117 Romantic Love in Marriage with Dr. Willard Harley

117. Romantic Love in Marriage with Dr. Willard Harvey

 

**Transcription Below**

 

Proverbs 3:17 (NIV) “Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace.”

 

Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D. is best known as author of the internationally best selling book, His Needs, Her Needs. Over four million copies have been purchased, and it is available in twenty-two foreign translations.

 

Dr. Harley earned a Ph.D. degree in psychology from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1967 and has been a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in Minnesota since 1975. Dr. and Mrs. Harley also host a daily one-hour call-in show, Marriage Builders® Radio. It can be heard on radio stations and on the Internet. They live in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. They have two adult children, who are now working with them as marriage coaches, and four grandchildren. They are also great-grandparents.

 

Other Episodes Related to Marriage and Gender Differences:

36 Gender Differences and Common Relationship Conflict with Certified Sex Therapist, Vickie George

37 Being Intentional with Marriage, Parenting, Rest, Personal development, and Leadership with Pastor, Podcaster, and Author, Jeff Henderson

50 Understanding Gender Differences in Marriage with Dr. Ted and Ang Bryant

61 Marital Communication and Intentional Family Life with Author, Speaker, and Podcaster, Susan Seay

65 Simple Solutions to Help You Prepare For, Enrich, or Save Your Marriage with Dr. Matthew Turvey, Director of WinShape Marriage

85 5 Love Languages with Dr. Gary Chapman

93 Understanding Men and Women Better with Shaunti Feldhahn

107 Communication and Healthy Conflict Resolution with Kelley Gray

108 Anatomy of an Affair with Dave Carder

111 Building Love Together in Blended Families with Ron Deal

113 Supernatural Restoration Story with Bob and Audrey Meisner

 

At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. 

 

Books by Dr. Willard Harley:

His Needs, Her Needs

Love Busters

He Wins, She Wins

His Needs, Her Needs for Parents

 

Dr. Harley’s Marriage Website

Marriage Builders Radio App

 

Thank You to Our Sponsor: WinShape Marriage

 

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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

 

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

 

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

 

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

 

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

 

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

 

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

 

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

 

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

 

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

 

**Transcription**

[00:00:00] <music>

 

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

 

[00:00:18] <music>

 

Laura Dugger: I am thrilled to introduce you to our sponsor, Winshape Marriage. Their weekend retreats will strengthen your marriage, and you will enjoy this gorgeous setting, delicious food, and quality time with your spouse. To find out more, visit them online at Winshapemarriage.org. That's WinshapeMarriage.org. Thanks for your sponsorship. 

 

Dr. Willard Harley is best known internationally for his best-selling book entitled, His Needs, Her Needs. This resource has helped millions of marriages. I am honored to interview him as my guest today. 

 

Dr. Harley is going to help us understand our emotional needs, and he's going to share these subtle attitudes and actions that are most likely to hurt our marriages. I think you're going to leave this conversation feeling equipped to make small and thoughtful changes in your romantic relationship that will pay off with incredible results. 

 

Here's our chat.[00:01:27]

 

Welcome to the Savvy Sauce, Dr. Harley.

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Thank you. Glad to be with you today. 

 

Laura Dugger: Will you just start us off by sharing a bit more about your journey to becoming a marriage expert? 

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Well, I actually started out in mathematics and physics and engineering. The idea of becoming a marriage expert was about the farthest thing from my mind. I was going to be a computer programmer, and I was interested in computer technology and artificial intelligence. 

 

The artificial intelligence part was what got the attention of the psychology department, the university where I was doing postgraduate work. And so they offered me a chance to get a PhD in psychology in three years without getting a master's or anything. And I jumped at the opportunity. So three years later, I'm a psychologist.

 

I became more and more interested in the problems that people had. [00:02:28] I've been involved in the interaction with people with their problems probably since I was a teenager. My dad is a psychologist.

 

So people would come to me with their marriage problems and didn't understand what it would take to have a great marriage, didn't do any reading on the subject, and I became a failure. 

 

I'm not good at being a failure. So the longer I was approached by people with their marriage problems, the more I thought, "I better learn how to do this because people are coming to me." I'm a firm believer that the Lord gives us opportunities. And what that usually means is that He wants us to learn something about this so that we can follow His will. So I learned. I learned how to be a marriage counselor.

 

This took me quite a number of years, a lot of failure. Eventually, I got to a point where I was really good at this sort of thing. [00:03:28] I was able to save a lot of marriages and started writing books on it. And here we are today talking about marriage. 

 

Laura Dugger: From that experience, just to follow up with a few questions, was it through just experiencing couples and talking to them or through reading other books? Or what do you feel like really aided that process of going from a failure to a success? 

