The Deadly Love Tank Fallacy

For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.
– Jeremiah 2:13

Over the past 25 years of serving in a biblical counseling and equipping ministry, I’ve run into a multitude of harmful and false teachings in the Church, as well as in the realm of counseling. However, I have not come across a more destructive teaching among Christians—particularly when it comes to married couples, marriage counseling, and books on love, marriage, and relationships—than the “love tank” fallacy (LTF).

Ideas have very real consequences. What is more, as a result of the LTF, I have counseled hundreds of couples (and numerous individuals) who have been greatly harmed by this particular error-filled construct. Therefore, this article is written—not merely as a warning about false teachings—but in order to biblically equip people to discern and understand the many problems with this fallacy, and to avoid being deceived and hurt by it. Better yet, the reader can then help others avoid the deception and harm that comes with the LTF.

First, what, exactly, is a fallacy?

Fallacy: a false belief; an idea that a lot of people think is true, but is in fact false

So, how widespread is the love tank fallacy? Simply put, the LTF is seemingly everywhere. This is due, in part, to the fact that it includes similar notions like: “respect tank,” “love bank,” or “love bucket.” Of course, there are still more iterations such as: “The Love Tank Theory,” “The Relationship Love Tank,” and even a children’s book called, The Love Tank.

Coinciding with all this, there are numerous articles and books that might not use these exact terms, but are similarly hyper-focused on meeting needs (e.g., Created To Be His Helpmeet)—and the assertion that our lives and relationships depend on how well people meet our needs. This love tank/need-fixation is also frequently found in many popular books inside the Church, particularly: Love and Respect (L&R); The Five Love Languages (TFLL); His Needs/Her Needs.

Faulty Foundation

What, you might ask, is so concerning and harmful about all this?

We’ll get to that. But before we expound on several specific problems, let’s first address the foundational assertions of the LTF, which is this:

Everything hinges on a love tank that exists inside of us—and, more specifically, on how well people fill our tank. In other words, the quality of our life, and our relationships, is largely determined by the level in this tank—and this level is determined by how well others perform in meeting our “deepest needs.” What is more, God is rarely mentioned, or needed.

Here, in a nutshell, as explained in one of the most popular Christian books of all time, is the main mindset of the love tank construct:

Could it be that deep inside hurting couples exists an invisible “emotional love tank” with its gauge on empty? Could the misbehavior, withdrawal, harsh words, and critical spirit occur because of that empty tank? If we could find a way to fill it, could the marriage be reborn? Could that tank be the key that makes marriage work?
– Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages (emphasis added)

How many problems do you see in the assertions above?

For starters, why do those sinful and hurtful things happen? Because of our sinful nature? No.

Because choices were made to sin? No.

Because of our own foolishness? No.

This all happens because of an “empty tank.” And that, of course, is found nowhere in Scripture, and obviously goes directly against logic, not to mention God’s Word.

But it gets worse. Who is responsible for this emptiness? And who, therefore, needs to repent? Not the person who is actually sinning. Rather, according to the LTF, other people need to repent (usually our spouse). Why? Because he/she failed to meet our supreme needs, which led to an empty tank, which led to our “misbehavior” (notice that sin is not called sin).

Put another way, our own sins (e.g., “harsh words;” “critical spirit;” etc.) are not our fault! These occur because of what other people do or not do (cp. Gen 3:12-13). Therefore, according to the love-tank construct, we are not responsible for our sin and harmful actions, they are. What is more, and as a result of that, we do not need to confess, repent, and ask for forgiveness, they do.

That, of course, is not a mild falsehood. In fact, this completely inverts personal responsibility. Even worse, it creates an inverted reality (Is 5:20). Far worse—and adding abomination to delusion—this ultimately results in a double “abomination” in God’s sight.

He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just,
Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.
– Proverbs 17:15

There are some ideas and teachings that are so flagrantly false that we do not really need close examination of Scripture, and the LTF easily qualifies. Nevertheless, we will do our due diligence here with the goal of being biblically equipped to discern and understand the exceedingly harmful teachings in these books.

