51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Further advice for lifelong love, January 26, 2005
This review is from: Fall in Love, Stay in Love (Hardcover)
I recently reviewed Harley's book His Needs, Her Needs. This book contains a summary of his needs-based approach to marriage and love, and also incorporates further ideas from his book Love Busters, which I have not read.
Basically, the book returns to Harley's theory of a "Love Bank," where actions that meet the partner's needs cause a positive deposit of "love units" and actions that fail to meet (or even act against) a partner's needs cause a negative withdrawal of them. Harley's solution is simple: maximize the deposits while minimizing the withdrawals.
In other words, do everything you can to make sure that your partner's needs are being met.
Harley breaks the needs into ten categories:
Affection
Sexual Fulfillment
Conversation
Recreational Companionship
Honesty & Openness
Physical Attractiveness
Financial Support
Domestic Support
Family Commitment
Admiration
These needs are covered in great detail in His Needs, Her Needs, but this book provides enough of an overview for the reader to get the idea.
He then goes on to discuss several "Love Busters." These are habits or defense actions which can actually cause massive withdrawals of love units from the Love Bank. These were covered in his Love Busters book. Not having read that book, however, Fall in Love, Stay in Love does an excellent job of explaining them. The five Love Busters addressed are:
Demands
Disrespectful Judgments
Angry Outbursts
Annoying Behaviors
Dishonesty
Clearly, these sort of things can seriously harm a relationship. Harley's process of delving down to the roots of why these different activities happen, why they should be stopped, and how to more productively deal with them, cut to the heart of his program.
He describes how each person has a Giver and a Taker inside of them. The Giver wants to provide for the other person, regardless of the cost to yourself. The Taker wants to provide for yourself, regardless of the cost to the other person. The conflict between these two parts is what causes discord in marriage and -- in Harley's experience as a counselor -- affairs to take place.
In order to stop this conflict, he says, a couple should only do things that they both enthusiastically agree to. This means that neither person gets strong-armed into an activity they don't want to do.
The idea is to minimize resentment and inequality, but it seems that this level of sacrifice could lead to resentment and inequality just as easily as solving it. Obviously, if both people buy into the philosophy equally well, that would probably be the case -- but what if one of them buys into it more, or what if it just flat out takes more to please one of them? Wouldn't the other person eventually grow tired of always agreeing but never being agreed with?
Despite those problems, this does seem like a good program. If you're going to lay out general rules then these seem like the ones to follow, intended to continuously promote love and harmony. They would bring about feelings of unity rather than discord, and that, ultimately, seems as if it's what is needed to save a marriage.
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Book is a Marital Lifesaver!, July 31, 2002
This review is from: Fall in Love, Stay in Love (Hardcover)
Although I had read His Needs, Her Needs, this book absolutely blew me away. Harley's insight and concepts are absolutely incredible. On the verge of separation, this book literally saved my life as I know it and my marriage.
Just as His Needs, Her Needs presents the concept of the basic different needs and how to meet them, this book delves into the concept of the two types of love in marriage (romantic and caring), three states of mind in marriage (intimacy, conflict and withdrawal), the giver/taker that lies within each of us, and most importantly, how to handle conflict with intelligence and not emotion.
Bottom Line: This book is a must read for anyone who is struggling in their marriage or who feels that their love and relationship is irretreivably broken.
The principles, ideas and concepts presented in this book created a new mindset for me. Before reading it, I felt as though I were incapable and unwilling to work for my marriage. It restored my hope in restoring love and gave me all of the tools to do so.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Riding with Harley, November 7, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Fall in Love, Stay in Love (Hardcover)
He's done it again. William Harley has a great track record of putting out relationship books that are honest, insightful and useful. This one definitely fits the bill.
For most couples falling in love is the easy part. Staying in love is a completely different matter. Harley dispenses his typical wisdom into the main reasons marriages fail and what you can do to keep the love ever present. No one needs to fall for the lie that love and passion can't be as present 20, 30 or 40 years into a marriage.
Anyone seriously wanting to keep the romance and passion alive (or revived) in their relationship should definitely take a look at this book AND The RoMANtic's Guide - which I believe is the best tips and idea book to come out in my 30 years of marriage counseling. If every couple read and followed these two books, I'd be out of a job. Which would be a good thing.
Dr. Bradley Sears, Spokane Washington
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