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Well, I read a lot of books. As a matter of fact, I did an internship and studied the methods that people were using. I became very much aware that the methods that were available at the time, which was in the 60s, didn't work. 

 

In the 70s, the people that I did the internship with, the director of the program, got divorced. Even though they claimed a 90 percent success rate, I discovered that that was a lie. They were probably not really very successful in any of their programs. And so I decided to just kind of create something from scratch. [00:04:31]  

 

In my graduate training in psychology, I studied behavioral psychology, and I became aware of the fact that you could teach people how to feel certain ways. It's called classical conditioning, Pavlov's dog kind of stuff. And I thought, "I wonder if this could apply to marriage."

 

So I took up the issue of romantic love as a study. I studied romantic love. What is it? Can you measure it? Can you create it? Can you destroy it? Can it be sustained? Over a period of about five years, with the help of students that I had when I was teaching, we did a series of studies on romantic love. 

 

That helped me not only understand how to create romantic love, but I became aware of what a powerful effect that it had on marriage. [00:05:31] No couple that I had ever seen that were in love. By this time, I could actually measure it. I knew whether people are in love or not, ever wanted to get divorced. 

 

So I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to save marriages, all I had to do is teach people how to be in love when they're married. And sure enough, it worked really well. I became a sensation. People were coming to me from all over the United States.

 

Basically, I started writing books about how I did all these. I would say today, millions of people have actually had their marriages saved by learning how to be in love when they were married. And I do this to this day.

Laura Dugger: And so what was your original discovery, how couples can restore that feeling of love? 

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Well, when you think about conditioning, what you're thinking about, okay, what I want to do is I want to associate a spouse with good feelings. I mean, if I want Joyce to like me, all I want to be sure to do is to make sure that she ends up feeling good when I'm around. [00:06:36] 

 

And the question is, can I have any impact on that? And, of course, I can. I can make her feel good when I'm around, or I can make her feel bad when I'm around. So I learned how to avoid making her feel bad when I was around, and I learned how to make her feel good.

 

Now, in my studies, I didn't do this with Joyce, actually. I didn't do the studies with her. I did it with other people. I asked people, what could your spouse do that would make you the happiest? I was looking basically at what could we do to get people to fall in love by associating them with enough good experiences that it would trigger romantic love, which is basically what I consider to be a threshold of pleasure with a particular person, where the person then becomes irresistible to you. 

 

By surveying hundreds of people and asking them, what can you do, what your spouse could do to make you happy, I came up with 10 categories that I considered to be the most important emotional needs.[00:07:40] And then I told people, just prioritize them for me. Tell me what you need the most from your spouse. 

 

I was interested basically in making sure that each spouse would know where to put their greatest effort. In other words, whatever the highest priorities were on these emotional needs would be something that they could then learn how to do. And by doing that, they would make each other happy. 

 

I use the concept of the love bank. I created that concept back in the 70s to help people understand how associating your spouse with good feelings would create romantic love, because you make enough love bank deposits, you breach the romantic love threshold. It was a simple concept for people to learn. 

 

They began understanding that whatever they did affected each other, either positively or negatively. And they learned how to affect each other positively by meeting the top emotional needs that were listed for them as a couple. [00:08:41] 

 

What I discovered, though, was that men would give me one list out of the ten and women would give me an entirely different list. The top five needs for men on average tended to be the bottom five for women. That doesn't mean that they didn't enjoy the bottom five. I mean, these are all things people enjoy, but it just wasn't that enjoyable compared to the top five. 

 

The opposite was true for women. The top five for women was the lowest five for men. So I was encouraging people to do all of it, of course. But the top two are making the biggest love bank deposit. So focus on those. Then the next three would be something you'd sure want to be skilled in. And even though you need to recognize the rest of the list, that's where you want to put your greatest effort in the top.

 

So the needs for men had a higher priority than the needs for women. [00:09:41] So I taught women how to meet needs that weren't that important to them and men how to meet needs that weren't that important to them either, and bingo, they would fall in love with each other within a very short period of time in my counseling experience.

 

So it's an unusual approach to marriage. Usually, you're thinking about communication skills and you're thinking about negotiating. I just went right to the heart of the matter and I said, What can I do to get you to be in love with each other? You do this stuff, you do this for me and you'll be in love. And sure enough, couples that I counseled experienced that.

 

Then I discovered once they were in love, their communication problems were over. They were communicating just fine and they were negotiating just fine. In other words, being in love actually triggers instinct in us that we're much better at being a marriage partner when we're in love. So that's been my approach throughout the years and it's worked pretty good. [00:10:44] 

 

Laura Dugger: Yes, that paradigm shift seems to be very successful. I definitely want to recommend that people can pick up different copies of your books. The one that comes to mind is His Needs, Her Needs. So they'd have to read to go through all of them. But do you mind just giving a little sample of what some of those top five needs were for each gender?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Yes. I have to preface this by saying that everybody's different. Not any couple in particular have the same top five needs as any other couple in particular. I'm talking about averages. 

