The Marriage Gap

How to Understand, Communicate, and Meet Your Spouse’s Four Deepest Needs

Most couples don’t drift apart because they stop caring. They drift apart because they stop understanding.

The Marriage Gap gives you a practical framework for building, or rebuilding, the intimacy, joy, and fulfillment your marriage was made for.

Built on four complementary needs, both his and hers, this raw, real, wholly original marriage book features eight candid conversations between husband and wife Devin and Kim Schadt about what men and women truly want and why. To broaden their own experiences and perspectives, Devin and Kim interviewed a range of Catholic couples from diverse backgrounds across the United States and wove their voices into every discussion.

The result is an exploration that will make you laugh and well up with tears and, most importantly, will challenge you to grow.

Rooted in Scripture, the wisdom of the saints, and simple spiritual practices, The Marriage Gap gives you tools you can use right away, including:

• Three core principles to foster marital fidelity and trust
• Communication exercises to grow in spousal knowledge, love, and respect
• The Five A’s of listening (Yes, there will be a pop quiz)
• The secret that fuels a thriving marriage
• Five ways to make your wife feel secure in your love
• Five ways to show your husband respect and help him grow in confidence
• Four things that cultivate closeness, and practical guidance on kindling sexual intimacy

Too often, spouses do not intentionally neglect one another; rather, they simply fail to see each other from a common perspective. Misunderstandings arise, needs go unnoticed, and good intentions get lost in the busyness of daily life. But when couples have a framework to identify, understand, and address their spouses’ needs, they gain the opportunity to know one another and build the deep, joyful, enduring marriage they’ve always longed for.

It’s time to take the next step in your most important relationship. Read The Marriage Gap, discover your spouse’s four primary needs, and unlock a deeper level of connection, trust, and love in your marriage.

“Wow! Having read other books by Devin, I knew this was going to be a great book. But it was even better than I expected. The format is genius: four core needs, beautifully expressed in dialogue between Devin and Kim.  I was personally convicted of areas where I failed to meet my wife’s needs well. I also felt affirmed in the ways I did love her well. As I read, I kept thinking of couples I hope will read this book. If I had this book when I was practicing as a marriage therapist, it would be required reading for every couple. I strongly recommend The Marriage Gap for every dating, engaged, and married couple. I also recommend it for divorced or widowed men and women, as it will help you heal.  

Well done, Devin and Kim-your hearts, humility, and hard-earned wisdom shine through on every page. 

—Bob Schuchts, 
Author of Be Devoted and Unveiled Conferences for married and engaged couples.

“My wife and I read The Marriage Gap during our weekly date nights and couldn’t put it down. Devin and Kim’s conversational style moves you from laughter to tears—and ultimately to conviction and conversion. Every engaged and married couple should read this book if they desire a lasting, joyful, peaceful, and sacrificial marriage. The Marriage Gap opens your eyes to what your spouse truly needs, helping you build the marriage God intended for you.”

—Patrick and Amanda O’Hearn, authors of Courtship of the Saints

“Extremely readable and applicable to every relationship. Devin & Kim boldly share their stories here, and the wisdom within these pages will bless your marriage!”

—Jackie & Bobby Angel, authors and speakers 

I’ve been practicing with couples for a long time, and all along I have been looking for a book I could confidently recommend to clients that aligns with the scientific practices of building secure attachment. The Marriage Gap is that book. From opening with a direct focus on crafting emotional safety for the wife and explaining to men how to do this, straight into emphasizing the husband’s non-negotiable need for expressed respect from his wife, it is clear Devin and Kim understand the core essence of how a true marriage is supposed to be built. The call to turn every section into a curiosity-driven conversation with one’s spouse is exactly how secure love is built, and I applaud this inclusion. In short, The Marriage Gap is not a book to teach you about marriage; it’s a crystal-clear roadmap anyone can use to build a great marriage using science-backed practices.

