His Needs, Her Needs: Building and Affair-Proof Marriage [Paperback]

My wife and I are certainly not your average couple, if his list is really reliable.

His list of the top emotional needs is:
1. Affection
2. Sexual Fulfilment
3. Conversation
4. Recreational Companionship
5. Honesty and Openness
6. An Attractive Spouse
7. Financial Support
8. Domestic Support [= help with household duties]
9. Family Commitment [= help with child-rearing]
10. Admiration

He points out that a man's top need might be his wife's eighth need. It is important to her, but not nearly as important as it is to him. And vice versa, of course.

Reading the book has made me reflect on how well I meet my wife's needs. This can only be a good thing.

I knocked off a star, because the book is marketed in Christian bookstores, but is hardly a Christian book. But I highly recommend reading and reflecting on what he has to say.

First of all, in response to the previous attacks on the book all i can say is that while women TEND to be more relationship focused thus communication, affection, etc. TEND to be what they are looking for in a man. Thus since guys TEND not to as relationship focused, what a woman sees as defining a person is not necessarily what a man sees. I could criticize women and say all women want is a robot with skin that will talk to her, agree with her, and touch her. That would be just as narrow and unrealistic as some of the comments made previously. It takes character to be the kind of woman a man is looking for. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to marry a selfish, overbearing woman who didn't care how she looked, wasn't interested in having fun with me, and expected me to be perfect 100% of the time and in all ways before she was willing to be intimate with me. Yet that seems to be the picture that comes to mind when taking these needs to an extreme.

Ultimately i believe that Harley has a clearly credible case for both sides and i would gladly pass this book on. However as with many books in this genre it is rather narrowly focused. It doesn't discuss what communication is how to deal with it when it is broken down, or any of a hundred different topics important for a healthy marriage. Then again, it has to be that way to keep from being 2000 pages and losing it's focus instead of 200 and clear.

My biggest concern with this book is what seems to be the male bashing. In reading the first five needs discussed it always seems to be the man's fault that the need is not being met. The man isn't affectionate enough with his wife, it's all his fault. The man's need for sexual intimacy... well, if men were fulfilling their wife's need for affection then this wouldn't be a problem thus it's all his fault. Communication... men you need to communicate more with your wife. You need to drop everything else to make sure that you are talking to her 24hours a day. Recreational companionship... It's all your fault men, you need to stop doing what you enjoy if your wife doesn't enjoy it. Thus all sports should be banned unless your wife likes them too. In those first four chapters Harley goes up one side of the man and down the other blaming him for all of the problems and not once mentions that maybe the woman needs to make changes such as, stoping spending so much time on the phone with her sister/mother/friend (her recreational interests) and spend it with him doing things they both enjoy instead. Or maybe that if the wife took some real interest in their sexual relationship instead of getting annoyed that her husband actually finds her sexually attractive or having an attitude of "I'm doing this because i'm supposed to so i'm just going to bear through it", then maybe she would find that he is more affectionate with her. The relationship works two ways, and yet it seems like Harley focuses a whole lot more on the guys being at fault for things than the women. That's not to say that he doesn't ever focus on the women, as is evident in the chapter on physical attraction (this chapter i have a great many issues with what Harley says), but overall the blame seems to be placed much more on the man than on the woman.

Like i said before. This is a great book. I would and have recommended it on many occasions, but always with reservations and stating that i don't agree with everything Harley says.

1) The book says that some men like attractive women. Gasp...it's true. The author even illustrates the flip side of the coin when he tells the story of the woman realized that SHE was into looks too. But the author is blasted for pointing out that some people favor appearance.

2) The book says that some women don't want to work. It did not say all. I guess the fact that some women would rather work part time and take care of the children is politically incorrect now.

I am tired of reading reviews where people do not read the whole book, or get upset at things that would offend them and then condemn the whole book. The list of needs are not the same for everyone, the author states this but, alas again, people miss this point.

The only reason why I gave it four stars is because I wish it were a bit longer. He also could have spent more time explaining what he meant so that people who skim and do not digest what they've read entirely could have gotten his message.