Chapter 3: What’s Filling Your Emotional Cup?

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Chapter Summary

Introduction to the principle of Emotional Capacity – we can hold only so much negative emotion

  • Unmet needs lead to hurt and loss
  • Pain in human relationships is inevitable
  • As more hurt and loss are experienced, we react from a “full cup of negative emotions
  • Our best strategy is to learn and practice what to do when hurt happens
  • TRUE CONFESSION – without rationalizing or blaming, admit to God how you have hurt your marriage and your spouse.  Ask Him for forgiveness – List 1
  • True Comfort – without minimizing your pain, admit List 2 to God asking for His comfort and care to replace the pain and aloneness you have felt
  • Each list should be taken to God for His perspective, comfort, and initial healing
  • The symptoms of a full cup (Pages 22, 23) are typical and add to the problem
  • If you want to use scripture memory:  Genesis 2:18
  • DO NOT SHARE EITHER OF YOUR LISTS WITH YOUR SPOUSE THIS WEEK – WAIT

 

Small Group Questions

  1. From Chapter 3 in the Intimate Encounters book, how would you feel if you were Jay in scenario number 1?
  2. How would you feel if you were Laura?
  3. What thoughts might be going through your head?
  4. What emotions might be filling your emotional cup?
  5. What needs might be going unmet?  (See Top Ten Needs list, p. 12)
  6. How do my displayed symptoms (from page 22 and 23) play a role in hurting my spouse leaving him/her alone? (Example: My escaping into work hurts my partner by leaving him/her alone too much with too much responsibility to carry without me???)
  7. What feelings might my spouse experience? (Example: As I escape to work, my spouse may feel lonely, insecure, or abandoned.)
  8. How would the “fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 play a roll in connecting us to our partner and building intimacy?

(If Time Permits) – Ask the same questions for scenarios #2 and #3.

  1. What could each of these couples have done differently in order to increase intimacy and decrease aloneness?
  2. Encourage couples to get help, as needed, using effective, trusted resources.
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