Product Description

Building an affair-proof marriage

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #473106 in Books
• Published on: 2005
• Binding: Hardcover
• 219 pages

Customer Reviews

Powerful, Practical Principles for Marriages -- A Classic!!
After 15 years, Harley's work is as profound now as it was when first published. Harley has revised his book in various places, updating it based upon lessons learned since the previous edition and making it applicable to marital challenges of the 21st century. His concepts are powerful and practical. While written by a conservative Christian author, these principles are applicable to persons regardless of their religious background.

Harley's approach to "affair-proofing" a marriage centers on a concept he labels "the love bank." Every husband and wife has a love bank that encounters both deposits and withdrawals from the opposite sex. A crucial distinction is made, however, in that deposits and withdrawals are made differently with men than they are with women. These differences are based upon the ten most felt needs of a relationship with the opposite gender. Husbands, in general, place the highest importance on the following five needs: sexual fulfillment, recreational companionship, an attractive spouse, domestic support, and admiration. Wives, in general, place the highest importance on the following five needs: affection, conversation, honesty and openness, financial support, and family commitment. Both genders express need for all ten items, but typically husbands and wives have contrasting priorities.

According to Harley, when an individual meets one or more of the partner's greatest felt needs, deposits are made into the partner's love bank. When one or more needs are not met, withdrawals are made from the partner's love bank. An affair occurs when a spouse finds fulfillment for a strongly felt need elsewhere because it is not being met satisfactorily within the marriage.

Harley's love bank concept is the centerpiece of his best-selling work. While his list of felt needs may not apply precisely to every man and woman, he does present a very accurate picture for most men and women in our society today. He concludes his book with giving tips on surviving an affair, and offering hope to couples struggling with a sense of incompatibility.

If you are serious about preparing for marriage, protecting your marriage, or propelling your marriage to even greater heights, this book is a must. Order it, read it, and see how powerful and practical these time-proven principles are!

Great book - saved our marriage!!
This book is excellent and is a must-read for anyone contemplating marriage, having marital trouble, or happily married wanting things to be even more perfect. The previous reviewer may have taken the "needs" too literally. Dr. Harley mentions 5 of the "top" needs, but it is not the same for everyone. As a matter of fact, in my marriage, I have a few of the "male" needs, and my husband has a few of the "female" needs. But it works for us.

We were literally on the brink of divorce - only needed to get a lawyer. This book totally changed our thinking. We thought we were meeting each other's needs, but we were really meeting our "own" needs, which are rarely applicable to the spouse. We learned so much from this book, and now give it out as wedding presents to hopefully spare couples from the trouble we experienced.

I *highly* recommend this book, and don't know what we would have done without this information. We periodically read it again for a refresher course - and it always works wonders. I have read the John Gray books, but found this book to be the most helpful for us. Our marriage is fabulous now!

Saved my marriage, too.
This is a GREAT book for those of you who love their spouse, but are not "In Love", those whose marraige is a little flat, but can't figure out why, those who have fallen "out of love" with their spouse and think that is "normal" in marriage, those who have taken the "divide and conquer" approach to family responsibilities and therefore have little time together, and those who are slowly drifting apart because their interests are different. Harley clearly shows us how to care for our spouses in ways that make them feel loved, and how to get to an "In Love" state that can last. It gave me the practical tools I needed to stop wasting energy trying to do things for my wife that she didn't really appreciate anyway, and re-direct my energy into things that mattered. It did the same for her.

That said, the book is not perfect.

By reading the other reviews here at Amazon.com, it is obvious that one of Harley's main points in this book can be missed by its readers. Apparently, people can read this book and miss Harley's statements that although the needs presented as "women's needs" are typical of women, and the needs presented as "mens needs" are typical of men, EACH PERSON IS DIFFERENT, so you should fill out the questionaire at the end of the book and figure out how this applies to you. Most people have at least one need that is "typical" of the other sex. My wife and I are pretty far from typical, so it probably helped that we took the questionaire BEFORE reading the book. I admit that the stereotypical way the needs are described is irritating.

I also agree that it can be read in a way that puts your spouse where God should be in your life. I don't think that is what the author says or means. I think looking at it as: "In a typical marriage we are to be God's method of providing for our spouse's emotional needs", comes pretty close to the truth. This book provides most of the tools needed to identify and meet those needs, and I can personally attest to the improvements that makes in a marriage.

To suggest, as one reviewer here does, that our spouses need to learn to accept the type of love that we have to give, rather than for us to learn to love them in the way they understand, is so wrong-headed that I cannot believe it. That seems to me to be demanding that our spouse change for us, rather than demanding of ourselves that we change for our spouse, which is a recipe for divorce...