When we compare the LTF with the Word of God, we see this construct could not be further from the truth. In the verses below Jesus explains what is actually inside of us—and who is responsible for sin—and where sin comes from. And this has absolutely nothing to do with a love tank or unmet needs. In fact, it is quite the opposite:

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.
– Mark 7:21-23

Os Guinness expounds on how the recent fixation on “needs”—particularly as they are taught according to the world’s wisdom—has created unlimited trouble for individuals and relationships—all while purporting to be the supreme solution. Of all the great harm this causes, perhaps the most damaging issue here is that they deter us from our very real and supreme needs.

The other problem with the modern use of need is that, endlessly engineered and marketed, an obsession with need results in consumer indifference to specific, genuine, real needs. People skilled in learning to need the needs that the professional elites identify become deaf to their own true needs—their needs as God, not the world, defines them.
– Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil (emphasis in the original)

Adding more warnings, particularly about the world’s trendy teaching on needs, sociologist Tony Walter starts off his aptly titled book—Need: The New Religion—with a brief, yet accurate, description of this stylish notion of worldly philosophy:

It is fashionable to follow the view of some psychologists that the self is a bundle of needs and that personal growth is the business of progressively meeting these needs. Many Christians go along with such beliefs. But is this just tagging along with the spirit of the age?
– Tony Walter, Need: The New Religion (emphasis added)

All of this brings up many questions:

– We know this popular teaching is very appealing, but what, exactly, does it appeal to: the flesh or the spirit?

– Is it, as advertised by many, the answer to life’s problems and to the issues in marriages? If so, how? Or why not?

– How, specifically, does this teaching fit into or go against God’s design?

– What is the source of this ideology: the world or the Word?

– What Scriptures can we use to fully support this teaching, or to refute it?

– What should we do when there is a teaching inside the Church that comes from or is entwined with “the spirit of the age”?

– How can we reconcile the sufficiency of God with this hyper emphasis on getting fallible humans to meet our superlative “needs”?

– What are some of the likely harmful outcomes of teaching people to depend more and more on the performance of other people?

Therefore, throughout this article, we will address the questions above, and much more. All of this gives us ample opportunity to grow in an actual life-determining need: biblical discernment. In fact, discernment is so important that not only does our maturity depend on how well we discern, so does much of the quality of our life, our love, and our relationship with God and others.

But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
– Hebrews 5:14 [NIV]

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ…
– Philippians 1:9-10

Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
– 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22

Discretion will preserve you;
Understanding will keep you,
To deliver you from the way of evil,
From the man who speaks perverse things,
From those who leave the paths of uprightness
To walk in the ways of darkness;
– Proverbs 2:11-13

Top 15 Problems With The Love Tank Fallacy

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
– Colossians 2:8

While we have already explained the core premise of the Love Tank Fallacy, we will lay out several specific destructive aspects below.

For even more on this, see our Book Review Of Love And Respect

In big and small ways, the needs-based mindset of the LTF produces the following harm to marriages, individuals, and beyond.

1 | Destructive False Needs

The LTF distorts and inflates normal desires into life-determining needs, which, in reality, are not needs at all. To be clear, there are many things in life and relationships which have great value—and are very important and provide many blessings—but they are not “needs,” at least in the way that these LTF books describe them.

For example, L&R takes valid and important desires and inflates them into literal absolute needs—particularly when the author compares them to our life-or-death absolute need for “air” (L&R, p. 37-38). In other words, our life depends on meeting this need, and we will die without it. What is more, the thesis statement of L&R (on the back cover) is that the “one driving need” of wives and husbands is to feel love or feel respect from their spouse. Worse, what is the grand goal of meeting this supposed superlative need? It is to make them “happy” (i.e., a good but fleeting feeling, which is dependent upon our circumstances and the performance of others). In contrast, God’s goals are obviously so much higher.

