Sex Relationships Books

This is a funny book, because Women wrote this book and its about HOW a woman suppose to act dealing with men and in relationships. You can tell this is a 1970 femeinist group who wrote this book, but its funny, because some of the advice and rules are BOGUS and stupid. A good humor for best. Any woman with a rational brain would use this book to level her coffee table.

These are the "rules" some women attempted to follow to find and marry Mr. Right, not knowing that in actuality, there is no such thing. If the marriagable woman does as she is instructed in this little nonsensical manual, she must follow a simple working set of behaviors to make her irresistible to the right kind of men, not just anyone.

This book claims to be "networking" for success in making a real, lasting marriage and not just loveless mergers. These suggestions may have come in handy back in the Forties and Early Fifties, but not today. We women are liberated individuals and the men are not as worthy of our attention as at that innocent social time. We must be careful just whom we choose and whom and how we love him. Stick with a real man and you won't be disappointed in any way. Sex is not love, but men need it more than the wife. Be accomodating to a point, but be your own person and demand your "space."

This book is an amazing five-star book for men and should be required reading for all high school males.

Why?

So they can be on the look out for the predatory and highly deranged women that actually use and believe this garbage. I think the only thing they didn't cover in the book was the exact process with which to properly prick a condom with a sewing needle.

I lived by this book when I was single. My best friend and I actually made a pact that we were going to follow the 'rules'. We both met our husbands while following The Rules. They seem a little old-fashioned, but I think they are valid.

This book is the best relationship book you'll ever invest in. I always had dead end relationships. I felt like all the guys were using me. When I read this book, I saw all the mistakes that I made with men. I called too much, I was available for last minute dates, I returned phone calls within mintues etc. I did the opposite of every rule in the book!! All my relationships never worked. I almost gave up on love altogether until oneday I went to the bookstore. I was checking on the relationship section and that's where I saw this book. This book is a life saver. Girls, this book is not about game playing it is human nature and we must act accordingly. If you want a satifying relationships that leads to marriage then this is your book.

What I as a man like most about this book is that Gary is humble enough to admit that he himself had to overcome the same typical male responses and insensitivity to women that nearly all men do. That makes me relieved that it's not just me, and gives me a lot of encouragement.


Lee Liebner, author/singer of As You Go, an inspirational gift book/song-on-CD/scrapbook-journal for young people leaving home to enter the world.

This book should be required reading for every married person - male and female. It's a quick read - written well - enjoyable and greatly informative. There's a ton of wisdom packed in its pages. My husband and I just read it and we've been together 11 years - it's truly helping us get back to where we used to be - the love of each others lives!! It will bless your life - it will also help you with your children. This book teaches you how to love unconditionally through commitment and kindness. It is a MUST READ!!

My husband and I read this book while we were engaged. It truly helped to prepare us for the love life in marriage that comes after the lovey-dovey stage is over. I have given this book to many engaged couples as well as seasoned couples who are having rocky times because marriage can be hard in the first, second, fifth, seventh years...

This is a classic book. If you are looking for some good information to build a life upon, this is a great book to start with.

If you are facing problems in your marriage, order this book and then look at The Man of Her Dreams The Woman of His! and The Man of Her Dreams The Woman of His 2 - Livin' It and Lovin' It! (Volume 2)

Blessings to you!

Joel and Kathy

Gary Smalley has written several outstanding books on building and maintaining a strong marriage. He has certainly earned the reputation of being someone at the forefront of marriage advice. Unfortunately, I do not find this book, LOVE IS A DECISION, to be anywhere near his best work. Here, Smalley teams with co-author John Trent. The work is good, and there is certainly some great advice here for both newlyweds and long term spouses alike, but I find this book to be difficult at times. What I mean is, I've read this book 3 times now. It is only just over 200 pages. Usually, a book of that size I would tear through in one or two days, but it always a week or more to read this one.

I must say, I certainly agree with the premise and foundational message of the book. So much so that I teach it as an integral part of my marriage coaching. Love is a decision. Oh, I know, it doesn't start out that way so much, but that is why our divorce rate is so high today. When we first meet someone, our attraction is emotional. We see qualities about a person that attract us causing an emotional bond to develop. However, usually somewhere between 1 and 3 years into living under the same roof as husband and wife, those characteristics that we once found attractive now are often like fingernails on a chalkboard.

We must keep in mind that we humans are static creatures, not dynamic. We are ever changing and when we build our relationships on characteristics, we don't realize the strain we are putting on our relationships, because, in time, our characteristics will change. Our interests will change. Our physical qualities will change. Even our opinions will change. Like the old saying, "a man in his twenties who is not liberal has no heart, but a man in his thirties who is not conservative has no brain". The point is, we all change. When we base our relationship on characteristics, we are basing it on something that will be much different down the road.

