I do agree with this ^^^ and it may not even be wanting more out of her current partner but I do think there will come a point where she wants more than casual rolls in the hay. I think that of most men too though...at some point (months, years?) it sounds pretty lonely to me.

Fun is the goal! It is an important part of what is required for long term desire. Dr H says two things are required for a woman 1) a strong emotional bond and 2) the prospect of enjoyment. If she isn't having fun she won't want sex again. Or less as time goes on



Yes. Women don't really switch off their minds during sex so it is very important she isn't worried about how much the guy likes her. It should be totally stress and obligation free. If she isn't in love yet, it will also be pretty dull. Pleasant enough, but dull.I've heard so many reports of boring sex from women who jumped the gun.



I don't think arousal is much of a big deal to be honest. It tends to be a womans favourite bit but it is still only one part of the show. I've heard some pretty dull sex reports from girlfriends and none of them struggled with arousal. They all got there. Some of them even had orgasms, but they had to try really hard to get there. Depressing.

If you read Mary's letters to Dr H she had no problems reaching orgasm but that still didn't make it fun. For it to be fun all the stages must happen. And something else, that feeling of love and overwhelming desire is needed.

Dr H says if any of the stages don't work out, including the post orgasm stage, it leaves a woman frustrated and unwilling to repeat the experience.



Oh yeah sure. But they aren't going to build life long desires for one man that way. They are also only getting maybe half, or a quarter of the sexual experience at best.

Curious whether the "secure and committed" relationship people are mentioning is a married one. Can you have a buyers, non-married relationship?

I think you can have non-married buyers. But why wouldn't you marry?

It is my experience it is very difficult to find a buyer. Most divorcees are coming to the new relationship with bad habits from the first marriage. Unless they are fundamentally willing to change those habits .... you end up getting another partner who falls short.

Finding a willing and able person who is willing to change, be held accountable, and do what is needed to be a buyer is rare.

I would be really mad if the two of us worked towards buyer and he wouldn't marry me. That would tell me he was likely a liar and just conned me. If you are buyer/buyer why wouldn't you marry? You have a great catch!!

Home, that is exactly my point in the message I wrote in the other thread. Buyers are rare, but I think even more rare with alphas because they tend to be goal driven even at the expense of the relationship. An Alpha that is goal driven for the relationship would make an excellent mate, not only are they wanting to meet the needs of their spouse, but are very determined and capable of doing it.

I would put myself in this category so naturally I'm looking for the same in a woman. But as you say, where are they?

I don't look at the man as anything but a human who has ENs that need to be met. That alpha/beta thing just confuses me. I don't get it, so I'll just keep looking at men as men with certain ENs. Most of us are surviving and thriving after infidelity. That seems to be the bond that connects us all on here.

I know I never want to go through that pain ever again in my life. I certainly don't want my children to feel it again. This means I will follow Dr. Harleys narrow path to success. It has nothing to with anything but the logic. He represents a logical straightforward approach to remaining in love.

We know what happens when lovebusters drain the lovebank....it increases the likelihood of adultery. If one fails to adhere to good boundaries....well the writing is on the wall.

So why settle for a renter ... why remain at that level? If SF is best at the buyer then why not strive for that? Renter gives ones relationship high conflict...which leads to bad habits being present constantly. Renter is just not healthy for all persons involved.

The woman who can provide good SF and the man who can provide good FS are equals in this case. Pre-marriage it benefits them both to wait and be certain before giving it all away.

Oh my life Indie girl you have just made sense of something I have felt in all my relationships. Before I got the no sex before marriage I used to feel so uncomfortable that I as a woman was seemingly expected to give it out sexually before a man committed financially.

There are so many times I felt like a free prostitute and that I would witness as much with other women.

It used to make me feel sick that women were asked to give men SF but that a woman was labelled negatively if they wanted FF.

I get these feelings now.

It is perfectly acceptable for both and man and woman to withhold these 'gifts' until they are certain they are with the one they love and want a life-long commitment with.

It goes back to the basic foundation of trust. You can have blind trust or you can have trust but verify. Dr. Harley doesn't believe in blind trust. I am a firm believer in accountability....and what better way for you future spouse to have accountability than accepting a relationship based on 100% transparency, which provides both the opportunity to have trust but also a way to verify. Why would anyone want to give away their best stuff without building trust first. It allows youto have a high bar for what you want. If you set the bar high you get results ... a low bar is grounds for failure.

If I can't earn the respect of my partner by my integrity, then how can I expect that level of integrity in the marriage?

When building the relationship up to marriage it makes perfect sense to hold onto your best gift for the marriage. As Indie eloquently stated for woman that's sex and men that's financial support.

That way your foundation leading up to marriage is affection, IC, admiration, and RC. Hence by the time you get to buyer/buyer ... you both have established trust along with a foundation needed to sustain the relationship. The icing on the cake is sex and financial security.

Wow this is so exciting for me!

I have felt this intuitively but never understood it intellectually.

Also i was involved in a couple of cults along the way in my life and they expected blind trust. After being burnt with this trust is no major for me.

Why are women expected to give it out sexually and men are not expected to do the same financially?

Obviously I understand both are sacred now but there would appear to be some discrepancy between the sexes with this.

that should say SO major for me - not no!

Icing on the cake?
Well, that sure is a problem for a male that has SF as a top emotional need!
My lovebank will never be filled to the brink...

I would never commit for life to someone who might/might not meet my top need!