So, given the overall perverted premise of the LTF, people who buy into this fallacy naturally become increasingly desperate to meet this supposed “one driving need,” as well as other absolute needs. Yet they are not actual needs. Therefore, when it comes to marriages and the LTF, many individuals understandably become fixated on the performance and failures of the only person who can supposedly meet their life-determining needs: their spouse. As a result, much of their marriage, life, and well-being goes up and down—but mostly down—all based on this highly unreliable performance (cp. Jer 17:5-6).

2 | Destructive Dependency

The LTF redirects our dependency away from the actual life-giving, life-determining sources—which are God and His grace, love, power, and Word of life. The LTF makes this even worse as it increases our dependency on the performance of fallible humans—those who are prone to sin, fail, and hurt others. That, of course, is the exact opposite of God’s design.

The reality is, we are all hurt, offended, and let down by others, including our spouse. And it is in these moments we need to respond well, particularly by going to and depending on God for help. However, while we are in the midst of this pain and need for the Comforter and our Wonderful Counselor, the LTF directs us away from the God of life and toward a nonexistent tank, and toward the performance of those who failed to fill it. Therefore, the more we live by this destructive dependency, the more we will experience confusion, deception, sin, instability, and harm (Jer 2:13; 17:5-9; Ps 118:8-9; 146:2; Rom 1:25; Col 2:8).

3 | Deadly Despair

The LTF produces escalating hopelessness. Why? One reason is because these utmost and “deepest” needs described in these books can never, ever be satisfied (Jer 2:13; 5:7; Hos 13:6)—at least no human can truly satisfy them. Yet, according to the LTF, so much of our life is determined by this one thing: how well these supremely urgent needs are met by our spouse (or other humans). The author of L&R admits that these needs are “insatiable.”

This brings up the obvious question which further exposes the extreme error of the LTF: When it comes to those who are in bad marriages, are unmarried, or have a self-centered spouse—which makes up the vast majority of the world’s population—what happens to them regarding these utmost, life-determining needs (e.g., “one driving need”)? What hope do they have here? Absolutely none, if we believe the LTF. In fact, according to the LTF, not only are they absolutely hopeless, they should be dead! Why? Because their absolute needs (e.g., “air”) clearly are not being met. So, overall, to the degree we put our hope in that which does not and cannot give us true hope—which is the functional idea of the LTF—we will become more and more hopeless (e.g., depressed).

For more on the solutions here, see our book Re-Minded: How To Renew Your Mind, Quiet Your Soul, and Transform Your Life

4 | Destructive Relationship Dynamics

The LTF warps God’s beautiful and brilliant design for a covenant-based, grace-based, truth-based, and love-based relationship—which also seeks to primarily live for God, love God, and fully depend on God—into a performance-based, legalistic, and transactional relationship. More specifically, the LTF’s relationship dynamic is fixated on perpetually meeting (supposed) life-determining needs, yet these can only be satisfied by the performance of a person other than God. Even more alarming, in reality these superlative needs can never be truly satisfied.

To put this another way, everyone under the LTF is beholden to a non-existent love tank, and, therefore, to the performance of highly fallible humans, whom they desperately need to continuously fill that tank. Not only that, they live according to this lie rather than according to God’s design, which is: knowing and depending on God and His love, so that we can then freely, securely, and cheerfully give and receive love—and to gladly give love even when this is not reciprocated. Notice how the LTF perfectly fulfills the double folly and sin of Jeremiah 2:13 and 17:5-9, as well as other biblical principles (e.g., Matt 5:44-47; Acts 20:35).

5 | Thwarted Hope and Blessings

The LTF consistently robs us of much needed hope, and many other blessings as well. How so? It does this in several ways, primarily by grossly distorting our personal responsibility. First, the LTF makes us largely responsible for the happiness, peace, and security of others, usually our spouse. That is a lethal lie. Secondly, the LTF perverts the responsibility for our wrongdoing, which is another deadly deceit.