You see, at some point during the first few years of marriage, we lose our emotional attraction and we must find a new path to marital bliss. This is found through our decision to love that person, despite the fact that they are no longer the same person we fell in love with. That is the premise of the book here and Smalley and Trent do site some viable guidelines to that end, but for me, the book falls short.

I'm not one who normally puts down one book to tout another, but in this case, many people reading this review might find their marriage in a dire situation. Therefore, if you do find yourself in a marriage that seems to have lost its love, I would recommend first reading "Marriage Fitness" by Mort Fertel. It covers the same principles, and does it a more usable fashion.

Pastor Monty Rainey

I would recommend this book to anyone who needs help communicating with, or is filled with resentment toward, their spouse. I would also get a highlighter out and start using it at the begining! I laughed over and over again while reading this book because it was truly as if the author was speaking directly to my husband and I! I never thought it would be THAT good, but it was! Things are so much better now, but it takes practice so this book remains on our shelf for later reference!

First time reading any of Dr. Grey's Venus and Mars books. This was excellent. Both my husband and I gained a tremendous amount of insight as to mind of the opposite sex and how we relate to different situations. I highly recommend it, especially if you are having trouble understanding how your partner does what she/he does.

Anyone even thinking about love and marriage must read this book! It will prepare them for what is ahead in their lives; not just blue sky, lovey dovey stuff!

I've read several of the M/V books and this one isn't all new info, but it did help me to understand some basic differences in men and women. I wouldn't put it at the top of the list of must-reads, but I think overall, it's worth your time.

Rarely does a book do such a good job informing the reader in a way that can change lives. John Gray helps the reader understand there are inevitable differences between men and women and the key to success in relationships is to understand and navigate those differences rather than to try and change or ignore them. I also highly recommend Men in Marriage: Straight Talk For Men About Marriage: What Men Need to Know About Marriage (And What Women Need to Know About Men)by Marty Friedman.

The cover and title itself, at first glance, could lead one to believe this was another in a long line of Oprah-esque literary campaigns designed to scare the crap out of our kids not to mention us....their parents!
Unprecedented in it's examination of past as well as current issues of Childhood Sexuality as well as an almost non-debatable presentation of facts, legal and/or otherwise, this is proving to be the benchmark of books on this delicate subject.
To her credit Judith Levine has taken the proverbial 'Slings and Arrows' for daring to write "Harmful to Minors" and will probably spend the better part of her career defending it's position. This reviewer never thought a book like this could ever be written much less published and I never thought I would be able to say this but ` It's about g*# damn time!'
This is coming from a proud parent and a loyal son. Now before some of you go off on some wild tangent about `sexualizing our kids' understand this. Sex and experimentation happens whether we want to believe it or not. It happens at various ages with various ages at various times in various places with various people. One of the `Bromides' I've always lived by is `I don't care who's wrong or right, I care what's wrong or right!' and after reading her book on this subject, I have come to the conclusion that Judith Levine is RIGHT! I am a proud father of two girls and I am both my girl's `Daddy'. Levine's common sense attitude, backed by her meticulous research of facts will find readers asking questions they were either afraid to or refused to ask before. As expected it had its early detractors. Those detractors could do nothing to prove her wrong. They operated with scare tactics and no facts. What a real 'Halloween Coalition' her detractors turned out to be. The extremists of both parties have trashed Levine. People from America's 'Far Right Wing', including it's most vocal ally, the Christian Right's very own 'Eva Braun', Dr. Laura Schlessinger, to the far Left Wing represented by a cavalcade of forgettable names, closely associated with the frigid/asexual/female chauvinist wing of the radical feminist movement. There hasn't been an alliance of this `weirdness' since the 1992 Anti-GAT/NAFTA campaign!
Ironically what I appreciated first was what I appreciated the most; The Title. A passerby catching a glance of just the books title would certainly come to the conclusion that it was some Pseudo-Clinical study of childhood sexual encounters, chocked full of stories of molestation and violence and predictably backed up by law-enforcement statistics proving things like the site of an exposed female breast to anyone under the age of 18 (check your local jurisdictions for Age-Of Consent) will cause that person to become a sexual predator, a deviant, a nymphomaniac or perhaps even go blind.
After delving into it one finds that it is anything but a scare mongering, painfully statistical treatise. While Oprah Winfrey, Pat Robertson and others continue ranting, all the while, steeped in the paranoia of `group-think and waiting for the call to go on the next witch hunt, you may want to take your hopefully open mind into an area not talked about much these days; The positive effects of childhood sexuality. While not an endorsement for `sex for any age with anyone' she does make an excellent and seemingly airtight case for a relaxation of certain `Prurient American ' sex-laws and attitudes. She also thankfully promotes a long overdue examination of our antiquated thoughts and ideas about sex as it relates to our children. It also may be one of the cleverest title-ings for a non-fiction work in the last 20 years. Whether or not you get the 'dipped in sarcasm' humor of the title you will, if read with an open mind, get a sense of the current state of childhood sexuality with it's almost 'Stalinistic' roundups and persecutions of caring parents and bright kids. She provides a common sense approach to dealing with issues of masturbation, sexual experimentation, child/child contact, adult/child contact and fear of sex as it relates to our views as adults. Reviled in some sectors, revered in others, Levine's major accomplishment is perhaps the one thing she didn't foresee. With the release of `Harmful To Minors: The Perils of Protecting Your Children From Sex', she has cracked open the door to a long over-due dialogue on sex and has done so in a way that forces us to face it, discuss it and finally deal with it.... and that my friends, is the most important thing of all.

