Customer Reviews

The Birth Order Connection: Finding and Keeping the Love of Your Life

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I picked up THE BIRTH ORDER CONNECTION with a bit of skepticism. How can the order of your birth have anything to do with finding the right person to marry? It almost made me want to laugh out loud. A few chapters into the book convinced me I was wrong, and I was hooked. Dr. Leman has laid out a fantastic and pragmatic guidebook of principles and steps based upon the order of your birth that really can help you find a more compatible mate (to achieve, as he amusingly puts it, "couple power").

Leman bases his thesis on the belief that your total family environment, not just your parents, shapes the kind of person you become. Firsts, middles, lasts, and onlies all have certain strengths and weaknesses that are determined by the roles that they have to play with their siblings. As a result, each birth type has a specific, better match with another birth type. Leman would've lost me if he would've played hard and fast with his rules, but he recognizes that their are exceptions. Sometimes, for example, middle children can take on the role of firstborns, depending on age gaps, the sex of the eldest, etc. It's all a bit complicated, but Leman does an excellent job of explaining the details and why it all works. The whole idea of birth order having such an effect on personality development became incredibly intriguing, but we must move on.

So what does this all have to do with relationships? As already stated, Leman believes that each birth position has a better match with another birth position. The strengths of one will counter the weaknesses of another, equaling a better match. Also, understanding birth order can help make relationships and marriages stronger because, as with personality types, to understand birth order is to better understand your spouse. Finally, Leman lays out practical paths to follow in your dating relationships. Asking seven specific questions, for example, can help you determine if you really are compatible with the person you are seeing. Recognizing red flags will help you avoid a life of marital misery. And he lists important reasons to and not to consider when you marry.

I've read quite a few books on relationships. Some are good (BOY MEETS GIRL, BOUNDARIES IN DATING) and some are not so good. THE BIRTH ORDER CONNECTION surprised me by being one of the best. Leman's ideas are not set in stone rules, but they are outstanding principles and guidelines that can help you make wise decisions in choosing someone to be with. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. It's well worth the ... investment. FIVE STARS.

The author does a good job describing birth-order tendencies in an approachable way and applying knowledge about these tendencies to marriage. He does take a somewhat subjective approach, basing his conclusions on what he has seen in his marriage counseling practice and his own family, but his assertions ring true (plus the subjective approach makes the book more interesting). The author has some traditional views about dating, but he does not try to hide the fact that they are his personal views. The best thing about reading the book is that it is a fun topic to bring up in just about any conversation. Everyone has a birth order, and everyone knows people who fit the profile for their birth order and people who are exceptions. If you don't read this book, I strongly recommend reading some book on this topic.

The Birth Order Connection is by far one of the better relationship books I've ever read. It helps to explain why people are the way they are and it then helps you match your spouse/significant other appropriately. I wish I had read the book years ago ... it would have saved me a lot of time, money and unnecessary heartache.

I never actually spend my hard-earned money on a book until I have browsed through it in a bookstore or checked it out from the library. That said, I am so relieved that I have never actually purchased any of Kevin Leman's books. I have browsed through a number of reviews for his books online, and since many of them have been highly recommended I checked this one out from the library. Big mistake!

If this book is truly an accurate representation of who Kevin Leman is, then I deeply rue for the emotionally hurting individuals who have sought his counseling services for his supposed psychological expertise. I wonder how many truly wonderful relationships he is single-handedly responsible for DESTROYING with his sage advice (found on Pg. 135-136) "If your potential spouse was sexually abused as a child, don't marry him or her. I know that's strong, but the impact of such abuse is so wide-reaching that you will be paying for it the rest of your life." He further helpfully opines"...I want to point out that my goal is to help you have the happiest marriage possible. You're taking on a tremendous burden when you marry someone with that kind of past."

Now let's see: according to http://www.womenofsubstance.org/sexabuse.htm, 38% of all girls are sexually abused before the age of 18 (that doesn't include adult rape statistics), 16% of all boys are sexually abused before the age of 18, and upwards of 90% of sexual abuse goes unreported! That's a whopping huge chunk of society, wouldn't you say? But wait! According to Doctor Kevin Leman, that illustrious psychologist of prime-time television fame, if you're thinking of marrying one of these survivors, DON'T! After all, he just wants you to be happy! (And everyone knows that survivors of sexual abuse don't ever recover, heal, grow, find safety and restoration, and move on to live lives of incomparable worth, purpose, joy, and freedom, let alone "happiness"! Yes, I am being sarcastic...hopefully you're getting the point. Seriously though: broken-hearted victims of sexual abuse probably DON'T recover to live lives of tremendous joy and freedom...IF a pompous man with a self-centered attitude like this is the one "counseling" them!)

