Kindness is something your spouse needs daily. Your spouse may not even know he or she needs it or even how to ask for it. It is just very obvious when kindness has run out.

Kindness is the oil in a relationship. Let me explain this. Most men know that the parts in an engine move very fast. Most of us feel that our lives are like that also. We are continually working hard, chauffeuring kids, volunteering at church, helping out friends, and tending to the house.

Oil is what keeps the engine lubricated to reduce friction, overheating, and the eventual locking up of the engine. Like motor oil, kindness lubricates your marriage relationship. It is the random and intentional acts of kindness in a marriage that ease the frictions in life. It’s the help, the smile, and the kind words that make the responsibilities of life more tolerable and significant. It’s the “thanks for taking the garbage out” that makes taking the garbage down the driveway for the 1,329th time more meaningful. The fact that someone cares enough to notice and say thank you makes life just a little bit easier.

Think about this for a moment. When your spouse has been kind to you, what is your immediate reaction? Don’t you feel more warm and friendly toward your spouse? Don’t you feel just a little closer and more affirmed and appreciated by your spouse than just prior to these acts of kindness?

Of course you feel all those things, and much more. We are all human, and we all need kindness, whether we know it or not. Human beings can feel the lack of kindness in a relationship. Some feel it in measurement of a few days. For others it takes a little longer to feel the deprivation of kindness.

Just stop and think about the last week or so. How does your spouse feel about the acts of kindness he or she received from you during this period of time? Does your spouse feel satiated by the acts of kindness received from you? Would he or she say they had some kindness shown to him or her from you but not enough? Or would your spouse feel starved?