You have emotional needs, I have emotional needs, all God's children have emotional needs.

In a relationship, emotional needs are like air. If you have ever been without air for more than a few seconds, you know how rapidly your focus can narrow to just one thing.

How to discover emotional needs

I'm about to speak in general here, which can be a very dangerous thing to do, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Speaking in general, men have emotional needs around appreciation, and women have emotional needs around security.

Now, emotional needs can very from those general notions and from person to person. What you want to do is find out what the primary emotional need is and then create as many ways as you can to meet that need.

Here's a tip to discover the emotioanal needs of your partner. Now get your pencil ready because this is high level stuff here folks. Ready? Here goes...

ASK.

That's right, ask.

And then once you have the answer, use the information.

Most, if not all, conflict in marriage can be traced back to unmet emotional needs. So what are the emotional needs of your spouse? If you find yourself in the middle of a conflict, especially one that occurs over and over, what emotional needs are not being met?

Jeff Herring

Jeff is a marriage and family therapist, singles and relationship coach, mentor coach, speaker, syndicated relationship columnist and author.

Jeff has a full time private practice in Tallahassee in which he specializes in couples, teen and parent counseling. He also is a relationship coach specializing in working with couples and singles. Some of his professional activities include:

==> Internationally syndicated relationship columnist through Knight-Ridder/Tribune Media Services, with a weekly readership of over 10 million worldwide

==> Sought after speaker for organizations, associations, churches, and corporations

==>Twice weekly appearances on The Steve and Sara Show on Magic 107.1

==> Author of "Keep the Changes: 52 Tools for Successful Living" a collection of his best columns, as well as several e-books including "How to Create a Passionate and Loving Relationship.........Forever," "How to Beat the BOZOs: Dealing with difficult people without becoming one," and "Tame Your Teen: THE survival guide for parenting your teenager.

==> Founder and CEO of TheArticleGuy.com

==> Founder and CEO of SecretsofGreatRelationships.com

==> Founder and CEO of ParentingYourTeeanger.com

==> Founder and CEO of ToolsforSuccessfulLiving.com

==> President of BuildingYourIdealPractice.com

==> President of ConsciousDatingTallahassee.com