 

So a couple need to understand that they're going to have different priorities when it comes to emotional needs. And so instead of telling people what their emotional needs are, I want them to discover it. We offer the emotional needs questionnaire free of charge on the marriagebuilders.com website. You just download it, fill it out, and then you learn from your spouse what their top emotional needs are, what yours are, and then you go to work learning how to meet them. [00:11:50] 

 

But on average, the top five emotional needs for men are sexual fulfillment, recreational companionship, physical attractiveness, domestic support, and admiration. 

 

For women, the top five emotional needs are usually affection, intimate conversation, honesty and openness, financial support, and family commitment. Now, that's not saying that men and women don't have those same emotional needs. Like a woman will have a need for admiration, too, and a man will have a need for affection. 

 

But it's just not the higher priority. You don't make as many love bank deposits by meeting the needs on the bottom of their list as you would on the top of their list. So I get people to focus more on what's ranked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and get to work meeting those emotional needs and you'll find that you're going to fall in love much quicker.[00:12:52] 

 

Laura Dugger: It sounds like a key piece of this is engaging in conversation with our spouse to understand them. And maybe the first way to do that is take that questionnaire. But then I'm so curious, from your findings, even though everyone is different, was there consistently one or two that rose up the most for males and females?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Yeah. And as a matter of fact, it's so consistent that I started telling people, I don't care what you write down on your emotional needs questionnaire, this is what I want you to do. Because sometimes the emotional needs questionnaire would not accurately reflect what turned out to be the most important emotional needs.

 

And so I would tell husbands and wives, here are four emotional needs that I want you all to meet. I want you to meet the need for affection, intimate conversation, sexual fulfillment and recreational companionship. I don't care what your questionnaire looks like. [00:13:54] I want you to meet those needs for each other. That worked out really well. 

 

As a matter of fact, what I did eventually was I defined those four emotional needs as being the essential components of a romantic date. I started by telling people what you need to do is have romantic dates, because that way you can make the most love bank deposits in the fewest amount of time. 

 

Then I got to a point where I said, You know, in order to do this right, you really need 15 hours a week. You got to spend 15 hours a week, what I call giving undivided attention. But basically what it is is 15 hours of romantic dates every week, three to five hours each where those four emotional needs are met. And wow, I just saw my whole program take off. 

 

So that little component where you take four emotional needs and you really put a lot of energy into meeting those in romantic dates, basically, it clears the whole area of obstacles. [00:15:00] So I put a great deal of emphasis on that. Once I get people to do romantic dates with each other, their romantic relationship really thrives.

 

Laura Dugger: How did you arrive at that 15 hours number? I love that.

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Basically it was trial and error. You know, I would tell some couples that just have a Friday night date and see what happens. You know, because they have their Friday night date, and it would be good. People would say, well, "It's a lot better than it used to be." And then I tried 10 hours. I tried 25 hours. I had people pretty cooperative with me because their marriage was about to go on to the rocks and they were willing to do just about anything I told them to do. 

 

And what I found was that you got about as much bang for the buck out of 15 hours as you would 25 hours. But if you were at 10 hours, it really wouldn't work that well. And so I settled on 15 hours. [00:15:59] Mainly out of observation, I just said, "This is what seems to work."

 

Joyce and I actually throughout our entire married life have spent more than 15 hours a week on romantic dates. Now, I just did it not because I discovered that that was the right thing to do, but because that was something that I had done from the beginning. 

 

So Joyce and I have been in love for 56 years now. We have romantic dates every day. Now that we're older, we have more time. So we probably spend 30 hours a week, maybe more than that, on romantic dates. Get out of the house, do something fun. We have a recreational experience, a lot of hugging and kissing, great conversation. We do it as a lifestyle.

 

Laura Dugger: Okay, I just want to clarify. When we're talking about these 15 hours of special dates, some people may assume that we're talking about the traditional date that comes to mind with a babysitter and time out of the house. [00:17:02] But what you're saying is actually way more realistic.

 

I know it's different for everyone listening, but in our situation, for example, our kids usually go to bed about two to three hours before we do. So if we're intentional with that time, that's our 15 hours for the week. 

 

Or I know of some friends who do have older kids and they stay up later. So they get a sitter and go out for a few hours on a date, and then they connect for an hour over lunch every day. And then maybe they're chatting on the phone for 30 minutes during their commute. So if you sprinkle that in with other times, I think it is possible to add up to these 15 hours, regardless of life stage.