More specifically, this fallacy blames an “empty love tank” and, even worse, our spouse is blamed. How so? Because he/she is seen as the only one who can fill our tank, yet failed to do so, and, as a result, they are the one to blame for our sin and failure. Worse, they are also frequently blamed for any lack of happiness, joy, and peace in our lives. Why? Because they failed to meet our “deepest needs.”

Notice, again, that God is nowhere to be found in this humanistic construct. Therefore, the LTF takes away the essential hope and blessings that come from owning and confessing our sin and failures—along with learning from them, and then realizing much needed growth in life, love, and relationships (Prov 28:13; Matt 3:6; Heb 4:16; 1 Jn 1:5-10; Jas 5:16; cp. Ps 32).

6 | Thwarted Reconciliation

The LTF—due to perverting and inverting personal responsibility—not only blocks us from meeting several of our actual life-giving and life-determining needs—such as confessing, repenting, forgiving others, and being forgiven—it also prevents us from satisfying other superlative needs, which are: being truly reconciled with God, and with others, particularly our spouse.

As horrendous as that is, it gets far worse. How so? Instead of true reconciliation, the LTF’s approach produces a deceptive and dysfunctional pseudo-reconciliation—one in which we think we have reconciled, but—because we have not appropriately dealt with the actual sin, error, and problems—we have not, in fact, truly reconciled. Therefore, we are deluded and setting ourselves up for even more hurt, disappointment, deception, and damaged trust (Matt 5:23-24; Acts 2:38; Rom 10:9-10; 2 Cor 5:18-21; 7:10-11; Eph 4:31-32; Col 3:12-14). [We have much more on reconciliation elsewhere, including faulty forms of reconciliation.]

7 | Ongoing Failure and Hurt

The LTF sets up each person to consistently fail—and for the marriage to ultimately fail in one or more significant ways. Why? Because it is impossible for anyone to actually succeed within this fallacy. Even worse, and as we have seen, it prevents people from actually reconciling with truth and grace, while steering them into error and pseudo-reconciliation. At the very least, while there might be some improvement in behavior, these relationships tend have ongoing disappointment, hurt, insecurities, fighting, resentment, and misery—while also lacking true, biblical reconciliation, and rebuilt trust.

8 | Stress-Filled Relationships

The LTF—because it is heavily based on performance, which then results in ongoing failure, harm, and guilt—produces strained and pressure-filled relationships. Not only that, they also lack lasting peace, joy, security, and contentment. Why? How so? Subtly or overtly, the LTF teaches people that: “You are the only person in the world who can meet your spouse’s one driving need, and and his/her deepest needs.” Talk about overwhelming pressure! But it gets worse: “When you fail to satisfy these insatiable-yet-absolute needs, then you are to blame for his/her misbehavior, harsh words, and other sin—and for how he/she harms you and others.”

As if this could not get any worse, even more stress is added in the other direction: “Your spouse is also the one person who is responsible for meeting your utmost needs. Therefore, focus on how well he/she is satisfying your all-consuming needs. Why? Because so much of your marriage, personal happiness, and overall well-being depend on how well your spouse performs in filling your tank!”

Note: This mindset can produce better behavior and more happiness, at least initially. Yet this fleeting fruit deceives some into believing that this lethal fallacy is a good thing. However, this performance and fruit are not sustainable (cp. Prov 14:12; 30:15; Jer 2:13).

9 | Warped Love

The LTF perverts the biblical love of giving-to–give into a manipulative giving-to–get motivation—which is a very harmful counterfeit love. We have several quotes in our L&R book review that reveal this exact giving-to-get teaching, and here are just two of them:

“This book is about how the wife can fulfill her need to be loved by giving her husband what he needs—respect.” (L&R, p. 1)

“This is the key to empowerment: You get what you want by giving him what he wants.” (L&R, p. 221; emphasis in original)

 The mindset here is something like, “Because I need my needs met, I will therefore meet your needs in the hope that you meet my needs” (cp. Acts 20:35; Matt 5:47-6:6; Col 3:23-24). [Note: That approach is fine when it comes to business-type relationships, such as at the store, or a gas station, but not in love relationships.]

