Getting The Love You Want: A Guide For Couples

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Summary: A Note from a Villanova University Senior Thesis Group
Review: Amazon.com Review for Getting the Love You Want
Author: Harville Hendrix

This review was completed by a group of five college seniors from Villanova University. We spent a semester researching and reviewing best-selling self-help books on the subject of romantic relationships. We evaluated five texts after reviewing academic literature specifically on the topics of commitment, trust, conflict, verbal communication, and intimacy. In order to make you a more informed consumer, we hope to provide you with a review of Getting the Love You Want.
The author's intent of this book is to help people improve their romantic relationships. He claims that the book will provide sound insight for dating couples, married couples, heterosexual and homosexual couples. Getting the Love You Want provides people with an understanding of where their difficulties may stem from and includes a section of the book with actual exercises for couples to do over a period of time to improve their relationship. The style of the book is very personable and easy to understand. Hendrix's extensive experience of working with couples and helping people shines through his writing and helps the reader to feel at ease. Hendrix is challenging, yet at the same time understanding.
Getting the Love You Want addresses couples who want to work together to improve their relationship. The exercises in the book target both individuals in the relationship, but allow for increased self-understanding and growth as well.

We evaluated how the following five topics were approached in the book:

Commitment- The advice for couples in revolves around the theme of commitment. Two chapters are devoted to commitment as well as a subheading in another chapter. Ideal commitment is described as "a decision to join together in a journey that will last the rest of their lives." Personal dedication is described as a necessary component of commitment.

Trust- Several implications of trust are discussed in the book, but the word trust is briefly mentioned. Hendrix points out that the process of developing trust is a learning experience that allows someone to really get to know their partner. He suggests that we need to get over our self-centered tendencies and deal with personal issues preventing trust.

Conflict- This subject is addressed in terms of anger, criticism and arguments. Specific exercises deal with working things out as a couple. Conflict is described as something that is not necessarily bad, but rather expressing anger in a constructive manner can be healthy. Hendrix recommends approaching situations with more acceptance and understanding in order that conflict may be seen in a more productive light.

Verbal Communication- This topic is addressed in a very straightforward manner in the book. Hendrix stresses the importance of good communication skills. Couples need to be clear and specific in their communication. The book provides specific step-by-step exercises to enhance communication.

Intimacy- The book approaches intimacy in the context of self-disclosure, expression of thought and emotion, listening, providing support, and making positive verbal statements. Hendrix also stresses the importance of sharing one's feelings.

This book is best for the subject of verbal communication.(...)

Rating:
Summary: AUTHOR REVIEW - FIVE STARS
Review: I read Hendrix's book, "Getting the love you want" and was taken with its simplicity. He offers a great deal of help for anyone who wants to obtain a meaningful, healthy relationship. His approach is fresh and free of the typical demonization of others. Excellent book that I highly recommend.

John D. Moore, MS, CADC
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Author of Confusing Love with Obsession

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Summary: It takes two
Review: It is hard to tell others what we want, this book gives practical tips on how to do just that. If couples could only communicate better, so many children would have both parents under the same roof. I recommend this book to anyone who is in a relationship. Also check out Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey for a step-by-step guide to getting more out of life.

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Summary: It brought me comfort and understanding
Review: My relationship of 16 months has been faltering for 8 months. Three weeks ago my girlfriend told me she "didn't want to be with me anymore." I was devastated. I've spent the last three weeks living and re-living all the events of our relationship and have talked to friends for hours ad-nauseum.

The relationship started out so well. We had been acquaintences for 8 years. Friends for 2 1/2 years and finally entered into a relationship 16 months ago. The stages of our relationship eerily followed the book.

My pain, confusion and loss was all-consuming. I could find no understanding within myself, no peace and no answers. Then one of my friends recommended I read this book.

I had gone through a "self-help book" craze 9 years ago for another issue I was dealing with. Although I did find some answers after reading so many books I ended up overdosing on them and haven't read one since. I was not enthusiastic at all about revisiting the "self-help" area again. But I opened the book and read the first couple sentences and knew immediately...instinctively...that this was the book that would be able to help me understand many of the issues we must face in relationships....why we are attracted to certain people and not others...what happens to relationships once you get comfortable with the other person and you begin to lower your "guard"...why many of the things you do to try to "fix" your partner actually do more to drive the partner away.

As other readers have noted, this book will not be effective for immature readers. Although I am a bit wary of psychologists that embrace a single theory to explain behavior, I found the rest of this book valuable and directly applicable to my life.

Thank God for this book. It has enabled me to have my first good night sleep in three weeks. Even if your partner lacks the maturity to absorb, understand and apply the message in this book, it will give -you- the tools you need to ensure a better relationship in the future. Thank you Dr Hendrix for writing this book!

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Summary: Working much faster than anticipated!
Review: We're an average couple with a toddler and all the accompanying stresses that finally brought all our relationship problems to the boiling point. When I found myself saying "I can't take this anymore" I decided to get the book because I'd heard good things about it. The text section at the beginning of the book completely made sense to me, so I asked my husband if he'd be willing to commit to doing the exercises with me. It's a commitment of one 1-2 hour session each week for 10 weeks. My husband was up for the plan, so we started it out.

Here we are 3 weeks into the exercises, and our marriage is better than it's been at least since our son was born. We found that the simple act of signing our agreements to work through all the exercises in good faith and then doing week 1 (creating a common vision for your relationship) lifted a lot of tension and allowed us to be able to give each other the benefit of the doubt more easily. After slogging through the tough stuff of week 2 and then sharing it with each other in week 3 we seem to be closer than I can remember us being since the initial glow of infatuation wore off. I'm actually starting to look forward to our weekly sessions instead of dreading them as something we had to do because we didn't want to split up.

Some of the reviewers of this book sound like it's got a magic incantation that you can say that will make your relationship fixed in an instant. That's not the case at all. It *does* give you the tools to help yourselves *if you want to*. You're still going to have to sit down and talk about it and write it down and think about yourself and what you really want and what you've been fooling yourself about. But the exercises are designed to bring you just as far as you need to go each week without overwhelming you. Some of the exercises seem a little hokey, but laughing at the language helped us bond a little more, so who cares? It's working so far. I'll post again in a few weeks when we're further into it to give an updated view.