 

So getting a sitter and going out is definitely included but this is just intentional time with our spouse when our attention is undivided. So maybe a good place to start is with an inventory of how we are spending our time with our spouse. And I hope that clarifies what's included in these 15 hours. [00:18:06] 

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Yes. When you're in love, that kind of thing is really easy to do. It's when you're not in love that you got to put a little energy into it to get yourself to a point where you're feeling romantic love. Then romantic dates are very, very easy to do. You know exactly what to do. The skill levels increase tremendously. But 15 hours is something that I consider to be kind of a minimum. If you really want to see a romantic relationship blossom.

 

Laura Dugger: I really like that as a starting point, because when we think about it, we have 168 hours a week, and 15 of those that comes out to less than 10 percent of our time. So I think as I'm processing this, I just want to reflect back on my past week and think of how much time Mark and I spent together and then really carve that out as, like you said, a bare minimum going forward. We're parents of four young children and I still would say we're not off the hook. [00:19:08] This is very realistic to reach these 15 hours if it's a priority.

 

Dr. Willard Harley: It is. And my argument has always been that if you've got four children, you really need to be in love because there's a lot of choices that are made. Life becomes complicated. You have a lot of conflicts of all kinds. And when you're in love, the whole experience is much more enjoyable.

 

When you're not in love. Then the conflicts become tragedy sometimes. A lot of people think that I'm being kind of superficial. They say, what about commitment? Isn't commitment important? And I do. I agree that commitment is important. 

 

I talk about caring love and romantic love. Those are two different kinds of love. Caring love is a decision, romantic love is a reaction. It's a feeling. Caring love is something I can commit myself to. I call it goodwill. I want Joyce to be happy. [00:20:08] I want her to be successful. I will do what I can to make her life the best that I can do. And that's what caring love is. I've made the commitment. I offer her extraordinary care.

 

But even if I offer her extraordinary care, if I'm not giving her the care in the right places, she won't be in love with me. She can't make herself be in love with me. I have to do specific things for her to trigger her feeling of romantic love. She has no control over it whatsoever. Same thing is with me. I have no control over my romantic love for her. It's what she does for me. 

 

So we can have all the caring love in the world. We can have the commitment to care for each other deeply. But if we don't know where to put that care, what priorities to use to make sure that the care that I give Joyce or what she needs the most and get to be really good at it, we both will care for each other for the rest of our lives and we will have a relationship that I'm sure the Lord would approve of, but we wouldn't be in love. [00:21:14] So there is a technical problem here for many couples that do care for each other. 

 

What can we do so that we can be in love with each other? There is a scientific answer to that question. I'd say 20 percent of all couples are like Joyce and me and probably like you and your husband, that are in love and have a romantic relationship. That's what makes marriages really terrific.

 

Laura Dugger: I would agree with that. And I do just have to brag on my husband. I do think he's the most wonderful husband in the world and have always felt in love with him. We've been married just over 11 years, so not quite as long as you and Joyce. 

 

One of our ongoing goals or things to keep top of mind every year is to invest a disproportionate amount of time in one another. So I think it's kind of like these romantic dates that you're talking about. And that return on investment is incredible and it affects all other areas of life. [00:22:15] So I guess I just want to affirm everything that you're saying.

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Well, thank you. I love to hear positive outcomes. Even though I've heard them all my life, every one of them is valuable to me. Every one of them makes me feel like I've been spending my life better doing this than I would have working on artificial intelligence.

 

Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor. 

 

Sponsor: I'm so excited to share today's sponsor, Winshape Marriage, with you. Winshape Marriage is a fantastic ministry that helps couples prepare, strengthen, and if needed, even save their marriage.

 

Winshape Marriage is grounded on the belief that the strongest marriages are the ones that are nurtured, even if it seems like things are going smoothly. That way, they'll be stronger if they do hit a bump along their marital journey. 

 

Through their weekend retreats, Winshape Marriage invites couples to enjoy time away to simply focus on each other. These weekend retreats are hosted within the beautiful refuge of Winshape Retreat perched in the mountains of Rome, Georgia, which is just a short drive from Atlanta, Birmingham, and Chattanooga. [00:23:19] 

 

While you and your spouse are there, you'll be well-fed, well-nurtured, and well-cared for. During your time away in this beautiful place, you and your spouse will learn from expert speakers and explore topics related to intimacy, overcoming challenges, improving communication, and so much more.

 

I've stayed on-site at Winshape before, and I can attest to their generosity, food, and content. You will be so grateful you went. To find an experience that's right for you and your spouse, head to their website, WinshapeMarriage.org. That's WinshapeMarriage.org. Thanks for your sponsorship. 