While this giving-to-get does make some people happy, at least for a little while, that is not love, at all. Worse, when it comes to human-to-human relationships (e.g., family; friends; marriages), this pseudo-love is an offensive form of manipulation. Even worse, this eventually turns into, “I will meet your need with the expectation that you will meet my need.” All of this, of course, goes hand-in-hand with …

10 | Pain-Producing Expectations

The LTF not only creates unrealistic expectations, it twists normal desires into unreasonable demands. This, in turn, greatly increases the disappointment, distress, insecurity, and hurt when these expectations/false needs are inevitably not met. This, in turn, produces frequent dissatisfaction and increasing resentment toward our spouse (or others), and often despair in the marriage, in individuals, and in other relationships.

While everyone eventually learns the painful lesson of how harmful expectations are to individuals and relationships—the LTF actually encourages us to have several unreasonable and impossible expectations of others, especially our spouse. However, these pain-producing expectations are cloaked in more alluring terms, such as “needs” and an “empty love tank.”

11 | Thwarting Life-Or-Death Solutions

The LTF effectively ignores, minimizes, and grossly distorts the dire reality of our utmost problem: sin and its consequences. Infinitely worse, when it comes to what troubles and harms us the most—and to what is of utmost concern to God—the LTF does not and cannot offer God’s life-saving solutions to our superlative needs, such as: forgiveness from God; salvation; godly sorrow leading to repentance; and reconciliation with God.

Making this far worse, the LTF replaces God’s gracious solutions with nonsensical and harmful remedies (e.g., “If we could just find ways to fill our love tank …”; “Learn to meet his/her need so that he/she will then meet your life-determining one-driving need”; cp. Rom 3:23; 6:23; Jn 3:36; 2 Cor 7-8-11; Gal 6:7-8; Jas 4:1-3; Gen 3:4; Rev 20:11-15; cp. Jer 23:14, 22).

12 | Enabling Sin And Destruction

From this hopelessness of the LTF—combined with selfishness, sin, and deceit—some people naturally seek to meet their so-called “deepest needs” “outside of marriage.” This often involves things like porn, adultery, and “emotional affairs.” Even worse, these individuals justify their devastating sin on the rationalization that their spouse was depriving them—that he/she failed to meet their absolute needs. The rationale goes something like this: “My deepest, one-driving need is not being met by my spouse. And this need is just like my need for air and water. Therefore, because my wife is failing to meet my superlative need, I am more than justified in meeting this utmost need in other ways.”

I have personally talked with numerous individuals who thought along these lines, and this distorted thinking led to profound harm in their life, family, and marriage. In addition to distressing attitudes and behavior, this resulted in horrific outcomes such as adultery, divorce, estrangement, and the decimation of their family. While these problems originate in the heart, such serious sins are frequently enabled to happen by others, and by false teachings—and the LTF is a prime enabler of this sin and destruction.

13 | Victim-Blaming

The LTF not only inverts responsibility and reality, this logically results in blaming the victim. More specifically, this includes blaming the victim of adultery for the adultery. Even worse, the offender is viewed as the victim! How so? Because, according to the logic of the LTF, the wife failed to meet the husband’s utmost needs—and this naturally “pushed” him to get his needs met elsewhere (i.e., “outside of marriage”). Therefore, this not only turns the victim into the victimizer, it makes the victimizer into the victim (cp. Prov 17:15; 24:23-35; Is 5:20).

Notice how The Five Love Languages implies the innocence, if not victimhood, of those who cheat on their spouse when they commit the non-named sin of adultery: “Thousands of husbands and wives have been there—emotionally empty, wanting to do the right thing, not wanting to hurt anyone, but being pushed by their emotional needs to seek love outside of marriage” (TFLL, p. 131). So who and what is blamed here? Unmet “emotional needs” and the spouse (i.e., the victim) who apparently failed to meet these nebulous, undefined, and insatiable “needs.”

