Originally published in 1988, Getting the Love You Want has helped millions of couples attain more loving, supportive, and deeply satisfying relationships. The 20th anniversary edition contains extensive revisions to this groundbreaking book, with a new chapter, new exercises, and a foreword detailing Dr. Hendrix’s updated philosophy for eliminating all negativity from couples’ daily interactions, allowing readers of the 2008 edition to benefit from his ongoing discoveries during his last two decades of work. Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., in partnership with his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, PhD., originated Imago Relationship Therapy, a unique healing process for couples, prospective couples, and parents. Together they have more than thirty years’ experience as educators and therapists and their work has been translated into more than 50 languages, with Imago practiced by two thousand therapists worldwide. Harville and Helen have six children and live in New York and New Mexico. “Hendrix provides much insight into how spouses can mature through one another.” ― Booklist “Harville Hendrix offers the best program I've seen for using the love/hate energy in marriage to help a couple heal one another and to become whole together.” ― T. George Harris, Editor-in-Chief, American Health “I know of no better guide for couples who genuinely desire a maturing relationship.” ― M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled “ Getting the Love You Want is a remarkable book--the most incisive and persuasive I have ever read on the knotty problems of marriage relationships.” ― Ann Roberts, former president, Rockefeller Family Fund “ Getting the Love You Want provides a road map for partners seeking a path to intimacy and passionate friendship.” ― Marion Solomon, Ph.D. “This book will help any couple find the love they want hidden under all the concealing confusion of a close and intimate relationship. I have seen these principles in application and they work!” ― James A. Hall, M.D. Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. , has more than thirty years of experience as an educator, public lecturer, and therapist. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages and Imago Therapy is practiced in thirty countries. Hendrix and his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, are the co-creators of Imago Relationship Therapy. They have six children and live in New Jersey and New Mexico. Chapter 1 When couples come to me for relationship therapy, I usually ask them how they met. Maggie and Victor, a couple in their mid-fifties who were contemplating divorce after twenty-nine years of marriage, told me this story: “We met in graduate school,” Maggie recalled. “We were renting rooms in a big house with a shared kitchen. I was cooking breakfast when I looked up and saw this man—Victor—walk into the room. I had the strangest reaction. My legs wanted to carry me to him, but my head was telling me to stay away. The feelings were so strong that I felt faint and had to sit down.” Once Maggie recovered from shock, she introduced herself to Victor, and the two of them spent half the morning talking. “That was it,” said Victor. “We were together every possible moment for the next two months, and then we eloped.” “If those had been more sexually liberated times,” added Maggie, “I’m sure we would have been lovers from that very first week. I’ve never felt so intensely about anyone in my entire life.” Not all first encounters produce seismic shock waves. Rayna and Mark, a couple ten years younger, had a more tepid and prolonged courtship. They met through a mutual friend. Rayna asked a friend if she knew any single men, and her friend said she knew an interesting man named Mark who had recently separated from his wife. She hesitated to introduce him to Rayna, however, because she didn’t think that they would be a good match. “He’s very tall and you’re short,” the friend explained; “he’s Protestant and you’re Jewish; he’s very quiet and you talk all the time.” But Rayna said none of that mattered. “Besides,” she said, “how bad could it be for one date?” Against her better judgment, the friend invited Rayna and Mark to an election-night party. “I liked Mark right away,” Rayna recalled. “He was interesting in a quiet sort of way. We spent the whole evening talking in the kitchen.” Rayna laughed and then added, “I suspect that I did most of the talking.” Rayna was certain that Mark was equally attracted to her, and she expected to hear from him the next day. But three weeks went by, and she didn’t hear a word. Eventually she prompted her friend to find out if Mark was interested in her. With the friend’s urging, Mark invited Rayna to the movies. That was the beginning of their courtship, but it was never a torrid romance. “We dated for a while, then we stopped for a while,” said Mark. “Then we started dating again. Finally, three years later, we got married.” “By the way,” added Rayna, “Mark and I are still married, and the friend who didn’t want to introduce us i