The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between marital satisfaction, life satisfaction, and care for a spouse in middle-aged married couples. Eighty-two husbands and wives were asked to rate their degrees of care for their spouse and of their expectation for desired care by their spouse, using 27 components of care. The results can be summarized as follows: first, there was no difference between husbands and wives in the degree of care for a spouse. However, there was a difference in the degree of expectation for desired care; wives had higher expectations of care than did husbands. An examination of husbands and wives’ care for each other revealed that both husbands and wives cared for a spouse less than they desired to be cared by their spouse. The results from the regression analysis demonstrated that, for husbands, their care for their wives and their desired degree of care affected marital satisfaction. Meanwhile, for wives, marital satisfaction was affected not only by their care for their husbands and their desired degree of care, but also by the husbands’ care for their wives and desired degree of care. In terms of life satisfaction, for husbands, only their care for their wives affected their satisfaction; whereas for wives, their satisfaction was affected by care for their husbands and their husbands’ care for them.