Mike D.Jones, Sacramento, California

This excellent book provides the ammunition needed in the fight against those that wish to raise the age of sexual consent to 21. Already thousands of children and adolescents have been forced to register as sexual offenders for committing harmless acts such as groping or even pre-marital kissing.

Is consensually kissing someone a couple years under an arbitrary age of consent is really "sinful"? Is it really the job of government to punish this sin with a lifetime sentence?

All thinking people must not fall for the absurd "save the children from sin" bandwagon movement that is spreading sexual dysfunction and fascism. A fascist police state becomes absolutely necessary when the age of consent is higher than puberty. The natural age of consent is puberty. The ultimate goal of the child purity movement is to outlaw premarital sex. Outlawing premarital sex will criminalize far too many of those that we claim to want to protect.

Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (University of Minnesota Press, 2002)

I have read, over the years, a handful of books that I consider to be truly important, books that look at a particular aspect of our society, how it has damaged us (perhaps irreparably), and how we might change facets of our culture to stop further damage, and maybe heal some of the damage that's already been done-- Stanton Peele's The Diseasing of America, Gina Kolata's Rehtinking Thin, Philip K. Howard's The Death of Common Sense, and a few others. It's a very short list, mostly because these are books that do not fit in with the prevailing norms in the least. These are books that are unafraid to take a stand against the stupidity of our current culture. They are unpopular, and it's very hard to get them published. That, of course, makes them all the more important. And of them, perhaps, Judith Levine's Harmful to Minors is the most important. While all of them address very important topics, this one attacks the most wide-reaching subject I've found in one of these books: how America's puritanical attitude towards sex has resulted in generations of increasingly oversheltered, and dangerously uninformed, children, and how that oversheltering and lack of information have pushed America to the brink of disaster and allowed a number of social ills (of which AIDS is only the most visible) to fester unchecked.

When I started thinking about how to write this review, the obvious place to start, it seemed, would be with an extended quote from the book. Problem is, I couldn't come up with just one quote; so much of this book needs to be quoted, so much of what Levine has to say needs said, that singling out one or two paragraphs from the book seemed to be doing the rest of it a disservice. With one short exception (we'll get to that later), the entire book is quotable. Obviously, reprinting a 270-page book does not make for a good review, and yet if I could have done so here, I'd have done it in a heartbeat; this is a book that every American parent, or anyone who was raised in the increasingly oppressive anti-child culture that began to foment in the 1950s, desperately needs to read. Some will find validation in these pages that their embarrassing, socially unacceptable, or "morally repugnant" thoughts are universal. Some will come to understand that their beliefs about how they should be parenting their children are shared by many others. The majority, I think, will find that they are not alone, or nearly as rare as they had believed. It's the people whose voices have caused all these insane "protect the children" laws to be enacted who are in the minority; they just scream louder and know what buttons to press. When Levine traces the raft of onerous laws involving day-care workers (especially male day-care workers) not being allowed to show affection to children to the long-discredited McMartin case, the obvious reaction is, "well, since none of that actually happened, why do we still have the laws?" Indeed. And yet, somehow, we do.

I was prepared to stick this book far atop my list of best reads of the year for 2008, despite us being less than five months into the year, before I hit the epilogue. Levine stumbles a bit at the very end of the book; where she spent the majority of the book completely on-point, in the epilogue she suddenly starts lashing out at things that seem to have nothing to do with her thesis, drawing the most tenuous of connections at best. But this is in no way to say that the rest of the book is not well worth your time; in fact, were I drawing up a curriculum of must-read books for every American, this would most certainly be on it.

