Matt Townsend - Starved Stuff: Feeding the 7 Basic Needs of Healthy Relationships

STARVED Stuff:
Feeding the 7 BasicNeeds of Healthy and Enduring Relationships

Matt Townsend

STARVED Stuff:
Feeding the 7 Basic Needs of Healthy and EnduringRelationships

Matt Townsend

Copyright Matt Townsend 2015

Published at Smashwords

To my wife, Mardi,

For her constant feeding of

Safety, Trust, Appreciation, Respect,Validation,

Encouragement, and Dedication.

and

To my children,

Sarah, Jacob, Tanner, Britton, Spencer, andJosh.

I love being your dad!

I love you all!

Table ofContents

Just as a journey of a thousand miles mustbegin with a single step, the journey of this book did begin with asingle step taken many years ago. And with one step taken, I feltlifted by hundreds of others along the way who have carried me,pushed me, prodded, pulled, and shuttled me to the finish line. Inthe end, this book is a monumental group effort and there are manypeople to thank.

Thank you, Tammy Rigby, my most trustedassistant, for having my back and for caring at times even morethan I did. Your selfless support, commitment, hard work and focuson the minutia cannot be understated. This book would not havehappened without your work.

Thank you, Bettyanne Bruin, for your giftedsynthesizing, editing and writing ability. It was your positiveenergy that pushed this book project forward, and without yourdirection, people would still be asking, When is your book goingto be out?

To my wife, Mardi, and my children, Sarah,Jake, Tanner, Britton, Spencer and Josh, thank you for your endlesslove and support. You have helped me learn the lessons contained inthis book and I appreciate your willingness to share our storieswith the world.

Thank you to my mom and dad, Carolyn andMartin Townsend, who have both contributed greatly to the successof this book and its author. Mom, thanks for always being mybiggest cheerleader and providing the runway to succeed in life.And Dad, thanks for the invaluable gift of humor, which hasprovided me access to the hearts of so many who desperately need tobe fed.

Thank you to my parents-in-law, Mike andMerrilee Preece, and grandparents-in-law, Bill and Margaret Preece,for exemplifying healthy relationships.

Thank you to all of my clients, workshopparticipants and guinea pigs that have helped me sculpt thiscontent while working on their issues. There truly is no doubt inmy mind that I learned much more from all of you than you couldhave ever learned from me. Your hands are all through this materialand you need to know that the lessons learned during some of yourlowest times together are now lifting others.

Thank you to thoseassociates and colleagues, both past and present, who haveselflessly strengthened my voice and enabled this mission ofhelping to feed relationships. Inparticular , thanks to SteveHelland, Abraham Shreve, Mike and Amy Bohn, Teresa and Ryne Hazen,Dave and Gerry Fairbanks, Harry Nelson, Jill McIntyre, PeterBrooks, Brint Driggs, and John and Jane Covey

Thank you to my biggest cheerleaders whoconstantly push me to be better and help me believe in myself:Martianne and Perry White, Jackie and Randy Jolly, Mary and AllanMcNichol, Paige Preece, Katie and Adam Jacobsmeyer, Camryn andJames Stewart, Mike and Jennie Preece, Stephen and Jenny Preece,Margene McFarland, Joel Wolfgang, Bart Summerhays, SylviaBrunisholz, Kent and Kristena Eden, and Victor and Lois Cline.

A gifted book team converged on this projectand turned a distant dream into a reality. Thank you to ScottEggers, Jennifer Grillone, Justin Workman, Jeff Bagley, MardiTownsend, Ann Hoole, Jen Romney, Karen Rozsa, Judy and Lauren Ball,Jyl Pattee, Annie Oswald, and special thanks to Rebecca Merrill forher invaluable thoughts and direction.

Finally, thank you to everyone else notmentioned here whose examples I have followed, whose words havelifted me, and whose positive actions have helped me believe thatthis could all happen. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Preface

As a child of divorced parents, Iquite naturally became interested in the dynamics of humanrelationships at a fairly young age. Whenever I played at afriends house, I paid close attention to how my friends parentscommunicated. For most of my life, for whatever reason, I seemed tobe the one other people would approach to discuss theirrelationship problems. When dating my wife, I studied both herparents and grandparents interactions with curiosity. In my ownexplorations, both educationally and professionally with couples,corporations, and communities, relationships have always fascinatedme. Over the years, I have seen very powerful and predictablepatterns emerge within all of these relationships I have observed.Even though each relationship is as individual as a snowflake thatfalls from the sky, I found predictable similarities amongrelationships, in how they form, how they bind together, and theissues that threaten their longevity and livelihood.

Mylearning was deepened as I used my communication and conflictresolution skills working as a divorce mediator, trying to helpcouples who had lost all hope in their relationship and thought themost painless way to get through it was to divorce. In that work, Ifound nearly one-third of all the people who came to use myservices didnt actually want to divorce, but didnt know what elseto do; they could no longer live together and felt as though theyhad tried everything they could to preserve the marriage. They hadbeen to therapy, read the suggested books, and yet nothing seemedto change the pain they continued to inflict upon each other. Thiswas when it dawned on me that often couples just dont have thetools to make a relationship work. From this point on, I changed mycourse of action from trying to help couples end marriagespeacefully, to instead trying to help couples save theirrelationship courageously. My desire became to share all of theskills and tools I had accumulated over a decade and combine themwith the latest research in marriage and family in hopes ofpreventing other couples from going through the samedifficulties.

Research shows that more than 90 percent of people in theworld, both male and female, will marry in their lifetime, withroughly 50 percent of marriages in the United States ending indivorce. How can it be that so many people seek the goal of ahealthy relationship and yet a healthy relationship remains soelusive?

After working with literally thousands ofcouples, ranging from newly engaged to nearly divorced, I believestrongly that most couples want the exact same thing when it comesto their relationships: for them to be healthy, happy, and to beable to endure the test of time. Simply put, they want theirrelationship to last. This book is my attempt to encapsulate theprinciples I have found that create healthy and enduringrelationships. These are the principles taught in my six-weekFeeding the STARVED Relationship workshop. Just as I help couplesset their Goals ,overcome Challenges, and find Solutions in my relationship-coaching practice, I havechosen to break down this book into threesections:

The Goal Creating Healthy and Enduring Relationships

The Challenges STARVED Stuff: Feeding the 7 BasicNeeds of Healthy and Enduring Relationships

The Solutions The Four Courses That Feed theSTARVED Relationship

As arelationship coach, my goal is to help you and your partner createpositive change. To help you do this, Ive included a page at theend of each chapter for you to record what you have learned andwhat you feel compelled to change in your relationship. If you fillout My Feeding Plan after every chapter, by the time you get tothe end of the book, you will have a complete plan for how tocreate a healthy and enduring relationship.

In The Goal section of thisbook, we will examine one of the most critical yet confusingconcepts to creating healthy and enduring relationships, namely theconcept we call love. In order to understand The Goal , one must learn how tonavigate through each of the Three Stages of Love. These stagesinclude the hot and heavy Yearning Love, where we will learnabout the chemistry that heats up and blinds a couple during theinitial stage of a relationship. Then theres the more monotonousand grueling Earning Love, where we learn about the smoke that chokes outmarriages and may make us want to end the lifelong journeyprematurely. Finally, we will explore the rewarding summit or goalof Enduring Love so we have a crystal clear example of how love is earned andmaintained in healthy and enduring partnerships.