— Adam Lane Smith, MA Psych, Host of If You Only Knew Podcast

“We have long admired Devin and Kim, not only for what they teach, but for how they live. Among the many excellent marriage books available, The Marriage Gap holds a rare place. Its wisdom is not merely taught but earned, forged in who Devin and Kim are and all they have endured. Having weathered our own seasons of challenge, we wish we’d had this wisdom years earlier. Devin and Kim’s honest, back-and-forth discoveries are captivating, often laugh-out-loud humorous, and deeply insightful. Whatever your season- newly engaged, newly married, or decades in- this book will move you to pursue your spouse with new purpose and hand you the practical steps to do it.

—John and Julie Heinen
Owner of The Catholic Gentleman

After more than 30 years of marriage, we are still growing and learning about each other’s core needs and how to honor them in each other.  This book has been an excellent explanation for us of how to do this better and why it is so important to strive for unity for our entire lives!  The introductory chapters alone broke new ground in our hearts. Every couple will benefit from this book no matter how long they have been married, because we can never, ever give up on learning how to love our spouse.  Thank you, Devin and Kim, for writing such an honest and helpful book!

—Mike and Alicia Hernon, The Messy Family Project

The Marriage Gap shows you how to meet your spouse in marriage on the basis of a primal God-given need. A need meant to be enjoyed and filled in marriage by the very person your spouse is.  This how-to wisdom will change your marriage dynamic for the better, showing you how to move past endless human wants by going the distance to fulfill what is longed for in another. Your other.

—Timmerie Geagea, Host of Trending with Timmerie

As a priest, I love preparing couples for marriage and accompanying them throughout it.  I have seen firsthand that the healthiest marriages are those that embrace God’s design for marriage. Yet many couples do not get stuck in theology; they get stuck in communication, misunderstanding, and unmet expectations. This is precisely the gap that Devin and Kim seek to address.  The path to a stronger marriage – and often to deeper spiritual intimacy – begins with seeing and understanding the person God has entrusted to you. This book is a unique gift, not only to married couples and those preparing for marriage, but also to those of us privileged to accompany them.

—Fr. Chase Hilgenbrinck, Diocese of Peoria

Many couples approach marriage like heirs to a vast estate who never venture beyond the front porch. The tragedy is not that their marriage is bad; it is that there is so much more. Marriage is one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity—a privileged participation in His own life of self-giving love, a path to sanctity, joy, healing, mission, and communion unlike any other. We found The Marriage Gap to be a rare invitation into those deeper chambers, and in a mysterious way, to go deeper and open up the horizon many miss. Devin and Kim open that door. They move beyond clichés and surface-level advice to help husbands and wives uncover the profound needs, desires, and mysteries God has placed within one another. Their wisdom is practical, vulnerable, deeply insightful, and born not merely from study but from a life faithfully lived. More than once, we found ourselves stopping to discuss what we had discovered—not simply about marriage, but about each other. If you desire more than merely a “good marriage,” if you desire to more deeply discover and mine the amazing treasure of God Himself in your marriage, the beauty of mutual self-gift, to become more fully the man or woman you were created to be, this book is for you.

— Greg and Stephanie Schlueter 
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“After years of reading and applying on a daily basis Devin’s incredible teaching on the way of St. Joseph, Joy and I were thrilled and expectant when we heard that Kim and Devin jointly were authoring a book. The Marriage Gap has surpassed our expectations; the only disappointment is that we wish we had read and applied it fifty-six years ago when we began dating and throughout nearly fifty years of marriage.

Their Four Sets of Complimentary Needs, Conversational Style, Transparency, and Marriage Practices foster awareness of one’s own needs as well as the needs of the other. The Marriage Gap is perfect for early, earnest developing relationships, newly married couples, mid-marriage years, and those fifty years or more. Blow upon the sail of God’s will for you, your relationship, your sacred marriage with The Marriage Gap!”

Jim and Joy Pinto:
Co-Hosts of EWTN’s At Home with Jim and Joy