PonyTales

"Have you deposited into your spouse’s emotional bank lately?"

Emotional Bank, is this a new bank in town? Nope.
It is a term used during our pre-marital counseling (PMC) not long ago. This was an eye opener topic for me when I attended the PMC with my hubby (then fiance) before our marriage. I thank God and my Pastor for this very very informative and useful facts thought to us.

Every person has an emotional bank that needs to be filled from time to time with love languages. In order to fill the emotional bank of a person, we must first know what are the love languages of the person because every person is unique and have different needs.

The love languages can be categorised into 5 areas:

1. Physical touch  e.g. hugs & kisses
2. Words of encouragement/affirmation  e.g. "Waa…you look so good!!" - little compliments from your spouse
3. Quality time  e.g. spending time doing something together
4. Act of service  e.g. help your spouse out like wash the toilet
5. Gifts/presents  e.g. occasional gifts and presents to your spouse as appreciation

If you ask me, all the five categories above will add to my emotional bank. But every person has a different pattern of priority on the 5 love languages above, and that is the key to "big deposit" into our spouse’s emotional bank. If we constantly recognise and make deposits to our spouse’s emotional bank, we can be sure that our marriage will not go bankrupt

For example hugs and kisses might mean a lot to a person and make the person feel loved all the time. Act of service like helping your spouse with his/her chores when he/she is feeling down the weather will make him/her feel good and contented.

The contents in our emotional bank can wear off sometimes because of circumstances in our life and even other people’s life. Therefore, it is very important that we recognise each other’s love languages and built up each other’s emotional bank by making deposits. That way, we will stay happy and ready for the everyday challenges that come our way.

Feel free to try out the suggestions below and make deposit into your spouse’s emotional bank :)

Cook your hubby’s favourite meal this weekend and turn on light music as both of you dine together

Give a big bear hug to your wife right after she reach home from work/finishes her work

Eat some strawberry ice cream/yogurt and give your hubby/wife a strawberry flavoured smooch

Set a reminder on your wife’s handphone with a message "Hug <your_name> please…"

Pop a little surprise gift to your hubby/wife when he/she least expect it

Maybe we might felt a little silly doing all these sometimes, but remember nothing is too silly if we did it out of genuine love for each other