Getting the Love You Want by Hendrix and Hunt: Summary

Getting the Love You Want is the book behind Imago Relationship Therapy. Harville Hendrix wrote the first edition in 1988 under his name alone. This summary follows the fully revised 2019 edition, which lists Helen LaKelly Hunt as coauthor and credits her as cocreator of Imago.

The core idea is that we pick partners who resemble the people who raised us, and the fights that follow are an attempt to heal what went wrong in childhood. In the authors' words, "the unconscious purpose of marriage is to finish childhood."

Part One: The Unconscious Partnership

Chapter 1: Love, Lost and Found

People marry later now and meet online, but they still want lasting love, and losing it still hurts. Both authors divorced their first spouses, and the book grew out of trying to understand why. Under fights about chores, money and phones, they see an agenda formed early in life: to feel as alive and connected as we did with our first caretakers. We give our partner that job. "Partner, I expect you to satisfy the unmet emotional needs that I brought from childhood."

They use a simple brain model. The old brain runs automatic reactions and asks only whether something is safe or dangerous. The new brain thinks and plans, and can tell your partner from your parent. In their example, a man turns cold when his wife works late, because her absence brings back years of coming home to an empty house as a boy.

Chapter 2: Childhood Wounds

Talking about each other's childhoods, without years of analysis, helps partners move from judgment to curiosity and empathy. The authors describe the Still Face video, in which a baby falls apart in less than two minutes when her mother stops responding. They sort parenting problems into intrusive and neglectful. Children of intrusive parents often become isolators, who need space. Children of neglectful parents often become fusers, who want closeness. The two tend to marry each other.

A second wound is socialization. Children learn which thoughts, feelings and abilities are allowed, and they shut the rest down. The authors call those missing parts the lost self.

Chapter 3: Your Imago

The Imago (Latin for image) is a composite of the positive and negative traits of your childhood caregivers. The closer someone matches it, the more attracted you feel. When couples compared their partners with their caregivers, the closest matches were the negative traits. We are also drawn to people who have the traits we lost, which is why opposites attract. A weak Imago match tends to make a calmer, less passionate relationship.

Chapter 4: Romantic Love

Romantic love comes partly from brain chemistry, such as dopamine and oxytocin, and partly from the old brain's belief that this person will finally make up for childhood. The authors reduce lovers' talk to four themes: recognition, timelessness, reunification and necessity. Early on, partners hide their needs and deny each other's flaws. Then, like Psyche lighting the lamp to see Eros, they see each other clearly.

Chapter 5: The Power Struggle

The power struggle usually starts around the time a couple commits. Once the relationship feels secure, the wounded child wants its payoff. Traits that once attracted you start to grate. Partners reopen each other's wounds and defend themselves in opposite ways. In Imago terms, the Turtle pulls into a shell and the Hailstorm gets louder, and each makes the other worse.

Then they try to force each other to change through criticism and blame, the way a baby cries until someone comes. One husband, asked to name one thing his wife could do, said she should know by now. The authors say the struggle moves through stages like grief: shock, denial, anger, bargaining and despair.

Part Two: The Conscious Partnership

Chapter 6: Becoming Conscious

A conscious partnership, in the authors' definition, supports the psychological and spiritual growth of both people and treats the relationship itself as the priority. They list ten characteristics. You see your partner more accurately. You ask clearly for what you want instead of expecting mind reading. You put more energy into your partner's needs, keep the relationship safe, and trade judgment for curiosity. And you accept that a good relationship takes work. You have to become the right partner, not find the perfect one.

Chapter 7: Commitment

The first step is commitment. Imago therapists ask couples to attend at least twelve sessions, write a relationship vision in present-tense "we" statements, and agree to stay together for those twelve weeks. Then couples work on exits, the ways they act out feelings instead of saying them. Some exits are catastrophic, like divorce. Most are quiet: work, TV, the phone, the kids. One couple, Sylvia and Ricardo, spent a whole day together without a moment of intimacy. The authors call this an invisible divorce. Couples close exits gradually, starting with the easiest, and talk about them as they go.

Chapter 8: Discovering Your Partner

The basic problem in relationships, the authors say, is the inability to see the other person. Their tool for this is the Imago Dialogue, which they call the single most effective tool for creating a conscious relationship. The Sender first asks if it's a good time, uses "I" language and avoids criticism. Then the Receiver takes three steps.

Mirroring. The Receiver repeats or paraphrases what was said and checks it. The book's example starts, "Let me see if I got it." The Receiver keeps asking "Is there more about that?" until the Sender is done, then sums it all up.
Validating. The Receiver says the Sender's view makes sense from where they stand, which is not the same as agreeing. One suggested opening is "It makes sense to me, given that you" followed by the reason.
Empathizing. The Receiver imagines the Sender's feeling, starting with "I can imagine that you might be feeling" and a one-word feeling, then asks, "Did I get your feeling right?"

Then the partners switch. The authors admit it feels slow and artificial at first.

Chapter 9: Creating a Zone of Affirmations

Insight alone doesn't change a relationship. Building on an exercise by psychologist Richard Stuart, each partner lists specific things that would feel caring, and the other gives a few every day as gifts, without keeping score. They call these Caring Behaviors. A Surprise List and a Fun List keep the pleasure from going stale. Some people resist because pleasure was limited when they were children. The advice is to keep going until it feels safe.

Chapter 10: Defining Your Curriculum

When old conflicts return, the authors point out that what one partner needs most is often what the other is least able to give. That is also where the other partner needs to grow. Stretching to meet your partner's need helps you recover your own lost self. In their phrase, "conflict is growth trying to happen."

Many repeated criticisms, they say, are disguised statements of your own unmet needs. The Behavior Change Request Dialogue turns a frustration into the wish behind it, links it to childhood, and then to small, specific requests. In the workshop example, Melanie complains about Stewart's bad memory. Underneath is the fear that she isn't important to him, as with her preoccupied father. Her requests range from pulling out her chair at dinner to giving up his separate bedroom. Stewart is free to choose. About six months later he agrees to share a bedroom, and finds he wants the closeness too.

Chapter 11: Creating a Sacred Space

The first edition included an exercise for venting anger. The authors dropped it because venting often left couples more conflicted. Now partners share the grief and fear under the anger, for example in the Holding exercise, where one partner holds the other and mirrors as they talk about childhood pain. The bigger step is removing all negativity, including quiet forms like condescension and the silent treatment. The authors describe their own Zero Negativity Pledge, tracked with smiley and frowny faces on a bedroom calendar. Positive Flooding, where partners take turns showering each other with appreciation, closes the chapter.

Chapter 12: Portrait of Two Relationships

The last chapter follows two couples. Anne and Greg Martin resolved their major conflicts in three years. Greg learned to mirror Anne when she was angry, and Anne learned to accept his care once he gave it. Kenneth and Grace Brentano struggled for thirty years, much of it before they found Imago. The authors end by describing love in stages: eros in romantic love and the power struggle, agape when partners choose to heal each other, and finally philia, the love between friends.

Part Three: The Exercises

Chapter 13: Ten Steps Toward a Conscious Partnership

The final part has eighteen exercises, including the relationship vision, the Imago Dialogue, Caring Behaviors and the Behavior Change Request Dialogue. If your partner isn't interested, the authors suggest doing as many as you can alone, since a change on one side changes the whole relationship.