Three months ago, I and two other colleagues, all newlyweds decided to begin a couples’ timeout aimed at reading and discussing relevant books with the aim of building lasting marriages. I have been married the longest among them, and I knew I needed an accountability group, and defined activities that will keep my eye on the importance of family life. My joy was lit when my other two work colleagues and their wives agreed to meet monthly for a book review and discussion.
Our Book Reviews
Love Busters, a nice book by Willard F. Harley Jr., was our starting point. Our schedule was two chapters per month. Each couple was to read the chapters and show up on the last Sunday of the month to discuss the chapters till dinner time. It was a fun time. We enjoyed the conversations and the meals. These meetings became a source of pleasurable family times. It was mostly encouraging to realize that certain traits and issues seen in one’s marriage were not peculiar or unexpected. Rather they were universal and expected. The real deal lay in the responses and attitudes of each couple.
I will endeavor in the weeks following to share excerpts of the conversations we have had in the past three months and key learning points from Harley’s book. My hope is that these blog posts will ignite conversations around love and marriage – of sustaining love and remaining married.
Our first meeting held in my home on Sunday evening. The couples came in a little behind time, yet we spent the first ten to twenty minutes catching up and talking about the Nigerian elections which was to happen in a few weeks. Then we launched into the first two chapters:
How Love Busters Can Wreck A Marriage
What Is Marital Abuse? And Why Are We Tempted to Be Abusive?
Love Busters
Harley Jr. explains that certain habits bust the feeling of love a couple have for each other. These habits gradually corrode love and eventually leave a couple bitter, merely coexisting, or headed for a divorce. Love busters fall into the following categories:
- Selfish demands,
- Disrespectful judgements,
- Angry Outbursts,
- Dishonesty,
- Annoying habits, and
- Independent behavior.
These behaviors detract from a couple’s love bank. According to Harley, our emotions keep track of the way people treat us. “Our emotions check our Love Bank regularly to determine who is taking good care of us and who isn’t.” We therefore respond to our spouses, and people in general based on how we feel which in turn depends on how we are treated. Each action a spouse takes either increases our love bank or removes from it. These six busters withdraw heavily from our love banks and may ultimately lead to a tasteless marriage or divorce.
No Intention to Cheat
The concept of love banks and love busters help us understand the psychology of cheating in marriage. Sometimes, very well-meaning couples cheat not because they intended to or had ever been promiscuous, but because their love banks have been severely depleted on account of these love busters. Caren and Jim’s case cited in the first chapter clearly illustrates how this can happen. A neglected wife succumbs to her husband’s selfish demands and angry outbursts, then develops resentment, adopts independent behaviors, and eventually could not bear remaining in the marriage. What was once a blissful union falls apart like a pack of cards; at the root cause are actions that erode the love bank.
Our Application
As we discussed this chapter, it became clear to each one of us how we ignorantly or by lack of self-control make withdrawals from our spouse’s love bank. I was guilty of angry outbursts, another was as guilty as I; we noted tendencies towards independent behaviors, and selfish demands. It was a sober time of reflecting and making fresh commitments to act in ways that increase our love accounts with our spouses. Staying in love is a decent work that both parties should actively engage in. Marriages can be built to last.
On Decision Making