Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples: First Edition
    Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples: First Edition
    Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples: First Edition
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples: First Edition

    Written by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D.

    Narrated by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D.

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The bestselling guide to transforming an intimate relationship into a lasting source of love and companionship, in an all new production of the revised and updated text—on CD for the first time
    In Getting the Love You Want, Dr. Harville Hendrix presents the relationship skills that have already helped hundreds of thousands of couples to replace confrontation and criticism with a healing process of mutual growth and support. This extraordinarily practical guide describes the revolutionary technique of IMAGO Relationship Therapy, which combines a number of disciplines—including the behavioral sciences, depth psychology, cognitive therapy, and Gestalt therapy, among others—to create a program to resolve conflict and renew communication and passion.
    Dr. Hendrix describes the three stages of intimate relationships, provides illustrative case studies and gives recommendations to help couples create a stronger bond between them. Step by step, he offers advice on how to communicate with greater accuracy and sensitivity, how to let go of self-defeating behaviors, and how to focus energy on meeting each partner's needs.
    With Getting the Love You Want, couples in any stage of a relationship can resolve their conflicts and achieve mutual emotional satisfaction.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateOct 1, 2004
    ISBN9781593975753
    Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples: First Edition
    Author

    Harville Hendrix, Ph.D.

    Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., is the author of Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, a New York Times bestseller that has sold more than two million copies. He has more than thirty years’ experience as an educator and therapist. He specializes in working with couples in private practice, teaching marital therapy to therapists, and conducting couples workshops across the country. Dr. Hendrix is the founder/director of the Imago Institute for Relationship Therapy. He lives in New Jersey and New Mexico.

    More audiobooks from Harville Hendrix, Ph.D.

    Related to Getting the Love You Want

    Related audiobooks

    Relationships For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      How to Stay Married

      Jun 4, 2016

      How to Stay Married
      12 min read

    • Article

      THE RISE OF micro-cheating

      Nov 17, 2019

      THE RISE OF micro-cheating
      6 min read

    • Article

      Falling In Love … Again

      Dec 11, 2019

      Falling In Love … Again
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Bored Sex

      Feb 14, 2019

      The Bored Sex
      5 min read

    • Article

      Podcasts For Couples

      Jan 3, 2020

      Podcasts For Couples
      2 min read

    • Article

      Pillow Talk

      Aug 26, 2022

      Pillow Talk
      4 min read

    • Article

      Your Brain in Love

      Jul 22, 2020

      Helen Fisher first appeared in Nautilus in 2015 with her article, “Casual Sex May Be Improving America’s Marriages.” Since then we’ve interviewed the biological anthropologist a host of times, anxious to hear her insights into the ties that bind and

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Way Back

      Mar 5, 2023

      The Way Back
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Way Back

      Mar 5, 2023

      The Way Back
      4 min read

    • Article

      Love Is Biological Bribery

      Feb 14, 2022

      Love Is Biological Bribery
      12 min read

    • Article

      Love Without A Plan

      Apr 19, 2022

      Love Without A Plan
      13 min read

    • Article

      Planned Bliss

      Jan 8, 2023

      Planned Bliss
      5 min read

    • Article

      MARS & VENUS IN QUARANTINE

      Jun 2, 2021

      MARS & VENUS IN QUARANTINE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Casual Sex May Be Improving America’s Marriages: One-night stands and friends with benefits are just what your brain ordered.

      Mar 5, 2015

      An American man and a French woman meet on a train in Eastern Europe. They live on different continents. But before the sun comes up, they have spent the night together. What happens next? You’d expect the answer to be, nothing. It’s just a one-night

      7 min read

    • Article

      When Virtues Become Vices

      Oct 10, 2022

      When Virtues Become Vices
      9 min read

    • Article

      Featured artist: Tracey Deep

      Jan 31, 2018

      Featured artist: Tracey Deep
      2 min read

    • Article

      What Second-Chance Couples Know About Love

      Dec 15, 2022

      This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.       So many regrets in life are impossible to rectify. You can’t go

