It was soon after Henry and I met in June of 2012 that we started arguing.
As it happened I was doing a 3 way call at the time with 2 women once a week and when I would complain about Henry (isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?) my friend Judy Ryan would use terminology from a book called “Getting the Love You Want” that would keep me on the path of staying with him. It wasn’t long before we started meeting with her to work on our relationship.
We gave it a pretty good try but in the end it seemed like we weren’t ready for that material and the theory behind it.
In May 2019, we were 30 minutes away from breaking up. We had an appointment at 6:00 to discuss separating. Henry got home about 5:30 and with 30 minutes to kill, listened to a podcast during which the guest mentioned having challenges with her husband and proclaimed the best 40 hours they’d spent was a workshop with Harville Hendrix and his wife and co-author of their book “Getting the Love You Want.”
Next thing I knew, Henry was booking us to participate in their long weekend program. Needless to say, we didn’t break up!
The workshop was this past Friday evening through today at noon.
Harville Hendrix and his book became famous when Oprah had him on her show back in 1988. She received her first Emmy for that show and she went on to have Harville on her show 16 more times!! He and his wife Helen have traveled all over the world speaking and conducting relationship workshops on their book. They’ve presented to thousands in a single workshop.
And we were a class of 40 and he and Helen did their workshop with US!!!
He’s 84 now and Helen is 70 and you’d never know. Oh and by the way she’s an oil heiress, whose father was the model for JR Ewing of Dallas.
Their unique premise is that you attract your mate to help you heal from the wounds of your childhood, many or most of which don’t come to the surface until you’re in a relationship. They believe we can’t heal from those wounds without our partner. Our tendency is to look at our partner as the devil of course and we’re easily convinced they are the the entire reason for any pain or anger we experience in our relationship.
Not so say Harville and Helen.
And after this weekend we’d agree. Henry and I learned that tools and repetition are key to the essential communication needed to grow through and past our old triggers. They call this an Imago relationship.
Oprah fell in love with the theory and practice which saved her marriage to Stedman. Harville and Helen are now trying to get their message out to even more of the world and are encouraging therapists and class participants to become trained in the art of Imago dialog.
I am planning to embark down that road.
So if you’re in a relationship or you’re not. If you’ve had kids or are thinking of having them. And if you have ever been a kid, you should read Getting The Love You Want. It truly has a universal message that everyone should read! It talks about emotional wounding that happens in infancy and through childhood. This is not a parent bashing book. Even the most aware parent can’t be the ideal parent at every moment. We all experience pain as infants & children. And it all shows up as adults in relationships!
Read it, it’s fascinating!! And I promise it’ll change your life!! It has changed ours. ❤️❤️