He Wins She Wins: Learning the Art of Marital Negotiation

The art of negotiation can be tricky.  One person has their demands while the other person might want something completely different and neither leave the table feeling happy about the process or outcome.  But, Im not talking about negotiating in a business setting, I am talking about negotiating in a marriage. 

William Harley, Jr has a new book called He Wins, She Wins where he talks about how, if done right, marital negotiations can come to a close with a win-win ending.  It will take work from both partners, but it is doable. 

He talks about why most marriages have issues and describes a concept called the Love Bank.  He says that to have a happy marriage, both partners need to make “deposits” into the Love Bank so that one person never feels like they are giving their all while the other person is just “withdrawing” everything.  He says that our emotions and how we feel about a person are tied to this Love Bank.  How much we have inside our Love Bank determine how we feel about the other person…when the person is making deposits we feel happy towards them, but when they are making to many withdraws we might determine that they should not be in our lives. 

Now, most marriages end because conflicts have a win-lose ending.  This will never make for a happy marriage because one person comes out of the conflict feeling like they have given up everything and gotten nothing in return.  This goes back to the Love Bank where one person is making a withdraw and the other person feels like they are getting nothing.  Yes, marriages are about sacrificing, but not so much so that you are the only one sacrificing.

Conflicts come from many different corners of marriage and can arise over things such as money, children, and even sex.  He also address how to negotiate with each other when we are feeling emotional, not quite sure how we might feel about the issue in question, or you don’t want to even bring the issue up.  There are certain ways to handle these situations and a few others that might arise and with his tips you can get through them all with a win-win outcome. 

What better way to make sure you have a happy marriage than to be able to work through a conflict and have a happy ending?  That’s what we all really want right…a happy ending.  Make sure you get your happy ending by learning how to negotiate in your marriage.

 Available October 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of this review.*