Relationship Books | TheMadisonORG

Relationships

How to meet each other's needs in a meaningful way.

"How are you feeling? What problems are you facing? How can I help you solve those problems? That’s the kind of conversation that helps married couples stay in love with each other. Or it leads people into affairs when it’s done outside of marriage and with someone of the opposite sex. It’s intimate conversation."

This book will help you define and order your needs, how you need them to be met, and express those needs to your spouse in a way they can understand. When read together, it creates a safe place, to be honest, so you can have open and helpful conflict about what needs aren't being met.

Actions are deposits or withdrawals in our "love banks". Depending on which need the action is in relation to, the more or less is deposited or withdrawn. In most marriages, an affair happens when only one need is not being met.

Don't love them how you want to be loved.

"Expressing love in the right language. We tend to speak our own love language, to express love to others in a language that would make us feel loved. But if it is not their primary love language, it will not mean to them what it would mean to us. "

Written a few years after His Needs, Her Needs, this book explores the core needs that are shared by everyone. It focuses on the difference in how our partner needs their needs meet. Even we both have the same primary love language, it doesn't mean both are met the same way.

As with all relationship books, these aren't hard and fast rules. They are shared starting point to talk about what is important to each other, and how we can show them we love them in a way that is important to them.

This is an easy-to-read guide about women; written for men.

"Women want men who are there for them when they need them. They want men who are interested in them and who care about them. Women need to feel respected, heard, and connected.

To put it simply, listening is sexier than talking. Asking questions is sexier than broadcasting. Being genuinely interested in her is much more important than trying to be interesting to her."

This book is what it says it is. It's a generalization of what most women want and need, but it's still an excellent place to start learning what makes her unique and special. Sometimes it explains the differences between men and women, and other times it explains something unique about women in a way some men may have never heard of before. Even if you have been married for 20 years, there is something every man can learn from this book if he wants to.

From the books above, we can put an incomplete guide together below.

This is what women should be able to expect from you and what you should expect from yourself.

Get to know them.
1. Be interested in them, ask questions and listen, and don't talk about yourself to try and seem interesting.
2. If they start telling a story that you can relate to, don't rush to tell your story. Instead, try and listen to theirs well enough so you can tell it back to them.
3. Now and then, ask questions to make sure you understand what they mean, but not too often.
4. Think of questions to ask them and work them into the conversation organically.
5. During a conversation, take pauses to give them a chance to say something. Don't try and fill every silence with words or conversation.
Meet their needs, their way.
1. Ask them questions, learn about their needs, and start meeting those needs according to His Needs Her Needs.
2. If they let you meet their needs, that is an excellent sign. Keep it up.
3. Give them a chance to meet your needs as well. Help them understand your needs if they need help.
4. Don't meet their needs the way you want them to be met. The same kind of needs can be met differently by different people.
5. Tell them simply and directly if you don't feel your needs are being met. His Needs Her Needs gives suitable methods for this.
Be trustworthy.
1. Do what you say you're going to do. It's better to under-promise and over-deliver than to over-promise and under-deliver.
2. Be the same person with them as you are in private.
3. Be honest, don't hide who you are. Let them see some of your weirdness and goofiness.
4. Only make promises you can keep.
Don't rush sex.
1. Once romantic intimacy is built, physical intimacy will follow.
2. Trying to rush physical intimacy will ruin your already established romantic intimacy.
3. One of their needs may be physical touch, but that may be non-sexual touching and holding.
4. Enjoy the journey, don't rush to the finish line.
5. Communication builds consent, don't be afraid to ask questions, and make sure you're on the same page.
Be confident.
1. If you like them, tell them, and tell them why you want them, even after ten years.
2. Don't make them guess how you feel. No one can read minds.
3. If they don't feel the same way you do, better to know sooner rather than later.
Don't troubleshoot.
1. Don't dismiss their fears by troubleshooting them before you have tried to understand the feelings and emotions behind the fear.
2. Ask questions about their fear or concern, and let them know you understand their fear without troubleshooting. Validation must come before a resolution.
3. Don't troubleshoot an issue unless they ask for help.
4. Seriously, only troubleshoot or fix a problem if they ask for it. Ask them, "Do you want me to listen or help fix the issue."
5. They may know how to fix the issue but they want to share their emotions with you. This builds romantic intimacy.
6. By dismissing their emotions or fears you are dismissing the chance to build intimacy.
7. Being on the same page and knowing you're "on their team" is more important than rushing to a quick fix.
Relationships (and having babies) don't fix people. It may make things worse.
1. If you don't like yourself single, being in a relationship won't fix it.
2. If you are unhappy with yourself as single, you can be unhappy in a relationship.
3. Meeting the right person can change your life, but don't expect them to change your life.
4. Only be with someone if you like who they are, not who they could be.