Children, especially those who are suffering between the onset of puberty and the so-called "magic age" at which we are all supposed to gain maturity overnight, are the last subclass of people it is considered socially acceptable to repress in America. Judith Levine is outraged by this, as we all should be, and Harmful to Minors is the result. The trouble she had getting the book published, which she recounts in the prologue, should set off major warning bells to everyone reading it. This is a deeply, deeply important book, and I strongly suggest you read it as soon as you possibly can. For in the six years since its release, not surprisingly, things have only gotten worse. The arm is already lopped off; the more of us who read this book, understand the consequences of our culture's actions, and speak up about them, the better a chance we have to stanch the bleeding. For if we don't, the patient may not survive the operation. **** ½

I'm almost all the way done, and I absolutely adore this book. The author sets up and supports very firm arguments against the neo-cons and overprotective parents who seek to push their morality on the rest of the nation. This is a must-read for those who wish to understand how our system got to be the mess it is today concerning sex.

I would say this is one of the 5 most important books I've read in my life.

Finally...FINALLY someone has the courage to stand up and say what needs to be said. Our society is dysfunctional. Parents don't know how to talk about sex and earn their children's trust in sexual matters. They pass their ignorance and fear right down to the next generation. Children who do not trust their own parents are definitely more vulnerable to abuse from others, especially when they learn to trust others.

There is so much hysteria, paranoia and flat out ignorance about sex in America. It is astounding!!!

The controversy that this book generated is mostly due to the repressive, morally righteous environment in this country. But Ms. Levine is also sex-positive. She goes beyond simply providing objective information about sex or our dysfunctional ways of dealing with it, she actually advances many of her own opinions about the positive nature of sex and the negative consequences of repression.

To me, sex raises many questions. I don't have all the answers. The only criticism I could make of the book is that Ms. Levine is a little too opinionated and like a race horse at the starting gate. She comes on a little strong for the majority of Americans, many of whom are still struggling to understand how people can be gay. I'm sure many of these people are not yet able to fathom that children can enjoy and benefit from sex with adults. So that part created a lot of controversy.

Hats & Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair with Gambling
What a story Amy Cohen tells in this delightful memoir. A good girl who is waiting for her life to happen, Cohen keeps getting it right even when she thinks she doesn't. Loser boyfriends? check. Low self esteem? check. Fabulous writer? check, check, check.

I absolutely loved this book;the authors writing is be both insightful and funny, a marvelous combination. I listened to the book at work and found myself cackling aloud almost one time a page. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the character of Liz Lemon in 30 Rock, Woody Allen, or Sex and the City.

Sorry this review isn't very good but I am not a review writer. I am a prolific reader but never, even if I loved it, feel moved to write a review but I want to add my vote to all the other people saying "Read this book!"

I couldn't put this book down. Amy has captured the problems of her generation by sharing her experiences with us. She is talented, pretty, smart, articulate, funny, considerate and just plain good. Her search for a caring, unselfish, willing to commit male always ends in disaster. Such is the story of the me generation.
I loved her truthfulness, her sense of humor, her talks with her father.
Any man that finds her and captures her heart is a lucky man indeed.
The reader gets so caught up in her emotional life and just wants to cheer her on. How pleased I was that she finds she is enough, she has all she needs to live a beautiful life. Bloom on, Amy!

I love this book. I very much identify with Amy's struggles, her triumphs and her challenges in this book. I laughed (at times, quite loudly, and repeatedly) and cried with her, nodded my head and said, "So true!" a few times as well. I was skeptical when I purchased it, because from reading the back cover, I thought that it would be the promise of yet another insightful book that failed to deliver; that the author claimed to know all about the "Late Bloomers", and actually knew nothing. This book knocks it out of the park. If you're a "Late Bloomer", buy it. Now. Then, go back and buy copies for your friends who AREN'T "Late Bloomers" so that they can "get it".

Amy Cohen felt at the top of her game when she wrote for television shows like "Caroline in the City" and "Spin City." All she needed was the perfect man to make the perfect marriage, and she could start looking at country houses. But when those jobs dried up, and she watched her beloved mother succumb to cancer, and as she suffered through yet another breakup, she felt as if her life had gotten horribly off-track somehow. Perhaps her priorities needed some straightening out. But rather than take a cold, hard (and probably predictable) look at herself, Cohen thankfully explores her world in a wistful, comical way. The result is THE LATE BLOOMER'S REVOLUTION, a memoir in essays.

Through her concise comic style, we get a bird's-eye view into her world. Cohen lovingly describes her madcap mother as the kind who would help her get over a breakup by planning a trip to Prague for both of them, where they spend the days looking at the ancient architecture and the nights chatting away in outdoor cafes. When a handsome Argentinean asks to join them, Cohen's romantic illusions are soon scuttled as she realizes that her dynamic mother is the object of this foreigner's affection, not her. All the while, her mother is trying to divert attention to her single daughter.

