spouse: and sometimes they can even turn into withdrawals. This is because if you only do things that are deposits for you, you spouse will start to see that you don’t really want to understand them.
So the first and most important way to increase the emotional bank account is to come to understand what deposits are for your spouse. The easiest way to do this is to ask them: ‘Honey, what do you really enjoy?’, ‘What get’s you excited?’.
It could be all sorts of things: the important thing is to ask and understand. Making your marriage work is so much easier when you clearly know what a deposit is for your spouse!
2) Deposit into your Spouse’s bank account regularly
An important principle to remember is this: in a continuing relationship such as marriage, you must make deposits on a regular basis. Deposits ‘leak’, and need to be topped up. Otherwise the emotional bank account becomes negative. This is simply because marriage is a relationship of mutual love, and a deposit is simply an act of love.
So if you don’t make regular deposit’s into your spouse’s bank account, then you’re telling your spouse that you don’t love them. Making your marriage work is a lot easier when you regularly deposit into your spouse’s emotional bank account.
3) A Deposit can be big or small
Now deposits can be big or little (just like deposits to a normal bank). Sometimes you will want to make a big deposit for your spouse, such as taking them on that holiday they always wanted to go on. But if you are going to make deposit’s on a regular basis, then you need to be making many small deposits as well. Here are some general deposits that you should be making on a regular basis:
- Showing your love to your spouse. This could be by simply telling them that you love them; by hugging them; or by writing them a small note;
- By being kind to you spouse. Kindness is always a great deposit, whereas harshness is always a withdrawal;
- By keeping your promises. If you don’t keep your promises, the emotional bank account will soon run into negative territory.
Summary
By continually depositing into your spouse’s emotional bank account, you’ll keep the level of trust between you high. And this will help ensure a very strong marriage, which is one of the best things you could ever have.
Click here for a Definitive Guide on How to Save Your Marriage