Book PRE-view: "Starved Stuff"

I went to a Blogging Conference this last weekend. They had many classes pertaining to improving my blog (familyscratchcooking.blogspot.com, still a work in progress) and I learned many things! But I was surprised to see myself learning a lot about myself in my personal life as well. The opening Keynote Speaker for the second day was a relationship counselor, Matt Townsend, who spoke to us about developing a great relationship with our blog readers. But I was really drawn to the comments and examples he gave about husband and wife relationships - many things hit home for me. I bought his book as soon as the class ended.

The book is called "Starved Stuff: Feeding the 7 Basic Needs of Healthy Relationships" and I am very excited to read it! I read the first chapter this morning and passed it over to Brian and asked him to read it. We plan to read it together, yet separate, one chapter at a time.

The first chapter was about the three types of LOVE: Yearning Love, Earning Love, and Enduring Love. VERY INTERESTING STUFF! The first type of love (like when we are dating and falling in love for the first time) is the chemical stage of love - its all about the hormones! It has high chemicals, but low clarity (reality). He compares Yearning Love to a space shuttle launch where massive amounts of chemicals (fuel) are used in order to get the rocket in the air. Once the shuttle is in the air it transitions to the long journey. Similarly, our Yearning Love loses it's initial boost, and we must give way to the next deeper stage of love, Earning Love.

Earning Love is where each partner must earn the love he or she desires. There is much work involved. It's where the majority of couples spend most of their long-term relationship. The Earning Love stage has low-chemicals, but high clarity. It's a hard transition, and many people confuse it for "falling out of love"


The final stage is the Enduring Stage. It's the type of love (i.e. grandma and grandpa) where you are content with each other and committed to the end. Chemicals are no longer the source of your love, and the clarity is crystal clear. You literally CHOOSE to be with each other. It's the goal of the entire book - helping people reach that Enduring Love.

Doesn't that sound AWESOME?!? and thats only the first chapter! The rest of the book is about recognizing problems that arise during the Earning stage and how to solve them in order to reach the Enduring stage.

I'll let you know when I finish the book and about other highlights I enjoyed. If you decide to get the book, I'd love to hear what you learned from it! TTYL!!!