In the title essay, Cohen recounts a harrowing debacle on a bicycle that scarred her for life, figuratively, while attending a birthday party in the 1970s. This wasn't just anyone's birthday party. This was Mindy Weinstein's party. Mindy Weinstein was the most popular girl in the third grade: "She was lithe and blonde, blessed with a rare button nose that was adorable but also possessed character. Legend had it that sleeping at The Weinstein house was nothing short of paradise." And Cohen wants to impress her way into that paradise. Only one thing is wrong with that plan: she can't ride a bike. After a horrible fall, Cohen is done trying to impress Mindy Weinstein and her ilk and never mounts a bike again.

Following a particularly sticky breakup, she decides to finally conquer her fear once and for all, investing in a pricy Italian mountain bike and learning to ride, shakily at first, on the side of a busy Long Island highway. Before long, she is going on biking trips in Canada by herself and basks in the pride of an accomplishment that was hard-won. Life is too short to be paralyzed by the Mindy Weinsteins of this world.

The most touching essay, "Heartbreaker," concerns the close and bittersweet relationship she shares with her father in the wake of her mother's death. After a soul-crushing breakup, Cohen re-enters the dating scene, coincidentally at the same time as her widowed father, and both are surprised when he proves to be the more successful of the two. Older widowed women anxiously drop off bundt cakes as soon as they hear about the new eligible bachelor on the scene. After each date, her father sadly comments, "She's no Mom," but he understands it's a necessary evil: "Hey, I didn't choose this. I'd rather have Mom. You don't want me to be alone for the rest of my life. Do you?" His sweet supportiveness is abundantly clear as he desperately wishes that Cohen succeed in this endeavor and confides in his other daughter, saying, almost as a mantra. "I hope Amy meets someone first. I hope Amy meets someone first."

Many books out there expound on the quest to find the perfect man, but Cohen is a wry and unmuddied observer of the world around her. Her accounts of dates gone wrong and her greatest fears (of dying an old, infirmed woman, wearing a muumuu stained with cheap wine and tears) enable her to connect with the reader in a completely genuine and heartfelt way. As she watches various relationships fizzle or fade, she tries to glean some knowledge from them and move on as she remains steadfastly hopeful about the future. The book's epitaph, a piercingly perfect quote from George Eliot, says it all: "It is never too late to be what you might have been." We, the readers, want her to succeed. As a matter of fact, I think I might know the perfect guy for her...

--- Reviewed by Bronwyn Miller

I disagree with the negative comments some others wrote about this book. Judging from what I see on the dating sites, a lot of people are going about this wrong. So, it is not outdated nor is it simple common sense that every one already knows. Instead it has relevant and useful tips on making your profile stand out. Your communications will be more effective and your online dating experience will be better overall. Lastly, he writes about all this with a great sense of humor.

This one is easy to read and does have some tips if you know NOTHING about internet dating. However, much of the information is outdated and not very helpful.

If you buy this book, you may very well end up hitting yourself over the head with something near at hand (probably the book itself) and exclaiming "I can't believe I bought this book!" Luckily, the worthless book in question is also mercifully brief and bound in paper, so hopefully you will do no more than emotional damage to your psyche. That's about the only positive thing you will be able to say about the experience of either reading or hitting yourself over the head with this book. The written contents are a mix of the amazingly obvious and the horribly shallow and sexist. A good book on organic gardening is more likely to help you attract a romantic partner.

I thought this book contained information on dating relations via the internet that no other book on the market has displayed. I really enjoyed reading it and found loads of information--for a man or a woman. The authors really seemed to know their stuff and gave out vital information. This book came highly recommended and I was glad I bought it. [...]

There is a right way and wrong way to go about online dating. I had been doing it the wrong way. Some of the tips he gives I had never even thought about before and realize he is exactly right. This is one of the rare books I intend to read again just to make sure everything sinks in. Anyway I have been heeding his advice and there is no greater proof that it works than by the results I have been having...CUTE women contacting me and responding to me. I have a date this week that I am actually looking forward to going on.

I think this is essential reading for reflection for ALL couples whether they have been married one day or eighty years

The book was received in a timely manner and the condition was as promised.

Have just finished reading "Getting the Love you Want" by the same author. He has the best way of presenting & teaching that I've ever experienced with a writer on this subject matter. And, wonderful exercises are included at the end to enable readers to practice application of what they've just read. Very helpful.

According to these PhD authors, it is easier to give love than to receive it. It goes back to our childhoods when a parent failed to nurture and rejected the person who depended on him for her very life. When a mother is absent, and a mean uncaring father ignores the daughter, she ends up with a complex which clearly says "Nobody can love me, so why try."

