His Needs, Her Needs - 7/04/07

[Smartmarriages]

Hi!! 

I just landed - back from Denver and THE MOST WONDERFUL Smart Marriages
Conference.  Everyone says it was "the best ever". Hope you all arrived home
safely and are enjoying the fireworks tonight.

Literally 1,000s of emails to catch up with (I was gone 10 days!) - I will
forward a few as I open them.

This one is about Willard Harley who received a 2007 Smart Marriages Impact
Award for his lifetime contribution to the field.  His banquet keynote is
available on audio MP3, CD, or video DVD at 800-241-7785 - session #757-006.
It's a classic. - diane


July 3, 2007
Column #1,349
³His Needs, Her Needs²
by Mike McManus
 
DENVER - Dr. Willard Harley, a noted psychologist and author, told 2,000
marriage activists at last week¹s Smart Marriage Conference that he
experienced years of failure and frustration as a marital counselor until
age 35.

³How do you know if you are successful?² he asked himself.

³A couple leaves your office, hand-in-hand. A couple drops their plan to
divorce. A couple calls you to say their marriage is finally on the right
track. A couple tells you that your counseling is the best they ever
received.

³All of these are examples of couples I counseled who eventually divorced,²
he confessed.

No matter what he did, it did not work. He taught the importance of
commitment in marriage, that it was God¹s will that they should stay
together. He taught them how to communicate better.  ³But I remained a
failure.²

He worked for the most prestigious marital clinic in the Twin Cities that
claimed to save 90% of troubled marriages. Harley investigated and found
only 10 percent were saved. Even the clinic¹s director got divorced.

Therefore, Harley took two radical steps. First, he stopped charging for
counseling. Second, he asked couples what it would take to save their
marriage. Many thought nothing would save it. Commitment by the other
person? Nope. Communication? No. Love? Ditto.

³I love my husband, but I am not in love with him,² was a typical response..

Then he asked, ³Would being in love save their marriage?² Not a single
couple who was in love wanted to divorce. Therefore, he predicted that if he
could restore love in marriage, marriages would be saved. But how?

Over a decade Harley began a series of experiments on romantic love, such as
a test with 200 items to measure it, studies on love at first sight and
whether anyone had the feeling of love for the same person throughout life.
That was how he felt about Joyce, his wife of 44 years. His research
revealed that a fifth of all couples experienced a lifelong satisfying
marriage.

What he concluded is that ³There is a `Love Bank¹ account in the name of
everyone we encounter. When we associate someone with good feelings, love
units are deposited. When we associate that person with bad feelings, love
units are withdrawn.²

How do people fall in love? Harley believes that couples discover what makes
each of them happy, and learns how to produce that joy in each other. ³When
they deposit 1,000 love units, they pass the romantic threshold, triggering
romantic love. They become irresistible.²

People marry because each person¹s Love Bank is so full they want to spend
the rest of their lives together. ³They think they will love each other
until death,² he says.

Why do so many divorce? One or both people start making Love Bank
withdrawals. He stops complimenting her.  She criticizes him in public.
Their time with each other drops as children arrive. Romantic Love² fades
into ³Caring Love.²

However, each person must fulfill the emotional needs of their spouse, or
the Caring Love will disappear as did the Romantic Love. To learn what were
the emotional needs in marriage, Harley asked people what would make them
the happiest.

³Men tended to want SEXUAL FULFILLMENT and RECREATIONAL COMPANIONSHIP.
Women tended to want AFFECTION and CONVERSATION most.

³But husbands and wives did not appreciate the importance of each other¹s
emotional needs. Many thought that the other person¹s needs were unnecessary
or even silly. They thought that romance was best defined as activities that
met their own needs, but not that of their spouse,² Harley asserted.

Neither gender realized that meeting their spouse¹s emotional needs ³kept
them in love with each other.²  Therefore, he began to teach women to give
men SEXUAL FULFILLMENT and RECREATIONAL COMPANIONSHIP. And men to give their
wives AFFECTION and INTIMATE CONVERSATION.

Meeting these emotional needs ³deposits the most love units and is what we
expect our spouses to do for us when we marry. When these needs are unmet in
marriage, infidelity and divorce are often the result,² he concluded.

For example, during courtship couples schedule time for intimate
conversation, but rarely do so after marriage. That time is important for
problem solving, planning and negotiating. It is also unlikely that couples
would have fallen in love without enjoyable recreational time together. So
why not ³spend your most enjoyable recreational time with your spouse?² he
asks.

After years of research Harley wrote a book ³His Needs, Her Needs² which is
the only book ever published to sell more copies every year since 1986, 3
million so far.

Husbands and wives: Do you want to restore love in your marriage? Buy the
book.


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Copyright © 2007 Michael J. McManus