 

Laura Dugger: Well, we've talked about different emotional needs, but then will you also share some of your examples of love busters, and maybe a few practical remedies that would be helpful?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Okay, yeah. Love busters is the downside of marriage in the sense that when I think about extraordinary care, I'm thinking about making my wife happy. [00:24:20] But extraordinary care also deals with protection. 

 

I am the most likely cause of Joyce's unhappiness. Why? Because I am so involved in everything that she does. I'm in a position to hurt her more than anybody else on earth. And if I do, she can't get away from me very easily because we're married. So as a commitment, as a way of showing her caring love, my goal is to avoid hurting her at all costs. 

 

So there are six ways that I can hurt her. I can make demands. I can tell her what to do when it's good for me and bad for her. Number two, I can be disrespectful. I can judge her and consider her to be unworthy of my efforts. That's terribly hurtful in marriage. [00:25:23] It makes what I call massive love bank withdrawals. So no matter how much I might be doing to make love bank deposits, if I'm being disrespectful to her, I'm probably ending up making more love bank withdrawals. 

 

Angry outbursts is another love buster. Then something that I used to have a real problem with, not with Joyce, but in general, I had a problem with my anger. And I learned how to completely overcome it so that I would never lose my temper with her. And I never have. Throughout my entire married life I've never lost my temper with her once. 

 

Then there is dishonesty. Joyce and I have what we call radical honesty. Nothing gets by. There is no deception whatsoever. 

 

Dishonesty is a terrible love buster. It does all sorts of horrible things in marriage because it gives you the wrong impression about each other. It creates what I call a secret second life where your spouse doesn't know something you're doing that would be terribly offensive. [00:26:23] 

 

Honesty is an emotional need for women. The more honest you are in your relationship, the more love bank deposits you're making.

 

Then there is also annoying habits. Now, I happen to be a very annoying person. Now, you might not think of that way. Looking at my picture it doesn't look too annoying. But Joyce will tell you that I'm very annoying. Women in general find their husband having annoying habits. 

 

A man has to learn how to accommodate those complaints. I take every one of her complaints seriously. I do not find her annoying at all. So if you make a list of annoying habits that she finds me annoying, it would be very long. Annoying habits for her, there's nothing on the sheet. 

 

And a lot of men will say, look, because I don't find you annoying, you shouldn't find me annoying. We could go into this in great detail, but it has to do with women's brains. [00:27:24] Women are much more aware of their surroundings. They notice things more. 

 

And so their husband will do something that is annoying, and the question is, should she just ignore it? And my point is, it's a love buster. You're withdrawing love units whenever you do that. And so I make a real effort to accommodate every one of her complaints. If she finds something I'm doing annoying, I try to adjust to that. And over a period of years, I've gotten real good at eliminating a lot of things on the list. 

 

Then finally, there's independent behavior. Independent behavior is doing things as if your spouse doesn't exist. For example, for me just to go off and make a decision without consulting her, without considering her feelings, is a love buster. And it is the greatest cause of resentment in marriage. 

 

Whenever a woman feels resentful toward her husband, it is because he has been engaging in independent behavior over the years, and he keeps doing it over and over again. [00:28:24] It's a huge obstacle to romantic love. 

 

Anyway, those are the six love busters. And if you can eliminate all six, you have a clean shot to having a great romantic relationship.

 

Laura Dugger: I think that was incredibly helpful to hear some specific examples. So we won't go through all of them, but going back to the needs of each spouse, could you just give a few real-life examples of what that might look like to add deposits into the love bank?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Well, let's talk about intimate conversation, because intimate conversation is a huge issue for women. They want to be able to talk to their husbands. I talk about the friends of good conversation and the enemies of good conversation. 

 

What is intimate conversation? It is, first of all, you're talking about each other. It's a personal conversation. You're talking about your favorite topics, things that you enjoy talking about the most. [00:29:25] You balance the conversation when you're talking. Both of you talk about the same amount of time, and you're giving each other undivided attention. That is what makes intimate conversation work. 

 

Now, if you engage in demands, disrespect, anger, and dwelling on mistakes of the past, those are the enemies of intimate conversation. So, to the extent that you and your husband can actually sit down and talk, just to enjoy talking, which is, from my perspective, the backbone of a romantic relationship. 

 

If you're in a romantic relationship, you are engaged in great conversation. Period. Now, there are other components. There's affection. There's sexual fulfillment. There's recreational companionship. But I would say that the thing that makes romantic relationships really romantic is the way people talk to each other in a romantic situation.

 

Laura Dugger: Putting all of this together, as we look at some of this honesty that you had been talking about and about not doing this independent behavior, it reminds me of a few policies that you've written about. [00:30:39] And I think it might be helpful just to state those as a summary. So, would you share the policy of joint agreement and the policy of radical honesty?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Those are the two policies that come together to create what I call transparency. Transparency in marriage is extremely important. You are on the same page, that you're making your choices together, that you understand each other, and that you're operating as a team, not as two separate individuals.

