The Marriage Gap: How to Understand, Communicate, and Meet Your Spouse’s 4 Deepest Needs

Hillary Ibarra reviews an enlightening book about addressing your spouse’s core needs for a stronger, more loving marriage.

The Marriage Gap: How to Understand, Communicate, and Meet Your Spouse’s 4 Deepest Needs 

By Devin and Kim Schadt 

Published by Sophia Institute Press

The Marriage Gap: How to Understand, Communicate, and Meet Your Spouse’s 4 Deepest Needs by Devin and Kim Schadt intrigued me immediately. I wondered if the book could help my marriage and, frankly, give me insight into men’s behaviors and struggles.

The book’s synopsis proposes that most couples don’t drift apart because they stop caring. They drift apart because they stop understanding. The book invites couples to discover men and women’s four core needs. Those needs are discussed in several transcribed conversations between Devin and Kim, a Catholic husband and wife who have been married for over 30 years while parenting and homeschooling five daughters, including a special-needs daughter. Devin co-founded the Fathers of St. Joseph Apostolate, dedicated to the renewal of authentic fatherhood, and co-hosts The Catholic Gentleman podcast.

In Chapter 1 of The Marriage Gap, the Schadts explain their purpose in writing it:

We’ve written this book because we believe strongly that understanding why your spouse acts, thinks, reacts, and responds the way he or she does is foundational to breaking free from our constrained worldview and becoming capable of entering into the mystery of the other. (page 13)

Navigating major life changes like job loss, house remodeling, trauma, cancer, and menopause, the Schadts experienced trials that threatened their marriage, but continually sought God’s will and the sacraments. Those marital challenges became part of the inspiration to write this book, and in the process of writing it, they learned more about each other while seeking to help other couples. They share freely about their own marriage trials, and those experiences compelled them to impart wisdom won through suffering, reconciliation, and redemption.

Who Will Benefit from Reading This Book?

This book is best for spouses to read and discuss together, but it will benefit men and women, married or not, who read it alone. Devin and Kim’s conversations provide honest, rich, sometimes humorous, and sometimes blunt or uneasy discussions about how men and women differ, how those differences can lead to misunderstanding, and how God designed us to complement and support each other.

The reader doesn’t simply take their word for it, however. In preparation for this book, the Schadts interviewed married men and women across the United States, and they share the insight gleaned from those surveys. At the end of each chapter, readers find practical recommendations to help them pray for each other, cultivate life-giving habits, and discern how to creatively meet their spouse’s needs.

The book contains abundant insight, encouragement, and clear calls to action. I re-read certain chapters or passages multiple times. The book does not provide absolute truths about what every man and woman wants and feels. Instead, it proposes a framework for sharing between spouses, encouraging couples to express their needs more openly and to listen more generously to each other.

The Marriage Gap helped me to recognize my needs better as a woman, especially my need for emotional and spiritual safety, though I differed from many women in important ways. This book also clarified why respect is vital for men and how its absence in marriage can be disastrous for a husband’s self-esteem.

If your marriage is struggling, broken, or you dream of a more fulfilling relationship, I believe The Marriage Gap by Devin and Kim Schadt powerfully illustrates how met or unmet needs influence behavior and dynamics in relationships. Men and women can gain understanding and compassion reading it on their own, but this book becomes most useful when used to facilitate discussion between spouses. Many interesting articles and resources cited throughout the book also engender discussion and can lead to further discovery of the uniqueness of men and women and the richness of the marriage covenant.

I recommend The Marriage Gap to those who are married, hope to marry someday, or are preparing for marriage. Honestly, I wish I had read a similar book before I entered marriage more than 25 years ago. I believe priests, deacons, and counselors will also benefit from this book as they help couples overcome marital hardships.

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Copyright 2026 Hillary Ibarra
Images: (top) detail from cover