*How This Book Started

My wife Harriet and I were taking a couple's communication class. On one particular Sunday there was a lot of tension in the air. I asked the instructor Ken if we could stop and individually write down a number from one to ten (ten being the best) where we thought our marriages or current relationships were. He agreed to let us do it. (What I since learned is men will usually rate their relationship three to four points higher than women will.) Then he asked if someone wanted to share. One fellow said, "I will. I think my marriage is between a nine and a ten." At that point his wife whipped around with daggers in her eyes and said, "What could you have been thinking? Why do you think we're here taking this class? I just put down a three." She proceeded to tell us that she thought they were headed for a divorce. This set the tone for the rest of the couples in the room. Few were close to their partner's number.

I thought, Something Is Going On Here That I Need To Know About. A few days later I took Harriet to a nice place for lunch. I asked her if she could tell me those things that made her feel special or loved. If she didn't know then, a few days later would be fine. I didn't have to wait. As I was to find out with most women, the computer didn't go searching. In a nanosecond, Harriet started telling me what made her feel loved.

There were five things. I knew, perhaps, one of them; I didn't have a clue as to the other four. In other words, if I was strapped into the electric chair to be executed and all I had to do to save my life was come up with the five things that made my wife feel loved, they would have thrown the switch long ago. I didn't know.

What I had discovered for myself was that my wife had a Love Bank that contained those special things that made her feel loved. You have one, too. We all do.

Actually, the Love Bank has always been there. Don't you remember the times when that special person in your life had a Love Bank that became overdrawn . . . and you didn't have overdraft protection? Oh, yeah, you remember.

I decided to take those five things my wife told me that made her feel loved and to start using them to open a Love Bank Account. It was just like going down to the bank and opening up a savings account.

I started making deposits in my wife's Love Bank Account by doing those things that made her feel special and loved. I quickly found out that it was an interest and dividend earning account. Guess who got the dividends from this account? Right: me! It turned out to be the largest interest I had ever received (in those things that made me feel loved), and I didn't even have to report it to the IRS. You can also open up one of these Love Bank Accounts.

I have noticed that we cruise through life for the most part not really knowing what makes those special people in our lives feel loved. Because men and women are wired so dramatically different (you have noticed, haven't you?), we think we are sending the message out as to what makes us feel loved. But the message seems to get lost in the translation and comes out as gibberish. And when we don't know what really makes that person feel special and loved, WE ARE SHOOTING AT A MOVING TARGET. As such, we end up doing for others what makes us feel loved. It's not the same. Love Bank deposits send the message that you care. They provide new Nuggets of Life, tools and skills in your tool box for improving and repairing relations.

There are people who would say that this is phoney, it's giving in, being weak, knuckling under and giving up control (as if they had it). I disagree. It's like Sears coming out with a new tool for your trade or a new program for your computer. When computers first went in at my job it took over one hour to do my first report. Now I can do the same report in less than one minute. To master these new tools and skills, there is a learning period that takes time. But once you master the new skills and tools, it makes your job easier. Tools for a carpenter make his job easier. Communication and relationship tools will make your life easier. When you are in a healthy relationship with good skills and tools, it's doing easy time. When there are few tools or skills to deal with unresolved issues in an unhealthy relationship, it becomes like doing hard time in prison.

Example: After five years of marriage, Bill is not happy because their sex life is not what it was. Donna has emotionally shut down to Bill because she feels that there is no opportunity for growth and hope in their relationship. Bill won't take the time to listen or talk to Donna. Donna feels shut out and frustrated because she can't express her feelings and is not being accepted by Bill. Donna nags Bill, unconsciously thinking it will make Bill fulfill her needs. This is hard time. So, you see, YOU CAN DO HARD TIME OR YOU CAN DO EASY TIME. THE CHOICE IS YOURS. I ask people at my speaking engagements, "How many of you want to sign up for doing hard time?" Silence. No one raises his or her hand. Then I say, "How come so many of you are on death row?"

Unfortunately, you can't just go out and buy a new set of communication and relationship tools. Even if you could, you wouldn't know how to use them. It would be like giving you a complete set of electrician's tools and sending you out to make a repair. Without the skills, you wouldn't be able to do it. It's the same with communication and relationship tools. It takes time, work and commitment to obtain the skills for a relationship to work well.

At first, some women consider this Love Bank and tools for relationships concept as being too mechanical. I can assure you that if you will continue on this journey for a few more chapters, just around the next bend it will all start making sense.

Why would a person who wants to improve his or her communication skills and relationships keep using the same tools that produce the wrong results?

So, what have you done or what are you now doing that has worked? Isn't it time to trade in those old, outdated tools and skills for the new state-of-the-art, cutting edge, communication, relationship tools? The only thing you need in order to get started is a desire and willingness to learn. Without these, don't bother. You might say, "Well, that's just the way I am. I've always been this way. I can't change". "Can't" means won't. "Can't" might find you living somewhere else.

"Knock the 't' off the can't." George Reeves (1876-1925)