 

So, the policy of joint agreement is never do anything without an enthusiastic agreement between you and your spouse. Now, I've gotten a lot of blowback on that one, especially for men. Do you mean to tell me I have to get my wife's permission to do everything? Can't I make some of my own choices? Can't I have my own friends? Can't I have my own hobbies? [00:31:39] Do you mean I'm kind of stuck with her all the time? 

 

And I would say, yep, that's the way it's going to have to be. When you're married to somebody, that person has to become your partner. In Genesis, it says that the two become united. The two become one in Genesis chapter 3. The two become one.

 

In marriage, what God has intended for all of us is to benefit from each other's brains. Joyce's brain is very different than my brain. It's physically different. I used to teach neurophysiology, and I used to show a man's brain and a woman's brain. They're different. Men think differently. Women think differently. 

 

And by combining the two brains into a joint agreement, in joint enthusiastic agreement, we're getting the wisdom of both people who have different perspectives. [00:32:39] We're back-to-back. Joyce looks out and sees the mountains. I, on the other hand, am seeing the ocean. The question is, which one of us is right? We're both right. 

 

And as long as we understand that about each other, as long as we respect each other's perspectives and learn from those perspectives, the policy of joint agreement is not difficult to do. Coming to an enthusiastic agreement means that I respect her opinion and won't make any decisions until I have been able to understand how her opinion would affect the choices that we're supposed to make.

 

And by doing that, we make wiser choices. We make smarter choices to say nothing about the fact that when we make a decision, we're making love bank deposits in both of our love banks simultaneously. 

 

So on the one hand, it's a practical rule, on the other hand, it's a caring rule. If I do something without her agreement, it means I'm being thoughtless. And so sometimes we need rules to help us from being selfish, and that's one of them. [00:33:40] 

 

Now, the other one is the policy of radical honesty. Reveal everything you know about yourself, your history, your current behavior, current activities, your future plans, your emotional reactions. Reveal everything.

 

Now, most men will come to me and say, "Dr. Harley, you've got to be crazy. If I reveal everything to my wife, she will run in horror. I don't think good thoughts all the time. I say, Okay, here's the caveat. If it's disrespectful, don't tell her. If it's a judgment about her, don't tell her. Say that it bothers you. You wish it could be different. But don't judge her. Other than that, everything you're thinking she should know about. 

 

Again, it gets rid of the secret second life. It gets rid of obstacles to transparency. She knows her husband. She knows what he thinks. She knows how he feels. And this man is totally different than anything she has ever felt. [00:34:46] Totally different. He is a different creature. And God made us differently. And God made us to help each other out. 

 

Anyway, those two come together. Those two rules come together to create great decision-making, accommodation, care. It helps avoid selfishness in marriage. To me, they're two great rules.

 

When people are in love and when people care about each other, those two rules make a ton of sense. When they're having struggles, they have a problem with the rules. And the reason they're having struggles is because they're not following those rules.

 

Laura Dugger: Those two together really seem to usher in intimacy. And just to restate them, if somebody has your book, He Wins, She Wins, on page 122, you sum it up, and it's super practical. You say, "Give your spouse, your undivided attention a minimum of 15 hours a week, using the time to meet each other's emotional needs for affection, intimate conversation, sexual fulfillment, and recreational companionship." [00:35:52] 

 

And then if somebody needs to hear it again, that policy of radical honesty, in case you want to listen to this message and maybe discuss it with your spouse, that policy says, "Reveal to your spouse as much information about yourself as you know. Your thoughts, feelings, habits, likes, dislikes, personal history, daily activities, and plans for the future. I think that's a great starting point to lead to deeper intimacy in marriage.

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Yeah, it's a guideline. It's a help to get people started. When they're in a romantic relationship, these rules are much easier to follow, and they become almost instinctive. It's when you're not in a romantic relationship, and you want to get back to the romantic relationship that you once had you need the rules to get you there. But once you're there, the rules make a lot more sense.

 

Laura Dugger: Patreon can be a tricky thing to explain, so let me try to boil this down. [00:36:56] The time and financial investment our team gives to bring you all these episodes on The Savvy Sauce costs us hundreds of dollars and many hours each week. And we cannot fully cover that cost through advertisers and kickbacks from the purchases you make by ordering resources through our links. We do need other revenue streams to secure the future of this podcast. 

