Marriage Dynamics Institute Builds Upon Love Bank Model | Strengthening Marriages and Repairing the Broken

Nobody gets divorced if they are in love. That profound realization became the thesis upon which marriage therapist and researcher Willard Harley, Ph.D., built his work and eventually became the inspiration for bestselling, His Needs, Her Needs book. Most marriage champions and many lay people interested in marriage and family have at least a passing familiarity with the book’s title and content. In the more than 35 years since it debuted, the book has sold more than four million copies worldwide. The concepts Dr. Harley introduced became the bedrock upon which later experts in the marriage field founded their practices, including the Nashville-based Marriage Dynamics Institute (MDI), which began in 1994. The ministry’s board was so captivated by Dr. Harley’s research they created curriculum based on His Needs, Her Needs to help couples improve and enrich their marriages.

The non-profit Christian ministry partners with couples, churches, and organizations to build powerful and effective marriage ministries by providing training for leaders, classes to improve marriage, inspirational workshops, and intensive retreats to save troubled marriages. Since 1994, more than 85,000 couples have experienced MDI’s classes and workshops with proven, positive results.

Deborah Timson took over as MDI Director of Operations in 2012 and became the Executive Director in May of 2016. Celeste LaReau joined the ministry in 2022 as Ministry Marketing Manager after the pandemic shut down the events she produced for non-profits. Celeste oversees MDI’s marketing strategy. The team plans the two-and one-half-day training sessions where facilitator trainers teach champions to lead MDI’s nine-week marriage dynamic classes in their churches or organizations. The skills of the two women complement each other perfectly.

“Celeste has been instrumental in helping us move into the new era blending in-person and online offerings to allow more versatility and reach greater audiences. She’s helping us tell our story so we’re not just a best kept secret anymore,” Deborah said.

MDI enlisted a group of talented professionals, therapists, marriage counselors, and ministers representing many different denominations, parts of the country, cultures and life experiences to develop their classroom curriculum expanding Dr. Harley’s Love Bank model.

To help people visualize how romantic love grows or wanes, Dr. Harley created the concept of an emotional Love Bank, which he describes as the “way your emotions keep track of the way people treat you.” When people make you happy, your emotions deposit units into that person’s account. When they make you unhappy, love bank units are withdrawn. Dr. Harley identified 10 categories of emotional needs that apply to most people. His Needs, Her Needs exhorts spouses to figure out each other’s emotional needs and learn how to meet them. Problems occur when people don’t recognize the importance of a need of their spouse if its priority doesn’t match their own.

Marriage Dynamics Institute trains marriage champions to lead 9-week enrichment classes titled United and Dynamic Marriage. Dynamic Marriage uses an interactive learning process to help couples identify damaging behaviors, develop healthy ways to manage conflict and identify and take steps to meet each other’s emotional needs. United helps couples explore God’s design for marriage through scripture-based lessons that uncover the spiritual and emotional elements of a lasting, loving relationship. MDI also offers a marriage enrichment weekend getaway called ReConnect, which gives a taste of the material from the classes in a more condensed fashion over a weekend. ReConnect is “where couples can enhance commitment, improve communication, and increase connection,” according to the organization.

More than 3500 couples have served as MDI facilitators – many leading faithfully for years. MDI recently launched a podcast to share some of their stories to inspire others. Deborah recalls writing a blog post about Ida and Charlie McClendon, now in their 80s, who’ve shepherded groups for more than 20 years.

“They are the unsung heroes,” she said. “They are faithful because they know the program works and marriages are changed.”

“People are realizing they don’t know what it means to work on their marriage. They realize they don’t have the tools to do it until they get to a bad bump in the road,” Celeste said. “Facilitator couples get them over those hurdles to the other side.”

MDI’s classes prove transformational for many couples. The biblical approach includes God’s intention for marriage and addresses spiritual as well as sexual intimacy. Workshops and classes are confidential and create a safe environment for couples to process what’s good in their marriage and provide tools to help avoid the harmful things. Traditionally, classes are held in person, but COVID inspired MDI to add an online format via an interactive group meeting that allowed couples to continue to connect electronically without leaving their homes.

