Notes on Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt

I heard about the book Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt from Tim Ferriss's podcast with Julie Rice, the co-founder of SoulCycle. On the podcast, she talked about the book as having helped her learn about "fostering a company culture and a family life ... that make conflict resolution go smoothly and constructively." Given that I'm interested in both good company culture and family life, I decided to check it out.

There were certainly parts that I wasn't into, like the sales-y references to all the commercial international "Imago" training workshops and the various religious undertones throughout. However, there were also many parts that made me think and consider how its lessons may apply to my life. One core message in the book is that one's upbringing as a child and unmet childhood needs carry over into one's selection of partner and one's conflict tendency (basically, your subconscious recreating the unresolved situations from childhood).

While that kind of thing may seem Freudian or annoying/strange in one way, I do see the validity of many of the ideas firsthand and in relationships I've thought about. Certainly its lessons around how to begin a productive adult dialogue with a partner, discuss behavior change, and discuss one's needs are very useful. The concept of "graduated change" was also a good framework.

Below are my full takeaways from the book.

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​Preface
Imago couples therapy
Imago dialogue
Couples fight due to competition for equality
Safety
Removing negativity
Flooding with positive affirmations

Part 1 unconscious partnership

1 love lost and found
Childhood problems and unmet needs affect relationships
Unconscious purpose of marriage is to finish childhood
Post family stress disorder

2 childhood wounds
Energy follows attention. What you focus on is what you’ll get. 
Cultivate connection by echoing feelings partners express
Legacy of wounding

3 your imago
Finding partner who resembles parent
Negative traits have appeal
Imago is combined silhouette of character traits of early caregivers
Attraction to people similar to imago due to unfinished childhood business

4 romantic love
Phenomenon of recognition
Phenomenon of timelessness
Phenomenon of reunification
Phenomenon of necessity
Connecting to partner in way parent connects to child

5 the power struggle
Minimizer of feelings (turtle)
Maximizer of feelings (hailstorm)

Part 2 conscious partnership

6 becoming conscious
New brain playing more active role
Relationship as addressing unresolved issues from childhood
Unconscious purpose of marriage is to finish childhood
Creating a more realistic view of partner
Ask for what you want in conscious messages
Proactive listening
Value partner’s wishes as well as own
Keep relationship safe always
Find new ways to satisfy needs
Shift from judgment to curiosity about partner
Accept the difficulty of creating lasting relationship

7 commitment
Invisible divorce
Ways couples find to avoid intimacy with each other
Reasons: anger and fear
Narrowing exits (activities you engage in to avoid partner)
Graduated change

8 discovering your partner
Dual valid realities
Try to see things from others point of view
Binocular vision
Exercise: unknow your partner to learn fresh
Be curious and keep asking partner is there more
Understand partner's inner world and private meanings of words from family upbringing
Imago dialogue
Mirroring, validating, empathizing
Focus on the actual words partner is saying instead of your reaction
Differentiation. Partner is not identical to you. 
Setup. Ask if now good time to talk. Request an appointment. Be more intentional
Use I language
Avoid all criticism. Focus on your experience. 
Mirroring is paraphrasing and checking/asking for confirmation. Ask is there more about that?
Not parallel monologues
Validating: affirm the inner logic of partner. the way you think and feel makes sense to me. 
Empathizing. Acknowledge and respond to the feelings behind the thoughts you validated. Check in to confirm you accurately heard their feelings. 

9 creating zone of affirmations
One thing I appreciate about you is
Care behaviors. Actions from courtship phase. 
Re-romanticizing the relationship 
The surprise list. Random reinforcement. Presents that are a surprise are more valued. Random droppings of things u know ur partner secretly wants. 
The fun list. Spontaneous 1:1 activities like massage and wrestling. Silliness in bedtime routine. 
Fear of pleasure

10 defining your curriculum
Imago workup
Imaging technique
Share after via imago dialogue
Remember childhood home and imagine telling what need from each parent 
Parent caregiver child dialogue
Many of your criticisms of partner are disguised statements of your own emotional unmet needs
Some of your criticisms of your partner may help you identify your own lost self
Behavior change request dialogue
Conflict is growth trying to happen

11 creating a sacred space
Constant criticism bad

12 portrait of two relationships 
In meeting the needs of your partner, you’re reclaiming a part of yourself

Part 3 exercises

13 10 steps to a conscious partnership
Graduated change