While that helps us understand why the LTF is so appealing and popular—even among Christians—this disturbing distortion is not merely foreign to Scripture, it goes directly against God and His Word. The author of Love and Respect takes this absurdity to another level as he focuses the blame mainly/solely on women, at least in this scenario: “The cold, hard truth is that men are often lured into affairs because they are sexually deprived at home” (L&R, p. 253).

These falsehoods have very painful and real life ramifications. I have counseled several victims of adultery who heard something like the following that came from a previous counselor or pastor who counseled the victim: “Now tell me, why did you fail to meet his needs which forced him to meet his needs outside of the marriage?” While that is stunningly absurd and exceptionally painful to hear, it is also the logical conclusion of the LTF and its need-centric, humanistic ideology. [Note: These pastors and counselors were all advocates of the LTF, as they read at least one or two of the LTF books.]

14 | Anti-Biblical Goals

The LTF does not show any significant concern for transforming our actual inner-being (i.e., our heart, mind, and soul). That, of course, is the polar-opposite of God’s goals for us (i.e., sanctification)—which is highly emphasized throughout His Word (1 Sam 16:7; Prov 4:23; Matt 6:19-21; Mk 1:15; Lk 3:8ff; 6:46; Acts 3:26; Rom 12:2; 2 Cor 7:10-11; Gal 4:19; Eph 4:22-24; 1 Tim 4:7-8; Jas 4:1-3; 2 Pet 1:3ff). Why does God pursue this? So that we get our love tank filled? Not at all. God desires this for many amazing reasons—so that: we are secure and sufficient in Him; we become more and more like Him; we are thoroughly strengthened, equipped, and blessed; we can freely bless God and others; and God is glorified.

In night-and-day contrast, the LTF is focused on changing five main things:

1. 1. To change the level in our nonexistent tank, which is always in need of more.
   2. To change our feelings, which are fleeting and misleading, while not seeking to change what is actually causing our unwanted feelings.
   3. To change the behavior of other people—so that they will fill our tank.
   4. To change our behavior, rather than our heart (cp. Matt 15:1-9), so that this changes the behavior of others—so that they will fill our tank.
   5. To change our dependency—it directs us to depend more and more on the performance of people, and on the harmful ideology of the world (e.g. humanistic psychology), and not on God and His Word.

So much of the fruit in our life, good and bad, is determined by who and what we set our mind and heart on, and where we place our hope (cp. Col 3:1ff; Rom 8:5). Because this is so vital for everything in life, we greatly expound on this in our book Re-Minded

15 | Feeding the Fear of Man

The LTF, once again, seeks the exact opposite of God, His Word, and of what we actually need. How so? The “fear of man” (FOM; Prov 29:25) is one of the most common yet harmful struggles in individuals and relationships. While there should be a healthy level of interdependence between individuals, in the FOM we put way too much hope in people. More specifically, we put too much hope in the performance of people, and in what they think of us, and even in what we think they think of us.

Put another way, in the FOM, we need people too much (i.e., a false need)—we desperately need their approval, and we need them to not reject us or disapprove of us. Making this worse, we lack appropriate reverence for and hope in God and His Word. God, of course, seeks to remove the fear of man and replace it with putting more and more hope in Him, and in His life, grace, power, and Word. However, the LTF does the polar opposite—as it is all about putting more and more hope in people, their performance, and what they think of us (Ps 118:8-9; 130:5-6; Jer 17:5-8).

Ideas Have Consequences

As we noted before, ideas have consequences. Therefore, the more people live according to the LTF, one or both individuals come to this realization: no matter how well they perform—no matter how much they do—no matter how many needs are met, it is never enough.

Nevertheless, one or both spouses are often still fixated on the other person, and are heavily depending on and putting their hope in their spouse’s insufficient and faulty performance. While there might be some highs in this, the lows increasingly far outweigh any good. This, then, leads to increasing despair, resentment, division, and stress—and eventually to deep hopelessness, and to eventual separation, if not divorce.