When we get grown, even married to a noncaring, sick man, it is impossible to get the love we want and need. Sometimes, you just have to look elsewhere. And that's not good for the children. Oh yes, you can have children without loving the father of those children. Sometimes, it is forced on you; sometimes it is taken from you when an abusive husband forces the wife to have an abortion, because He does not want to spend money to raise another one.

In this book, there is a guide to help one break the shackles of self-hate and -rejection, and to accept love from others. So often, what they are offering is not love, so you must weigh the issues and try to come to a logical (not emotional) conclusion. Your very life depends on it.

First, you must accept what is offered, but not indiscriminately. Be sure it is love and not lust. All women are "used" on occasion, but if possible you must not give in. The authors of this guide to help you to decipher true love from false promises look to be a couple. There is a science to any relationship; learning to accept love from the person you do love will make you whole again. We all have the potential to love freely and devotedly.

However, you can love more than one man at a time!

I am familiar with Hendrix's Imago workshop format, attended one years ago in NY with my significant other. It was one of the most challenging and difficult weekend experiences of my life! The relationship did not last, having NOTHING to do with the workshop (it was hanging by threads before).
Years later, a good friend who is a therapist, recommended Receiving Love. I felt quite resistant, based on my limited experience, however, since I know many couples who have benefitted from Harville's work, I decided my resistance must mean there is something for me to learn.
I am learning and opening my heart to issues I thought were healed. Maybe some stuff is never complete... at least for me, I sometimes need more fine tuning, to rehash areas of my childhood that may be lingering quietly in the dark recesses.
The book is a valuable guide (even for those not in relationship right now, like me) to clarify why things are not working in the "sample" couples. In fact, I think the sampling covers just about any potential issue, except perhaps extreme abuse.
The exercises are very challenging, I've only done the easy ones so far. The material is deeply thought-provoking, solidly researched and presented with compassion and intellect.
I appreciate the Hendrixes work, style and dedication to helping people discover themselves. This material offers the endless opportunity to heal yourself and help your mate heal their childhood wounds. Isn't that what we all want?
Give yourself and your partner a huge gift... read this book, then do the exercises. And talk and keep talking...
Pie Dumas - Author & Life Coach

A very interesting and insightful book. Here are some representative excerpts.

God can be more easily found in human love than in the human mind - from the Brothers Karamazov

Ongoing interaction with a long-term partner can be an agent of transformation more powerful than any other. We have come to believe that it is the clearest way for transformation to occur.

Sooner or later in every relationship the initial attraction turns into a power struggle as couples find themselves facing in their spouse the same behavior and attitudes that drove them crazy in their parents. (Or it could be they project issues they had in the past with other people onto their spouse).

It turns out that loving your partner is the best way to facilitate your own personal and spiritual growth.

The impulse to step away from positive input is an indication that you have problems receiving love.

The most important commitment we (the authors) made were to end negativity and move toward amplifying the positive, even though we said many times we didn't know how to do that.

Separate Knowing = what is real and true exists independently of who is doing the observing.

Connected Knowing = Let me suspend my critical judgments for a minute and see if I can enter your world and try to feel the truth of what you are saying.

We are formed from every important relationship we have ever had.

No one comes to a relationship empty handed. There are all kinds of information, prejudice, wishful thinking, and expectations interjected between people before they really get to know each other.

Self-rejection and self-hatred are directly related to the problems people have in receiving love; i.e., "I'm not good enough".

What do butterflies and good relationships have in common? Both are colorful, but they also go thru 4 stages: For good relationships they are: attraction, romance, power struggle, and mature love (the full blown butterfly). For humans, volition is required for their transformation. Romantic partners have to become conscious (not act unconsciously), set goals, exercise patience and make good choices if their relationship is to progress to the next level.

We assign our partners characteristics we don't allow ourselves to have. We attribute a quality, fault, skill, motive, thought or feeling that originates from us. In a way we project onto them what we don't or won't know about ourselves.
One clue that it's a projection rather than an objective assessment is if it's veracity is asserted repeatedly, with intense emotion.

Being quick to anger or excessively self-absorbed are more often a symptom of unhealed wounds rather than a character defect. When people are mistreated as children, they don't know they have sustained a hit that strongly shapes the way they will connect to friends and other intimates in the future.

Kindness is an appropriate way of life when everyone is carrying the burden of previous psychological injuries.

Self rejection often masquerades as something else. It can be disguised as hypercriticalism of others or dissatisfaction and negativity about life in general. It can also look like perfectionism or shyness or a reluctance to extend oneself by trying new things.

A person who is having trouble receiving love will show it by consistently deflecting the positives and/or absorbing the negatives.

No matter how disconnected we feel, we are still part of the universal, interwoven tapestry of life. We cannot live in isolation, and we cannot heal alone.

