Fall in Love, Stay in Love

Willard F. Harley author of Fall in Love, Stay in Love, writes that marriage partners have ten emotional needs. Here is the problem. Dr. Harley says that a woman's top five emotional needs and a man's top five emotional needs often don't overlap. When you think about it, you then have a problem. To fulfill your spouses' needs you will have to fill needs that aren't that important to you. If your spouse's needs were the same as yours, it would be easy. You would fulfill your own needs while at the same time fulfilling your partner's. If for example, you both had a strong need for conversation, you could talk to your spouse and be satisfying yourself while fulfilling one of your spouse's important emotional needs, But, if your top five emotional needs are different than the top five emotional needs of your spouse, then you will only fulfill your spouse's emotional needs if you work at it. Dr. Harley states that when people first date, they have two rules: I will do whatever I can to make you happy and I will avoid doing whatever makes you unhappy. Dr. Harley calls this, I will do whatever I can to make love bank deposits and I will whatever I can to avoid making love bank withdrawals. Sometime later the emphasis changes from I will do what ever makes you happy and avoid anything that makes you unhappy, to I will do whatever makes me happy, and avoid doing whatever makes me unhappy. Follow that second set of rules and you will have marital problems in a fairly short time. Keeping a proper Love Bank balance requires you to fulfill your spouse's most important emotional needs. That may not be too difficult when you are madly in love. You will then do anything then to make you partner happy and avoid making your spouse unhappy. But once you are no longer madly in love, it becomes difficult to fulfill needs that really aren't that important to you. So how do you fulfill needs that if you are not madly in love? The marriage ceremony recognizes that love is not just a feeling, it is also a decision and commitment. You make a vow to love your spouse. That vow recognizes that love is not just a feeling. Most people then use their commitment to try to make their spouse happy. Some are insightful enough to realize the differing needs and attempt to satisfy those needs. A lot of people stumble blindly when they attempt to make their spouse happy because they do not recognize the inherent problem. His needs are different than her needs. If that difference isn't known, or isn't respected, and if no effort is made to determine what the needs are and the most effective way to meet those needs there is bound to be a lot of pain, a lot of resentment and disappointment. The magic may magically be gone. But how do fulfill needs that if you are not madly in love? The first way is commitment. Dr. Harley also has another insight. You don't have to sit down every day and ask, "How will I meet my sp

The concepts are fairly basic, but as far as I can tell, most new couples (most people) don't know them. They have bought into the idea that you can only make yourself happy, so why should you meet your spouse's needs if you don't feel like it? Or they are trying to meet their spouse's needs, but instead are doing things that would meet their own needs because they don't get that their spouse needs different things. And most people really have no idea about avoiding love busters. I yelled at my husband a lot when we were first married. I felt that it is better to express feelings. It is, but not by yelling! That never once made things better.I like this book much better than His Needs, Her Needs, because it is much less gender-role stereotyped.

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.

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