His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage

by Willard F. Harley Jr.

Enemy #4: Dwelling on Mistakes, Past or Present

Never

Recreational Activities Included in Timefor Undivided Attention In the last chapter, I encouraged you to spend a minimum of fifteen hours a week giving each other undivided attention. The context of that recommendation was intimate conversation, so you may have been left with the impression that you should talk intimately to each other for fifteen hours each week. But talking isn’t the only way to provide undivided attention. In fact the intimacy that results from undivided attention is usually achieved when a combination of four emotional needs are met—the top two emotional needs

most women, affection and intimate conversation, and the top two emotional needs of most men, sexual fulfillment and recreational companionship. It should not be surprising that women define a romantic experience differently than men. For most women, a romantic evening meets her emotional needs for affection and intimate conversation—an evening of dinner, dancing, and a walk in the moonlight filled with expressions of love and stimulating conversation. Men, on the other hand, find romance in sexual fulfillment and recreational companionship—watching football on TV with sex during halftime! Neither perspective on romance works very well for the opposite sex. So prior to marriage, most men and women combine all four needs into a romantic experience. That way, the needs of both men and women are met. But after marriage, spouses get lazy and want to take shortcuts. Women find time for affection and intimate conversation but are too busy or too tired for sexual fulfillment or recreational companionship. On the other hand, men can drop almost anything for sexual fulfillment and recreational companionship but can’t fit affection or intimate conversation into their busy schedules. Don’t make this mistake in your marriage. You both have intimate emotional needs that should be met by each other. But they’re different, and you will be tempted to overlook your spouse’s needs. By meeting all four of these needs in a single date, you will have an experience that both of you will conside...

fifteen hours. That’s not to say you shouldn’t enga...

activities together. It’s just that when considering what to do during your time for undivided attention, make sure that the activity doesn’t distract you from each other. For example, if you focus most of your attention on a movie or a television show, that activity should not be considered part of your time for undivided attention. But if during the show, you are expressing affection to each other and your focus of attention is primarily on each other, then it counts. Any recreational activity that allows for affection, intimate conversation, and even sexual fulfillment while engaged in the activity is a good candidate. Dancing, card games, hiking, boating, and even working out at the gym together have been favorites of couples who want a recreational activity that provides an opportunity for undivided attention. But don’t include friends with any of those activities. They’ll distract you from each other. You should have as much privacy as possible during your fifteen hours. If you are to be each other’s favorite recreational companion, there will be many activities you both enjoy that do not lend themselves well to undivided attention. As I already mentioned, you should engag...

To Consider Together

In planning your fifteen hours for undivided attention, try to meet all four of the intimate emotional needs each time you have a date: affection, sexual fulfillment, intimate conversation, and recreational companionship. You’ll find that each date will require about three or four hours—just as when

Being Open

Privacy

“quality family time.”

This is not to be confused with child care tasks—feeding, clothing, and watching over children to keep them safe. Those are domestic tasks that were discussed in the last chapter.

Quality family time is when the family is together for the moral and educational dev...

I have already recommended that a husband and wife schedule fifteen hours each week for giving undivided attention to each other. That time is to be spent meeting each other’s intimate emotional needs so ...

I recommend an additional fifteen hours a week for quality family time. Without a doubt, the hours spent with your children are some of the most important hours of the week. And if you want to influence your children, training them to become successful adults, time together is crucial. But do you actually have that much time left in your schedule?

Remember, the purpose of quality family time is the moral and educational development of your children.

Among the most important lessons to be taught are thoughtfulness and how to care for each other.

So your activities should focus attention on helping each other, showing...

meals together as a family going out for walks and bike rides attending church services family meetings playing board games together reading to the children before bedtime helping the children with financial planning family projects and household tasks (be certain these are fun for the children, working on them together as a family)

One of the biggest consumers of parental time is sports leagues.

Can athletic activities be planned that keep the family together?

you have children under the age of twelve, you will find it fairly easy to motivate them to spend time with you in this way. Once they reach their teens, however, they will begin to tax your ingenuity. Now they want to spend most of their time with their friends; your family begins to see less and less of them. To compensate, develop well-planned events a...

your children have grown up with such family time, it should not be too difficult to get them to continue the practice. That doesn’t mean ...

Most educators realize that children are easier to influence than teens or adults. Take a page from their book, and if your children are still young, make the most of your ability to mold them with quality moral standards and life principles that can benefit them for years. Keep in mind the goal of training your child “in the way he should go,” with his future needs in mind. If you take family time seriously in your children’s

early growth stages, you will not find yourself in trouble later.

1. Learn How to Reach Agreement with Your Wife

I’ve found that the wisest approach to child training is found through negotiation that leads to a mutually enthusiastic agreement. If a mother and father agree on the rules their children will be expected to follow and agree on how to discipline them when those rules are not followed, they avoid the common mistakes most parents make. And the wife’s need for family commitment is met.

they can get away with it, children learn to divide and conquer. They make a deal with Mom to get around Dad.

both Mom and Dad should consult in private and give an...

To avoid this, all decisions must result from mutual agreement. If you cannot agree, take no action.

When they know you made it

together, children are less likely to challenge your decision.

How a husband disciplines his children greatly affects his deposits in his wife’s Love Bank. Women are very sensitive to inappropriate and overly harsh discipline. Often they react as if the punishment the husband gives their children had been given to them personally. Therefore he should reach an enthusiastic agreement with his wife before imposing a disciplinary solution. A method of discipline that a h...

2. Learn How to Explain...

You can easily understand the father’s reaction to those seemingly endless questions, can’t you? But the “because I said so” line doesn’t benefit the child very much. When you feel frustrated, pulling out your parental muscle may work—you may get the child to take the appropriate action—but you may also

have lost the opportunity to explain your rationale to the child. In situations such as these, you can subtly but clearly communicate your moral, ethical, and personal values, if you patiently answer the whys.

3. Learn How to Be Consistent

Many children whose parents never spank them run wild. But corporal punishment should be used only in very early years (no later than age seven)

But when children are between the ages of eight and twelve, noncorporal punishment is more appropriate and far more effective.

Taking away privileges is the time-honored

way parents punish older children...

for good behavior should begi...

Corporal punishment that is inflicted on older children can leave an emotional scar that persists throughout their lives.

The very best way to train your children is by example. As you demonstrate your care for each other by meeting each other’s basic needs, and by protecting each other from your selfish habits, your children will learn what it means to be thoughtful. The quality family time you spend with your children, teaching them important values, such as to consider each other’s feelings before acting, will go a long way toward

raising children who need little or n...

5. Learn How to Han...

Often parents discipline their children in a ...

An angry outburst is temporary insanity, and the damage it can do is dangerous and unpredictable. If you were to watch a video recording of one of your angry outbursts, you’d see my point. But that’s precisely what your children view when you use anger to punish them—they see an insane parent.

angry outbursts were an effective means of punishment, they’d be far too risky to use with children. Broken bones, permanent injury, and even death are the all too-common consequences of this sad measure of discipline.

But discipline accompanied with anger doesn’t usually work. Consider the disobedient child I witnessed in the store. I’m sure that his mother had beaten him many times before that incident. It wasn’t working. That’s because discipline given ...