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Yes! This section is all about finding quick tips and straightforward marriage advice from people who have actually “been there”. Marriage is the ultimate commitment. For those of us who cant keep the same channel on the TV going for more than three minutes before pushing the channel button, “the rest of your life” is a BIG deal!
You won’t find sophisticated titles or formal counseling education in these pages, what you will find is the result of a whole lot of tedious, and sometimes emotionally painful work from people just like you. The tedious part is going through books, videos, articles, research data and anything else we can find, and then trying to distill it. The idea is that after the distillation process we will be able to share simple marriage guidelines that you can put into action right away, without psychological jargon or new age ambiguity.
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The emotionally painful part is reliving, through our reading and research, the painful and very trying periods in our lives. In essence it is these experiences that have given us the opportunity at simple-relationship-advice.com to help out as best we can. What makes it all worth it is having the hope and vision of helping your marriage grow and prosper.
We obviously cant brag about having read and analyzed EVERYTHING that is out there, but we will look at the mainstream and find those precious jewels that make the work worthwhile. One of the concepts that has stuck and which is very actionable is the concept of the Love Bank. Not sure if this concept was actually developed by Dr. Willard Harley, but he claims so in his book His Needs, Her Needs. I believe I also saw the concept used in John Gray’s book Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. Who knows who should take the credit? The value is in the concept.
Dr. Harley states: “Inside all of us is a Love Bank with accounts in the names of everyone we know. When these people are associated with our good feelings, “love units” are deposited into their accounts, and when they are associated with our bad feelings, love units are withdrawn. We are emotionally attracted to people with positive balances and repulsed by those with negative balances. This is the way our emotions encourage us to be with people who seem to treat us well, and avoid those who seem to hurt us.”
Ok, we get that… So now what? Well, the main reason marriage starts moving off track is because one or both partners starts falling “out of love”. That means that the romantic feeling of love that was felt at some point is now gone or dwindling. How did this happen?! The answer: Bank withdrawals!!! That’s right, click here to understand how marriage problems are caused by one or both partners doing stuff that withdraws love units from our love bank! So how do you make deposits?! That take us to another topic… Needs. You, me and everyone else has specific needs that when fulfilled are the equivalent of getting deposits in our love bank. These deposits will help your relationship more than any marriage advice you might read here!
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Dr. Harley goes as far as saying that when two people do enough stuff to fulfill each others needs a certain “special” threshold gets crossed and “romantic love” happens. You know what? I’d rather put this to the test than debate about its validity… so I did, and it works. Some detractors of this philosophy regard it as being the actual definition of codependent relationship and regard it as unhealthy.
At the end, only you will be able to say if it works or not. That will only happen if you put the concepts to the test. Remember, at simple-relationship-advice.com we are all about the simple secrets of a great marriage. Marriage advice that you can start DOING, so… go DO! Do WHAT you say?! Yes you’re right, I haven’t explained much. So far we have: Love bank, fulfilled needs=deposits=love, withdrawals=falling out of love. Lets get back to this “needs” business. Guess what the number one need for men is? Sexual intimacy. Guess what the number one need for women is? Affection. This is obviously a generalization, but speaking “in general” it seems like we are headed for trouble.
So lets say when you got married you had a list of needs. Do you think you will have those same needs with the same level of priority throughout the rest of your life? I would dare say… NO. People go through all kinds of major like changing events, a new child, moving out of state, a mid life crisis, a death in the family, a life threatening illness…or just maturing. So lets add some more key learning’s here: Your partners needs=important!
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Aside from what you can do to deposit, there are also things you do to withdraw love units from your love bank. In my experience, one of the most harmful things you can do spring from anger. This is something we need to pay special attention to and learn to deal with anger. What are we doing to withdraw love units from our partners love bank? Having read all of the above you might be in a situation where you are way past the “honey look at these interesting ideas!” stage, and into the “please save my marriage!” stage…real trouble. Your spouse might have moved out, you might have fallen prey or victim to some incident you believe is not fixable. Don’t give up. Do something!
I tell you from experience that you need to feel that you did everything in your power to fix things or it will haunt you later. Here again there is a wealth of information, I cant stress enough how important it is for you to find some type of help, even if you go at it alone. There are the obvious answers like marriage counseling, marriage weekends, relationship coaches, etc. Its hard to weed through these, and in tough times you are vulnerable and gullible. Although we can’t vouch for anyone, we have done the due diligence. By no means should our research override your good judgment, but we have done our best to separate the wheat from the chaff.
So, that is a good summary of what you will find here in the Marriage A to Z section. It should be a whole lot of simple marriage advice. Be sure to come often because we will be adding content frequently… A to Z sets a high expectation, we have a lot to cover! Make sure you check out all the links on the page to get a clear picture of the concepts and actions, and, if you have any suggestions that will help us help YOU better…please send us a note, we will fix it.