We know that the reason people can't receive love is because they can't accept positive input for traits, talents, and qualities they've disowned, and they can't receive gifts their parents didn't approve of their having. In other words, self-rejection and self-hatred block their ability to take in what would be healing.

You cannot even heal your disconnection by loving other people or by loving God. You may compensate for your self-hatred by loving others, but you do not heal the breach within yourself. You must start loving in your partner those traits, habits, attitudes, and behaviors that give you the most trouble, in fact the very things he or she does that drives you crazy. It could be anything.

What you don't like or have rejected in yourself, you tend to project onto others, with the most on-target projections aimed at your partner. In order to relate to the parts of yourself that are missing, you project them onto your partner and relate to them in that form. You can experience the disapproval and dislike you have for yourself by disapproving and disliking those same things in your mate. This sounds far-fetched only because most projections are created in the unconscious. You don't know you're doing it.

The key is to understand, accept and `love' in your partner the things you hate, because then, in effect, you will be loving them in yourself. This works because the brain doesn't make a distinction between loving yourself and loving the Other. So when you approach the faults or your partner; i.e. your own projections of your partner's faults, with understanding, tolerance and acceptance, you get a double bonus. You experience understanding, tolerance, and acceptance for yourself as well as for your partner. Through repeated acts of loving acceptance, you gather to yourself all your neglected, abused, and frightening parts. Gradually you are restored to wholeness through the hard work of practicing acceptance.

What you need to do:

1. Make a list of the traits you would eliminate or exaggerate in you could in your partner.

2. Examine your list and know that these same traits are in some way connected to you. They are a mirror of the things you have rejected in yourself.

What you make up about your partner (or anyone else) and invest with energy is also true of you. The more you're trying to protect yourself from yourself, the more your projections will seem to you to bear no resemblance to yourself, and the more you will tell yourself that you are not like that in any way. Only when you stop projecting will you know that you've started to become whole.

Fear can make people deaf. It can limit people to talking, without truly communicating.

The inability to listen is always related to how deeply the person is wounded, and therefore, self-absorbed and closed-in.

I've been married for nine years now and I found this book to be a fabulous tool to take the drudgery out of sex. It gave me a healthier, more inspired view of it and it's been great for our marriage. I just need to keep it up!

This book should be read by every married couple and couples thinking of getting married. It has a very open approach to how important a good sexual relationship is in a marriage and how by not having this how it can cause so many problems in the marriage. It gives you homework every chapter to help you achieve a oneness in a marriage that I never thought would be possible.

I highly recommend this book!

I haven't finished the book yet, but have liked what I've read so far--it has particularly changed my view of how early and how to present my children with an accurate and positive understanding of sex. O'm looking forward to reading that chapter specifically.

I heard about this book in a marriage prep class at college. The information is highly valuable and pertinent to both men and women. The book teaches that sex is ordained of god. It will remove sex inhibitions and revitalize.

Laura Brotherson touches on a subject that is much needed but avoided and shame-based in most Christian circles. I bought this book for me and for my husband, we appreciate it so much that I bought it for my daughter and her husband to read together. It is written beautifully and honestly and I feel must have been inspired. It is LDS based, but I agree with other reviewers that it would be very helpful to any woman or couple. I'm so thankful for her courage and I believe she must have been inspired to write it, especially to share her own personal pain and frustrations with false, though well-meaning, but very harmful messages of female sexuality in general but most especially in a religious context. I am an LDS incest survivor, so the book has been an essential part of my healing and in developing a healthy sexual identity. There are many ways that I have been harmed sexually, however, and one of them is without a doubt the destructive messages given to women, young and old, and the obvious avoidance of open discussion about something so important and essential to a woman's well-being, and in the LDS context; marriage and her eternal role. I would suggest this as a gift for any woman you love and care about. Equally important though, I would suggest it for any good man that wants to truly love, understand, honor, and fulfill his wife in the way I believe God intended. Unfortunately, men, young and old, are also severely misinformed, not educated, and just plain taught WRONG about female sexuality. I so appreciate Laura Brotherson's courage, effort, and truly inspired willingness to share such important truths.

What a wonderful book,principles that are Christ like,learning to treat our spouses and children with respect,getting back to basics and living these principles in our busy life styles, isen't easy at first,but it does work.Even our children will see and feel love in the home,when these principles are applied.
This book is a teaching tool,a course,a beacon for any woman,it helps women to be humble,to serve her family members with love.This book has a lot of the answers to marital problems,it is well worth a read.I recommend it fully,what has any woman got to lose?

This book was definitely not for me. I would have appreciated some biblical foundations on where some of these opinions of womanhood come from. Then, maybe would be open to receiving some advice on what materials I should or shouldn't wear to please my husband. I'm all for serving and respecting my husband, but I am not defined by that. I'm defined by who God says I am, not by how much my husband shows affection towards me and loves me. If you are going to put this book into your Spirit, please know that God loves you more than your husband could ever love you, and he will show you by faith in JESUS in the LIVING WORD of GOD (bible), how to love and honor your husband.