 

One easy way you can participate and support the future of The Savvy Sauce is through becoming a patron. We want to make this possible for anyone listening, so we have two, five, and $20 levels available each month. You can sign up with a few clicks by visiting thesavvysauce.com, then you click the Patreon tab, and then follow the prompts after clicking "Join Patreon Here". Thank you for your generosity in partnering with us. 

 

When it comes to communication and conflict resolution, how can couples begin to negotiate more successfully? [00:38:00] 

 

Dr. Willard Harley: The real problem with communication in marriage is respect. To the extent that I respect Joyce's perspective, we have great communication. If I disrespect her perspective, if I try to talk her into my perspective and tell her that her perspective is wrong, we're going to have terrible communication.

 

So when it comes to problem-solving, the first thing you have to be able to do in learning how to communicate with each other is your conversation has to be pleasant and safe. 

 

The love chapter, 1 Corinthians chapter 13, says very little about what you're supposed to do. It's mostly what you're not supposed to do in that chapter. But in verse 4, it talks about what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to be kind and patient. 

 

That's what has to happen when you are talking to each other, especially if you have a conflict. You have to start with kindness and patience. [00:39:06] It has to be safe and enjoyable. 

 

And then the next step is you have to understand each other's perspectives. "How do you feel? What do you think?" Having respect for a perspective that you don't agree with is perfectly okay. I can respect something that I say to Joyce, "I would like to know more about how you came up with that." And I don't mean that in a disrespectful way. I'm sincerely interested in how she arrives at that conclusion based on her perspective. 

 

And then if we have a conflict, then we need to brainstorm. "I know your perspective. I know my perspective. Now, how are the ways that we can resolve this?" 

 

And then the policy of joint agreement is the deciding rule. Only things that we can both enthusiastically agree to are the things that we're going to actually settle on as a solution to the conflict. So great communication usually means great respect. Great respect for the other person's perspective and efforts on our parts not to be selfish and not to be judgmental. [00:40:08] 

 

Laura Dugger: And I love that you bring in the biblical teaching because this is the way of love and also the way of wisdom because it makes me think of Proverbs 3 when wisdom is personified. And it says her ways are pleasant ways and all her paths are peace.

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Yes. And peace is such a big deal in marriage. Conflict is such a horrible thing. Conflict is okay if you think of conflict as we haven't yet arrived at a solution yet. That's okay. But if you think of conflict as fighting and arguing, then it turns what marriage should be into a nightmare.

 

Marriage can be the greatest experience of all time, and it can be the worst experience of all time, depending on how you communicate with each other. And this is where, you know, I do spend quite a bit of time encouraging people to resolve their conflicts with respect. 

 

I'm not alone on that. Lots of people, lots of marital therapists will agree with me on that. [00:41:13] But where I differ is that in creating romantic love, it's much easier to resolve your conflicts with mutual care. Also, if you're not in love, you'll find that you're going to tend to argue a lot more.

 

So when you're not in love, you've got to follow my rules more carefully because your selfishness will tend to ruin everything. But once you're in love, it's really much easier to do all of these things that I recommend.

 

Laura Dugger: Well, Dr. Harley, you're laying out an incredible vision, really, of godly and biblical marriage. And so are there any questions that we can begin to ask ourselves or our spouse to get on the right path toward making our marriage even better?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: There are three questionnaires that I offer on the marriagebuilders.com website in the questionnaire section that I think couples should be filling out every once in a while. Some people I counsel, even though their marriages are really great, they still fill it out every two or three years. [00:42:16] 

 

And that's the emotional needs questionnaire that we've talked about. What are your spouse's top emotional needs? Because in the emotional needs questionnaire is embedded a section that has to do with helpful ideas. In other words, what could you do to meet this emotional need better than it's already being met?

 

The second questionnaire is a love busters questionnaire. What are we doing to hurt each other and what can we do to avoid that? 

 

Then the third is what I call the marital problem analysis. And what you do there is you prioritize the problems that you have. When you filled out the emotional needs questionnaire, which emotional needs need to be worked on? And when you fill out the love busters questionnaire, which love busters need to be worked on?

 

Well, marital problem analysis prioritizes each of these things. So now we know where to put our effort to make our marriage better. So in a sense, what I've done is I've just given couples what marriage counselors do, which is they do an analysis of the problem. [00:43:20] You come in to see me, first thing I want to know is, what are your problems? What should we work on?

 

Well, these three questionnaires actually do that for you. So you can figure it out for yourself. And if you need more help, once these questionnaires are filled out, my book, His Needs, Her Needs, deals with the emotional needs part, Love Busters deals with the love busters part. And as you mentioned, He Wins, She Wins, talks about how to resolve conflicts better.