Let's turn this around:

If you were a women with "intimite conversation" as a top emotional need and men would hold out fulfilling your need for IC until after marriage...
That is not going to work either.

As a women you already know if your potential partner will be able to support you financially or not after a couple of dates.
You could even have that figured out before you get to the first date. :-)

There is a huge discrepancy here!

Gerold, you misunderstand.

Dr Harley has answered this question on his show many, many times. It is his finding that men don't need SF to fall in love. They need it to maintain, but not to fall in love initially.

The same is true of a woman with a high SF need. I have a high SF need, but I don't need to try someone out in bed before I fall in love with them. That would be absurd.

SF is commonly a top need - for men and women. Your issue isn't unusual and Dr Harley has come across it many times.

His answer is always the same - it isn't required.

He really has gone over this time and time again.

Besides which, your test of a woman's sex drive is flawed. I know absolutely scads of women who jump into the sack before they are in love. They aren't dragged there. They lingerie shop, they read sex articles, they discuss techniques with their friends. Their boyfriends are delighted but the women all end up bored of sex and wanting to avoid it.

A willingness to have sex is not a desire to have sex. If you are only looking for willing women, you are going to miss out on the ones with desire.

Well IC and FS are not high needs for me personally, but all of the needs can be faked. There isn't any discrepancy.

Someone with a high IC need can fall in love with a conversational person, who doesn't actually enjoy conversation. It's just a dating skill to them (like my friends and their lingeroie shopping). After marriage, the converstion will stop, because the person doesn't truly enjoy it.

A woman with a high FS need usually wants to be a SAHM. A man cannot demonstrate how he can provide for a family before there IS one. Also, if he were to move her in and pay all her bills he would be seen as a lunatic. Nobody expects him to provide such generosity before marriage.

Again, men who earn a lot commonly flash cash before marriage. It's a dating skill. It's commonly faked. It doesn't mean he will make joint financial decisions treating the woman as a true partner. It doesn't mean he won't get resentful at being the breadwinner.

Earning a lot and buying champagne on the first date does not a good provider make.

These are just short term impressions and they are the hall mark of renters and freeloaders.

Buyers, or those who want to be buyers, must think much more long term, than 'getting' someone to fall in love with us and to hell with the future.

This is so fascinating to read.

Gerold there is no way a woman could work out on the first few dates whether a man will meet her need for financial support. Like Indie says financial support in a buyer relationship is life-long.
How would anyone be able to tell if their date is capable of that on the first few dates?

Although there are top needs I sense it is about the whole package.

Sexual chemistry can be felt early on.

What Indie has helped me profoundly realise is why I have felt like a free prostitute in the past.

Giving a man sex before he has financially committed to our relationship just felt instinctively wrong for me. I felt used. And financial support is not my top need, intimate conversation is. But still I can totally get how it is these two gifts that need to be saved until marriage.

Indie thank you very much for your insightful comments that have really helped me.

First off, I want to say that if you want to have sex and the woman you're with wants to have sex (assuming she has not been led to believe it will earn your love) - have at it. I'm not going to tell you not to. Have fun and may the pleasure gods smile down on you.

Just don't falsely represent it as the 'top need' required to get your love under the MB love bank model. Such a claim is like telling a woman you can't love her until she provides you with sex. Something Dr Harley has NEVER said.

Also, that line will only work on women who don't know what it is like to have a high SF need.

Women with a high SF need themselves will know that is hooey. In fact you'll only attract the less confident and sacrificial. Two attributes which are absolute mood killers in women.

This attitude you have that women don't want sex is totally false. It's only sacrificial women seeking to please men who don't like sex. The rest of us like it just fine!

I know quite a few women with a high SF need and they are extraordinarily picky. They are not a bit sacrificial and have no interest in getting men to like them, much less love them.


If a man were to say this to them:





They would just shrug and go away.

Women such as this understand it is not their job to persuade you. The obligation for fulfilling sex does not fall on them, it falls on the man.

They would very happily seek elsewhere.

Indie girl I've only liked sex with a couple of guys I have had relationships with. The rest was a sacrifice where I felt I needed to give them that.
Yet even with those guys I enjoyed sex with I still felt it was really weird that they wanted me to share my most intimate gift with them - and yet they kept their money separate from me and never included me in any financial decisions they made. I was wanting to be in a buyer relationship even though it is obvious to me now it was just a renters one.
I was desperately insecure at one point in my development.
I truly had no positive role models around me to even know how to behave as a female.

Gerold how would you feel about sharing all of your finances with your life-long partner? Would you be willing to make joint decisions on how the money got spent? Would you see it as your money because you earnt it? Would you be prepared to support a woman if she wanted to be a stay at home mum(presuming you would want children)?
They are lots of men I know who see their money as their money in marriages because they earnt it. I find this unacceptable and a turn off. Finding these principles gives me more confidence to own how I feel.

I also understand now that a man has needs I may have resisted fulfilling in my relationships. Needs I did not want to accept were important.

Obviously with both SF and FS there could be times when these needs can not be fulfilled. A woman may have just had a baby and not feel up to having sex for physical and emotional reasons, or a man might lose his job and be out of work for a bit.

In a buyers relationship I am guessing these periods will not be enough to tear a couple apart but that if they are recorgnised as being important then the couple can work towards getting them fulfilled in a sensitive and caring fashion

For me to enjoy sex I have to fill a deep emotional connection.