The only way to change this is to break out of the Love Tank Fallacy. First, we need to discern and acknowledge the numerous harmful deceits of the LTF (and hopefully warn others as well). Next, we need to turn to and depend more and more on God, and His all-sufficient love, grace, truth, and power. (cp. Jer 2:13; 17:5-8; 2 Tim 1:7) Therefore, instead of desperately living for love, we can confidently live from love. That one thing will change everything (Rom 5:5; 2 Cor 3:5ff; 1 Jn 4:16). [We have much, much more on all that in our book Re-Minded, and elsewhere.]

While living in God’s ways is easier said than done, His solutions are available for all of us—particularly in God Himself and His Word of life. However, in order to realize these, we need to turn away from error, falsehood, and “the corruption that is in the world”—and, instead, live in God’s love, and walk in truth and true grace. Thankfully, God has already sufficiently and abundantly given all these to us.

Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
– Romans 5:5

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.
– 2 Corinthians 9:8

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
– 2 Peter 1:2-4

7 Additional Truths About The Love Tank Fallacy

While the 15 massive problems are a sufficient warning for everyone, here are 7 additional truths for even greater clarity and further equipping:

1. The Love Tank Fallacy (LTF) cannot be found in Scripture—at all.
2. The LTF goes directly against and frequently violates God’s Word. It also repeatedly goes against God’s design for how to live, how to love, and how to function in marriage and relationships.
3. The LTF teaches that the love tank reigns supreme in our hearts and relationships, and not God, and not our relationship with Him. However, that is not surprising, given the source of this fallacy. What is more, the LTF proclaims that performing in ways that fill our love tank is “the key that makes marriage work.” Therefore, the performance of others is the ruling authority in our life and in our inner being. In contrast, God teaches us to focus on and set our heart on Him (Jer 17:7-8; Col 3:1-4), to “let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts” (Col 3:15), to “let the word of Christ dwell in us richly” (Col 3:16), and to gladly submit to God and His ways.
4. The LTF grossly perverts the reality of our hearts. More specifically, the LTF even makes us out to be basically good. This is what anti-Christian humanism believes—which, of course, is the exact opposite of what God teaches us in His Word (cp. Ecc 9:3; Mk 7:21-23; Rom 3:10-18). For a prime example of this perversion—and as we have seen—the serious sin of adultery is twisted into the adulterer “being pushed by their emotional needs to seek love outside of marriage” (TFLL). Examples of distortions in Love and Respect: “He knows he is full of goodwill” (L&R, 26). “But the main thing is to trust your wife’s heart” (L&R, p. 144; cp. Jer 17:9; Gen 6:5). “But I want to remind all husbands that their wives are basically good-willed women. They are only acting critical, contentious, and disrespectful because they are crying out for love” (L&R, p. 81). In other words, when they sin against and hurt people in this way, they are not really sinning, it’s not their fault, they are merely crying out for their husbands to fill their love tank. More importantly, and far above all of that, having the right understanding of our inner-being is absolutely essential for meeting our actual supreme needs, such as rightly grasping the gospel, for salvation— and for giving and receiving true love—and for overcoming countless problems in life.
5. The LTF comes from the world’s “wisdom.” More specifically, this needs-centric teaching comes from Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy Of Needs. That is vital to understand because Maslow is considered to be the father of humanism in America. Why is that important? Not only does God declare man’s wisdom to be “foolishness,” He warns us to have nothing to do with this harmful folly, and humanism is near the top of the list of harmful “wisdom.” In addition, God also tells us to warn others of it as well. Yet these love tank books—and the proponents of these books—are doing the exact opposite of what God clearly calls us to do. Counselors, authors, and teachers (including pastors) are only as good as the source of their teaching. Therefore, if the source is unsound, unbiblical, and erroneous, then their teaching is guaranteed to be deceitful and harmful. And that is the painful reality and fruit of LTF ideology (Ps 1:1; 1 Cor 1:18ff; 2:6ff; 3:18-20; Eph 5:6-11; Col 2:4, 8; 1 Jn 4:1-6; 2 Jn 1:7-11).
6. Humanism, from which the LTF comes, fully rejects and mocks God and His Word. Therefore, humanism is devoid of any accurate understanding of our hearts, souls, and minds. Far worse, humanism has a fully perverted belief of how God designed our actual inner being. How so? Humanism declares humans to be supreme and, as a result, God is supplanted from His rightful place. Not only that, He is removed altogether. It also teaches that humans are soulless beings—that we are just a bunch of chemicals that, by random chance, are more highly evolved than other life forms (e.g., plants; bacteria; animals). Therefore, just like all other organisms, our main function is to focus on meeting our various needs. Even worse, it teaches—mainly through Maslow—that the supreme goal of humans is the anti-biblical aim of achieving what is unachievable: self-actualization. Why is this critical for us to understand? Because anti-Christian humanism is the ultimate source of the needs-centric ideology which runs through the teaching of the LTF.
7. Far, far worse, humanism not only rejects and mocks the right understanding of God’s actual design of our inner being, it claims to be the one and only ideology which can help us understand and improve our inner being. Even worse, countless self-proclaiming Christians have bought into this deadly error—and many Christian leaders also teach this anti-Christian doctrine (cp. 1 Tim 4:1ff; Col 2:8)—and this is frequently done in the form of the Love Tank Fallacy.