      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Getting the Love You Want

    4.5/5

    228 ratings14 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      It was brief but very potent advice for couples !
    • 5/5
      Such valuable insight and easy, useful steps and tools to improve relationships.
    • 5/5
      Not only the "what" but also the "how" and "why"
    • 4/5
      Fascinating book, there is always something new to learn. We read to understand, everytime we finish a book, we learn something new about each other.
    • 5/5
      Amazing book, really good book for couple that want to make the relationship work
    • 5/5
      Lovely book with excellent insights on how to understand others' (not just your partners') perspectives. Please do read this and understand why the exercises the author mentions make sense and, in fact, are important.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic truly related to this book l really loved it
    • 5/5
      thank you. very helpful lessons. will practice it and see the outcome.
    • 5/5
      After over 20 years, my wife and I still use this book.
    • 4/5
      A superior book about couple building, and very helpful at the time.
    • 5/5
      If you're going through a divorce or marital troubles, this book makes sense of why things are not going well.
    • 4/5
      I have some reservations about Hendrix, his endlessly multiplying books, and the Imago Therapy industry that has grown up around them. Having said that - and I will come back to it later - it must be said that there is a great deal of substance to his theories and these books. His basic premise is that there is an unconscious element to romantic attraction. There is no controversy here. What Hendrix has done - based on extensive couple therapy - is to peel back the layers of behavior and motivation to get at a workable hypothesis of what is really going on. He notes that people entering into a romantic relationship (or failing to do so) often seem to have a sense that the other party has (or had) the potential to heal or complete something that was damaged or absent in themselves. Hendrix´s particular genius was to realize that this could be true and not true at the same time. True in the sense that the other person is the key to healing or completion; but not true in the sense that they will provide it to you by simply being there or by giving it to you as a gift. Hendrix´s theory is that you might unconsciously select someone whose makeup/personality is perfectly suited to ´pressing all those buttons´ that are linked to issues inside yourself that your unconscious would like you to address. So the job of the other person is to press buttons (and you to press theirs), and the job of each person is to address their own issues. Hendrix´s therapy essentially involves stepping back from seeing the other person as the one with the problems, or the one causing the problem, or the one who is going to (or should) give you the solution to the problem. He suggests that you treat the irritations of a connected life (once that blind romantic stage fades) as pointers (and a motivation) to do work you need to do on yourself. Which involves a lot (a very great many) of exercises that can by very uncomfortable. And like physical exercise it is easy to fail to do it properly and give up. But like physical exercise it is often easier to do it together with other people (not necessarily your partner), and if you persist with it my experience is that you will see at least some benefit.What don´t I like about Hendrix? He has a conversational style of writing, rather than an academic one. Which is great, but sometimes I feel that it is a rather rambling conversation and I yearn for some dot points. I´d love to see Hendrix say in less than ten thousand (or a hundred thousand) words, ´This is the essentials of what I´m talking about.¨ His analogies are great, his case studies support his arguments, and I have no argument with him expressing his strong Christian faith. It is just that they make reading him an effort, which I find wearying, knowing that the exercises he prescribes will be arduous enough. That said, he has set himself the challenge of trying to get across an abstract idea that is a little counter-intuitive to an audience that have hugely varied experiences, belief systems and appreciation of the workings of the unconscious. Which explains the multiple books, and the effectiveness of the group seminars where facilitators can ´bring people along´ with the theory and exercises.What else don´t I like? Most of all that Hendrix says this only works in deep romantic (love) relationships. I don´t think he has an issue with same sex relationships, but the books of his I have read (and this one) don´t give them any focus. As a theory it would be more interesting if he had looked at long term friendships and even our relationship with animals, with inanimate things and ideas, and with work and our position in society. Essentially his theory pins everything on the unconscious, and provides (apparently) useful exercises to satisfy it, but does not wrestle with what is going on in the unconscious - the way it represents the external world and it´s capacity for confusion, self-deception and displacement. And last of all, while the development of his theory is well anchored in real life couples experience, I sometimes miss some explanation or reflection on how his therapy can be effectively introduced to couples: how it leaves them ´on the far side´, and how it relates to the wider family (children, in-laws, etc) and situations where there is real mental illness. But worthwhile? Yes. Read it, put it down, come back to it and think about it. Accept its limitations, take advantage of what it has to offer, don´t expect a silver bullet. Try and be nice to your partner, and yourself.
    • 5/5
      Simply put: a must. Everyone- married, engaged, or even single- should read (no, study) this book. It will inform and enrich the reader's life, giving an understanding where there had been before.
    • 5/5
      Basic, essential reading -- preferrably BEFORE you marry. It may seem a bit far-fetched that we all seek to repair the damage elements in our birth family through marriage, but it is absolutely true. Just dig a bit deeper into your relationships and you'll see. This book is filled with the best wisdom on marriage you will ever encounter.