Couples learn about emotional needs and how to meet those needs in an intentional way. “What’s their top emotional need vs yours, and how do you navigate that?” Deborah said. “What does physical attractiveness or domestic support look like to me and to my spouse?” Couples see lasting change because of the structure of the program and the intentionality. “They have conversations they would never have had with their spouse. They really start to understand themselves and their spouse on a whole new level,” Deborah added.

Celeste assesses the class curriculum as “so fundamental it’s brilliant,” comparing participating in the classes to enlisting in a weight loss program. “You don’t even know what to eat until you are taught. You have to understand what the tools are, which begins with learning how to communicate. Without communication, done respectfully, without interruption or eye rolling, there’s no conversation around any of the other topics or needs.”

Deborah appreciates seeing the power of words of affirmation. “It is amazing to see how people respond when they are affirmed. It is a huge marriage builder.”

They both credit learning to pray together as a key skill for couples to develop. “Many couples have separate prayer lives but never pray together. We’ve had couples who have broken down weeping because they have never prayed with their spouse before. With a strong prayer life, they feel like they can take on the world together. And it is hard to be mad at the person praying for you,” Deborah said. “Some have said it’s saved their marriage.”

United and Dynamic Marriage are intended to catch couples before a crisis. “People shy away from marriage classes. They don’t want others to think there is something wrong with their marriage,” Deborah said. “You take your car in for maintenance, do repairs on your home so something major doesn’t happen. Why wouldn’t you want to be intentional in strengthening your marriage? Our relationship with our spouse is the closest thing we have to our relationship with Christ — it is supposed to reflect that.  If you are not working on your marriage, you just may be working on your divorce.”

For some, their marriage has already reached that point of crisis. Hurting couples often reach out after a holiday, a weekend or a fight tips the scales to the breaking point. When they call, a MDI screener might ask, “If nothing changes in a year, where do you think your marriage will be?”

MDI’s three-day weekend intensives were designed for couples in crisis. The target couple for “A New Beginning,” a Turnaround Workshop for Troubled Marriages, is one on the verge of divorce. They’ve had couples referred to A New Beginning by counselors, pastors or facilitators at their church. Couples have even been referred by divorce attorneys. A New Beginning courses are held monthly in various metro areas including Houston, Nashville or Indianapolis and even online workshops for those couples in need who live too far from a live event. Couples are led by a couple, one of whom is a licensed professional counselor as well as being trained by MDI. Since MDI started the original, effective workshops in 1999, more than 5,000 couples have experienced the powerful, life-changing effects of A New Beginning. Seventy-five percent of those couples are still together one year after attending a new beginning and express an increase in marital satisfaction, according to the ministry.

A New Beginning provides:

A three-day marriage workshop that helps refocus on marriage

Education and empowerment to heal the relationship

A 75 percent success rate:  Three out of four couples who attend stay together

Over two decades of successful experience

A positive environment that focuses on the future, not the past or blame

Tools that provide the opportunity to fall back in love with one another

A chance to fix a marriage instead of ending it

“At A New Beginning, we hear things like, “I feel like we are just roommates,” or “I love my spouse, I’m just not in love with my spouse anymore,” Deborah added. “Maybe you’re dealing with an affair. We talk about the anatomy of an affair. You get tied up with work, kids, and activities. You get into a rut. What happens next can start with an innocent conversation with somebody lending a sympathetic ear. Before you know it, your love bank is being filled by somebody other than your spouse, which draws you toward the other person and away from your husband or wife. How did you fall out of love with your spouse and how can you fall back in love?” Everyone thinks affairs have to end in divorce. An affair doesn’t have to mean the end. There’s hope.

“A New Beginning is not the magic bullet that solves every problem after three days,” Deborah cautioned. “This is where the work begins. We give couples the tools to change the trajectory of their marriage.

“We’ve had couples tear up divorce papers and become willing to move forward. God shows up in every single workshop,” she said. Deborah echoes the motto that graces a wall at MDI’s office, “We believe there’s hope for every marriage.”

Interested in reconnecting, learning how to facilitate a class in your church or know someone who needs A New Beginning? Find out more at marriagedynamics.com.