 

Laura Dugger: We will always link to all of these resources and eventually to your website in the show notes and Resources tab of our website. So we focused on marriage today, so I know we're not going to do this topic justice. But will you just whet our appetite to learn more from your book, His Needs, Her Needs for Parents?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Yeah. His Needs, Her Needs for Parents is a book that I wrote to remind a couple that once you have children, it's very tempting to stop meeting each other's emotional needs. [00:44:26] The number one year for divorce is the first year. And you might expect that because, you know, you get married and maybe you didn't understand what this person was all about. And so the divorce in the first year is very common. 

 

But the second most likely year for divorce is the year that the first child is born. That is tragic. That is absolutely tragic. And the reason for that is for many couples, what they were doing to maintain a romantic relationship prior to the birth of the first child, they stopped doing. 

 

And so my book, His Needs, Her Needs for Parents is a reminder that the romantic relationship needs to go ahead after you have children for the sake of the children. Because if you fall out of love, if you're not meeting your emotional needs, you will be tempted to actually get a divorce. [00:45:26] 

 

And even if you're not having a divorce, your relationship will be miserable, which is not the way your children should be seeing you. Your children should be seeing loving, caring husbands that care for each other the way the Lord wanted us to care for each other and that hug and kiss in the kitchen. Children love that. They want to see that. And if a husband and wife are arguing all the time, that's something you don't want to see in the children.

 

So my book, His Needs, Her Needs for Parents, is just to remind people, prioritize your relationship. Then I also have a section in there on what I call quality family time, which is, Okay, if you're going to spend time with your family, what should you be doing? 

 

And it's a very important point that I make. I make it both in His Needs, Her Needs and also in this book. And that is that you want to teach your children values. And if you have quality family time where you're together as a family every week with the purpose of teaching values of thoughtfulness, those children are going to be much easier to raise, a lot less discipline, more enjoyment, more happiness, and everybody's going to be getting along. [00:46:40] Without that intervention, you find your kids fighting all the time and making your life miserable. 

 

And then I have a section in His Needs, Her Needs for Parents just about ADHD, in-laws, blended families. So things that people have trouble with as an addendum to the book.

 

Laura Dugger: That is so helpful. And you and Joyce have raised how many children?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: We have only two. I wanted 10. But she said, Nope. She's an only child, and she likes having two children. Our two children now have two children and they have children of their own. So now we are great-grandparents three times, one more along the way. So almost four great-grandchildren.

 

Laura Dugger: Wow. That's incredible, incredible legacy. I have enjoyed this conversation through and through. [00:47:42] If anyone wants to learn more from you, where's the best place we can direct them?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Well, MarriageBuilders.com is our website. Joyce and I do a podcast every day. Actually, the program is on 20 radio stations right now. But you can get to podcasts with an app. Go to Marriage Builders Radio at the App Store — it's free of charge —download it, you'll hear our daily podcast. We have callers that call in, and we deal with topics. We have emails that come in regularly. And it's a daily program. 

 

So that's another way to reach us is through our Marriage Builders Radio program, a podcast just like you have.

 

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We will try to make that as easy as possible to find on our website for today's episode, all of the show notes included. We are called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge or insight. [00:48:42] And so as my final question for you today, Dr. Harley, what is your savvy sauce?

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Well, you know, the whole question of what does it take to have a great marriage seems intuitive. You know, I mean, all the things that I've been telling you, what you need to do is treat each other with extraordinary care. That's not rocket science. That seems intuitive. It seems like common sense. Treat each other with extraordinary care.

 

Why don't people do that? It's just crazy. I look at my whole theory that I've created, romantic love and all the rest of that, and it just seems to be based on such common sense.

 

And people have told me that. And my argument has always been, well, then if it's such common sense, why do I get so much blowback from people? And so all I can tell people is that from a practical standpoint, it works. [00:49:41] 

 

When I got married, all of these ideas that I am now proposing to other people were ideas that I had already accepted. I believe in extraordinary care as the foundation for marriage. Why doesn't everybody? Why do I have to teach people how to do this? 

 

Of course, the answer is that we all have different perspectives on things. And just because one person has a perspective doesn't mean that that perspective shouldn't have to be taught to somebody. So for one person, it's common sense. For another person, it's something new.

 

Laura Dugger: Well, thank you so much for sharing all of this. You've been so generous with your time and your knowledge. I appreciate how you live this out with Joyce every day. So thank you for being my guest today, Dr. Harley.

 

Dr. Willard Harley: Well, I enjoyed being with you, Laura, and we hopefully will make connections with each other in the future. It looks to me like you're doing a great service for people, and I want to encourage you in what you're doing. [00:50:42] 

 

Laura Dugger: Aw, thank you so much. 

 

One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.

 

This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.

 

This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:51:43] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. 

 

We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen. 

 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:52:43] 

 

At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?

 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John. 

 

Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

 

We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:53:46] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.