His Needs Her Needs By Willard F Harley Jr.

I have yet to read a better book on marriage. This book gives it to you straight. So, what is a book review about marriage doing on a parenting book review site? Well, a good marriage has a lot to do with parenting. Those of us into attachment parenting can sometimes get so caught up in meeting the needs of our children, we forget about the needs of our spouse.

This book addresses what the 10 basic needs are in a relationship. Each need is discussed in depth. It’s interesting that men and women usually rate their needs in complete opposite from each other, clearly showing men and women have different needs.

The author asserts that people get too caught up in worrying about our own needs being met and rarely think about the needs of our spouse getting met. This is why we have such a high divorce rate. It’s natural to want to see our own needs met, but also meeting the needs of our spouse is important. If we don’t properly meet each other’s needs, a marriage is susceptible to an affair.

This book gives a lot of information on affairs- how they begin, why they begin, the consequences, and how to move past them. While affairs are devastating, they don’t mean a marriage has to be over. There is a way out.

This book opened my eyes. With its plethora of stories and examples, I could easily grasp why meeting my husband’s needs are so important. I never thought an affair would be possible in our marriage because we are both strongly convicted against it, but from this book, I was able to learn that if needs aren’t met, even the most well-meaning, compatible marriages can be susceptible.

From this book, I realized I had been trying to meet needs that were important to me, but not necessarily my husband. I realized I really wasn’t even sure what his needs are. Life gets so busy and especially as a women, things demand our attention. I wasn’t even aware that maybe he had needs that weren’t getting met. Now, I was able to figure out exactly what his needs were (through a questionnaire in the appendix) and now I can meet his actual needs and he can meet mine.

It’s worth it to your children to have a strong marriage and that type of marriage takes an investment of time and concentration. In the very least, read this book!