Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 20th Anniversary Edition Paperback – Bargain Price, December 26, 2007

A wonderful book that has been updated after 20 years of more tried and true field experience. This additional fine tuning will help even more individuals/couples get the love that they want. Easy to read with good real life examples of couples who struggle to heal their wounds and those of their partner. The personal insights alone were worth the read, but to have a road map of healing myself and helping my husband to heal were priceless. I have purchased this book as a gift for many people -- some were burgeoning psychotherapists that I thought could use some help understanding the much deeper meaning of the re-occurring scenarios in marital discord -- some were mature couples ready to re-define and re-shape their marriage into something much deeper and more satisfying -- other recipients were young couples whose marriage was in trouble and needed the assurance not to throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble and to use the road map [exercises and weekend workshops] to return to getting the love that they wanted and were often desperately while still in the first throws of romantic love. The authors have "been there/done that" and live the examples that they so lovingly write about. Even if your spouse/significant other is not inclined to seek/receive help, even if you are single and no longer want to be or even if you want to delve deeper into your own psyche to heal some of your personal wounds this book will be a tremendous help on the way to a deeper understanding of yourself amd of others. You don't have to have an intimate and/or close relationship with someone to appreciate their wounds -- your friends, family, children, acquaintances, and even in the macrocosm -- your community -- to better understand, appreciate and compassionately live with them. I highly recommend this book as a resource to getting the love you want in your life.

An absolute eye opener! For me it took reading about 58 first pages of the book to buy 10 of them for all of my friends. Later my friends bough even more for their friends. This book is a total eye opener for someone who went from religion to drinking, from dating wrong individuals and losing kids to the separation mess to swearing to be alone for the rest of the life just to "feel" happy. I can't express more thanks to Dr. Hendrix and his team for putting this material together. When I went through it I knew how I could have saved those precious things in my past I lost because I did not know who I was. A couple of additional thoughts. It does help to find a group of people or a counselor to discuss (vocalize) what you discover about yourself. Even if it is a close friend. We all have a tendency of sliding back to our original comfort zone. Don't let what you learn be forgotten for it will be. Secondly, don't be surprised if some people (including your those close to you) have a different reaction to what you read. My girlfriend at the time could not deal with the proposed exercises and we ended up breaking up instead of saving the ending relationship. There were also a couple of friends who were well-read on psychology books. Stay away from those individuals and don't let them spoil your discovery of yourself. I was strong enough not to listen to them and the book made me a better man. Last and not least, speak about your findings and get the pain out of your chest. You have no idea what it means for your friends (the real friends) to understand you better to be able to help when you need it with the most appropriate action. People started showing more interest in me as I was uncovering the damage done to my individuality through incorrect upbringing. The latter also sparked a lot of conversations with my own parents. There were some hurtful ones. You will learn that your folks live in a bubble of belief that they were doing the right thing for you and actually succeeded in it. I came to realize that they almost succeeded at failing me and my sister. So the next step is learning how to forgive now that all the pain and skeletons are out.

This is a wonderful book for understanding why we pick people in romantic love and how our overall decisions in relationships have to do with our upbringing. If we can continue to learn what is realistic to receive from a romantic relationship and what it takes to give the other person to continue in respect and love for another - this book explains it. I love the experience by helping couples the writer learned that when you just teach a better way of communicating it opens the door for each other to find something new to fight about. He explains how people can be divorced still living together and ultimately you have to decide if this is something to salvage or move on. There are two types of people in a relationship - a "fuser" or and "isolater" - which I think is amazing. One may have not had their needs met as a child and need to fuse with the person - feel safe and in connection alot, basically, worried about being abandoned. I had no idea that I had fear of abandonment because I was always fine on my own. The isolater keeps busy and fears being too close to someone so they keep their life very busy when with spouse - house chores, t.v., reading, projects, or hobbies. There is a test and ultimately the book can help if you are single or already in a relationship to better understand your own needs and who you are while trying to connect with someone. It can broaden your thinking and open new ideas to yourself and reflect much on past and where you want to be in the future.

If you lost a mate and it’s been years since you been out in the dating realm or have had a bad experience or think there may be some changes you feel you would like to make but also wonder why you do want you do? This book is where you want to start! I highly recommend it. You can teach an old dog new tricks 🙂!!

Interesante

I've read a lot of books on relationships and this one is the best. Everyone needs to read it!It starts off explaining how our childhood experiences lead us to choose the partners we do. It's a Freudian perspective but makes a lot of sense. It then moves on to how to improve your relationship and has countless practical examples and exercises to complete.It is clear that the authors know what they're talking about and that their methods of supporting couples to improve their relationships are very effective.I couldn't recommend this more.

A good read

Excellent and important book for anyone who wants to understand their relationship patterns and how to change them.I read it for the first time when I was 21, and it caused me to totally change my perspective of myself, and whom I should be dating. It opened my eyes and my mind to the way that my parents' relationship and their parenting style had affected me and impacted my own relationship choices. After reading it, I started recognizing why I'd been dating men who kept hurting me and how to 'teach' myself to be attracted to men who would actually be deserving partners. Two years after reading it, I met the man who became my husband, and I'm sure without Dr. Hendrix's teaching I would've never been attracted to a man so different from anyone else I dated before. We've been happily married for over 20 years.Because of how useful the information in the book is, I've ended up purchasing it multiple times because I'm constantly giving my copies away to friends who can use it.The only issues I have with this book is that it assumes all couples are straight, and it's language is not very inclusive. As well it has an obvious Christian slant which may not work for some readers. But besides that it's a wonderful, straight-forwarded read and the information is honestly life-changing. If you're interested in figuring out why you keep dating the wrong people, you want to find the right one and you're willing to do a bit of soul-searching to get there, this is the book for you.

Ce livre est parmis les meilleurs que j'ai lus. Il est certainement utilie pour toute personne en couple ou qui a un projet de fonder un couple durable.