This is a wonderful book to improve one's marriage, or to strengthen it. It shows women how to be content with their marriage and to love their husband. it goes back to basic bible principles (Proverbs woman, anyone?)to show what we women how to properly behave and treat our husbands.
People have argued that this book tells you not to be yourself. That may be, but probably means their characters NEED changing, and they don't want to go though the effort of fixing that.
Great book!

Love this book because it compelled me to look at myself first. VERY humbling for me (I grew up with feminist ideals btw). Revealed my own character weaknesses and made it painfully plain the areas where I could improve. Got me to think about how courteous and concerned about other people (and boyfriend) I really am, or if I neglect those aspects. I don't espouse the purpose of people is to have children because I never wanted my own, but I respect others' desire to do so. (I'd wish she'd write a book for the working single woman like me.) Some powerful good wisdom in here, though. I mustered an attempt to be more considerate & less witchy to the crabby awful boss and coworker men after developing some peace and sense of humor within, and it worked like a charm! Peace in the office for the first time in 3 years!! No more daily agony and fights- just tears of gratitude from me in private. And I was the one who brought it about. The power was in my hands all the time but I didn't see it! I can't even lend my book out because I don't want to be without it as a reference. I am so deeply grateful for this book as a reality check on myself. Like I said before: very humbling! Don't buy it if you can't look past some seemingly outdated views or you're not ready to self-correct! It's not about him, it's about YOU.

I am 28 years old and a mother of 3 children. I was raised to be very independent. If I wanted something done I had to do it myself. Even though on the outside I don't look rough.I am tall & slender, my attitude was rough. When I read this book there were some things that were REALLY hard for me to accept because of my attitude and I am not one just to go along with something.But I decided to accept it and apply it and see what happened. Me and my husband will be married for 10 years this year and I feel like our marriage has just begun. The wisdom in this book has brought joy and peace in my life. This book contrary to some reviews is not being a door mat to your husband or being weak. There are exceptions in every family. My husband & I do not follow everything exatly in the book. You do what works best for your family. I can understand that a lot of people have pride, selfishness & self righteousness, I know because I have been that way for many years. This information is invaluable. I have never read a book like this before in my life and am grateful beyond words what it has done for me & my family.

I read this book cover to cover in 3 nights before going to sleep. I plan to read it through again, and try to use the suggestions that are given. It's not the most brilliantly written self-help book I've ever read, but she does impart a sense of being there for you and genuinely wanting to help. Some of the suggestions are very original, others, I wonder how she thinks one could ever follow through with these and not get into some major conflict with your spouse.
Ms. (Dr.?) Weiner-Davis presents herself as someone I would love to have for my own family therapist- she's very personable and funny. The book may not save my marriage, but I have learned some valuable actions that can be taken to change the unhealthy patterns a relationship can fall into.

Let me just say - I loved this book, and have loaned it to some friend who've been very impessed as well. I'm shocked it only has one review so far, and so was inspired to write another.

It's very pragmatic, action-oriented, and goal oriented. I actually took notes on it. Here's a summary of my notes(although you'll definately want the get the book, if just for the examples and short stories alone):

Instead of thinking of things he shouldn't do, think of what he should do.

Your goals should be specific and action oriented, like "hold hands in movies".

Break your goals into mini-goals

If a particular stragety doesn't work, don't do it! Keep your eyes on the cheese.

Do something different strategies:
- do something unexpected
- do a 180
- act as if...
- "easier done than said", i.e. take action

I am only one of a lot of women out there but wanted to personally say I love this book.

I call it my "man bible". I literally carry it with me all the time. I don't keep it at home because heaven forbid he would find it. I have now read the book twice and am now going through it again a third time underlining everything that I want to emphasize in my head. That way I figured I could look at these lined phrases in those emergency circumstances.

This wonderful book has really given me new eyes to look through. I will probably memorize it from cover to cover and then read some more. I have already seen some changes! This book is the best thing I have found in a long time.

The author is right and her book is a refreshing read. This is an action book and you can easily use her advice to change some of the things that need changing in your relationships. Interestingly enough, this book is on my shelf right next to Karen Pryor's Don't Shoot the Dog - both are great books on how to shape and change behavior... and they're both well grounded.

Are you bitter because everything you try to discuss with your man never seems to be heard, let alone get through? Then this is he book for you! Michele Weiner-Davis is amazing! Its like she's been there. The ending is the best, though! If your marriage is in trouble because of communication problems, this is a must have! It sure helped me! And I didn't think ANYTHING could save us!