Given the numerous deadly errors of the LTF, it makes perfect sense that the anti-Christ ideology of humanism is the source and foundation for the Love Tank Fallacy. However, when we focus on God—and depend on Him and His all-sufficient love, grace, power, and Word of life—then we can truly meet our actual life-determining needs—all of them—both in this life and the life to come.

But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
– 1 Timothy 4:7-8

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
– 2 Corinthians 3:5-6

And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
– Philippians 4:19

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
– Colossians 2:9-10

For further equipping, especially when it comes to love, marriage, and other relationships, we have many resources available: Hope For Life Resources

Discussion Questions

Here are the questions we asked near the beginning, which can also be used as helpful questions to discuss with others:

1. We know this popular teaching is very appealing, but what, exactly, does it appeal to: the flesh or the spirit?
2. Is it, as advertised by many, the answer to life’s problems and to the issues in marriages? If so, how? Or why not?
3. How, specifically, does this teaching fit into or go against God’s design?
4. What is the source of this ideology: the world or the Word?
5. What Scriptures can we use to fully support this teaching, or to refute it?
6. What should we do when there is a teaching inside the Church that comes from or is entwined with “the spirit of the age”?
7. How can we reconcile the sufficiency of God with this hyper emphasis on getting fallible humans to meet our superlative “needs”?
8. What are some of the likely harmful outcomes of teaching people to depend more and more on the performance of other people?

Personal Application Questions

In addition to the discussion questions above, the following can be very helpful for individuals to ponder, answer, and then apply to their life:

1. In what ways have you been impacted by the Love Tank Fallacy?
2. Which people in your life may have imposed the LTF on you (i.e., they focused on you and pressured you to meet their insatiable needs)? If so, what was the fruit and ultimate outcome of that relationship?
3. In what ways have you imposed this fallacy on to others (i.e., you focused on them and pressured them to meet your supreme needs)?
4. If so, what was the fruit and ultimate outcome of that relationship?
5. What do you need to do now regarding these people and relationships?
6. Who do you need to warn about these deadly errors?
7. If the LTF is so far from the truth—and harms so many individuals and relationships—why do you think it is so popular?
8. Why do you think this deadly fallacy is so popular inside the Church?
9. The more popular an idea or teaching is, the less likely it will be true or biblical. Do you agree or disagree, why or why not? (see Matt 7:13-14)

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

– Matthew 7:13-20

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