No word in this ridiculous book on whether survivors of atrocious childhood abuse deserve to be happy in marriage themselves. Since these survivors make up such a large proportion of society, ignoring them with this flippant 2-paragraph burble in his "Red Flags" chapter is a serious gaffe, indeed. If you are reading this book, and are a sexual abuse survivor (or are thinking of marrying one), I hope that you will throw this foolish man's advice in your mental trash can! You deserve to be happy too, and you deserve to spend your life with a spouse who will tenderly love and cherish your injured heart. It will be a difficult lifetime journey, but "difficult" does not mean impossible; it is entirely feasible to be "happy" (Leman's word) and still working through deep childhood trauma at the same time. It will require selfless sacrificial love, great forgiveness, and a tender touch, but it is possible. Ultimately, I know of only One Who completely heals broken hearts: His name is Jesus/ Yeshua.

I wish I could say that the above mention is all I have against this book. Yawn. It's not. The self-satisfied Chapter 2 account of him manipulating his way into a free pass for 6 to DisneyWorld was enough to turn my stomach. This is a man with power (a PhD, Oprah appearances, and insight into people's personalities), and he gloats about how he abuses this power to serve his own selfish ambitions. His excuse? He's a last born, and last born people like to get their own way. Sickening. The rest of the book I read before slamming it shut was full of other such self-aggrandizement.

As for the birth order wisdom, there might be a few nuggets of insight that will help you to understand your personality, but most of what I read was glossy over-generalizations that may or may not work for you and me. For example, my parents are both first-borns and have had a wonderful marriage for 38 years. They didn't follow Dr. Leman's advice to marry outside your birth order, but they're not suffering for it.

Admittedly, not everything in this book was negative. There are some words of wisdom in Chapter 3, where Leman poses a list of questions to pose to your other half to determine what is really going on in his or her world. I agree with his advice that "getting married before you're naked is a particularly good way to block intimacy and to hide your real self." Despite the bits and pieces of reasonable advice, some of the more outrageous points in this book color everything else in the book, and his pompous self-fascination bleeds through on every page. I certainly can't recommend this book, and he is in a position to do tremendous damage to tender hearts with his dreadful advice about sexual abuse and marriage.

If you want to understand the opposite sex, try Jeff or Shaunti Feldhahn's books: "For Men Only" and "For Women Only." Terrific stuff here -- I think these books ought to be required reading in every middle school in the country, so that the young'uns understand each other before they start dating. Other excellent books for relationships: "Captivating" and "Wild at Heart" by John or Stasi Eldredge. Finally, if you're looking for a spiritually-oriented book on healthy marriage pick up "Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas. I really believe that these five books could save many marriages already on the rocks.

This book is life-changing. Maybe Dr. Leman's theories aren't backed by numerical data, but let's not forget--not all data can be gauged in graphs or contained in charts. In fact, Leman's opinions are backed by something more solid than statistics: his wealth of experience with the human condition. He has counseled virtually thousands of couples and thus lays claim to a vast understanding of personality types as well as the institution of marriage. Leman didn't write this book with the intent to impress some doctorate-seeking skeptic. He wrote it to help his readers use psychology to find marital bliss. It shows.

I have read the other reviews that slammed this book and cold hearted as it sounds, Dr Lehman is right to warn people from marrying a person who has suffered from a bad parent, sexual abuse or a toxic upbringing. If you want to "deal" with someone else's mess, then my all means ignore the book. I sadly did, I ignored huge red flags and ended in divorce.

This book is great!! I am a baby and I married a baby and boy can I really see the truth in all that Kevin Leman writes! Great author & speaker.

Other reviewers have covered most of my contentions with this book: Tons of generalities with no science to back it up. Also, even though it is titled "The Birth Order Connection," half the book is on birth order and how it can help you, and the other half is just about what Kevin Leman thinks will make you happy. The part where he said that if you want to be happy, don't marry someone who has been sexually abused made me very angry. Of course abuse can cause problems, as can anything from your past that was hurtful, but it is definitely not insurmountable. Again, no science to back up this claim, or any other claim (which means he probably just derived this little tidbit from counseling in his office. "Oh, you are unhappy in your marriage and your spouse was sexually abused? Then that must be why you are unhappy!" Idiot.) This book was ridiculous. A theory derived from thin air that has the same problem as horoscopes do--they are too general and vague to be reliable, but you can find something to relate to in any category.

Dr. Leman's book has serious research behind the idea, although not behind his work in particular. W. Toman is the authority on birth order, and the late Dr. Murray Bowen of Georgetown, D.C, a father of Family Therapy, expounded on this concept. The idea is definitely not a new one nor the original idea of Leman, and one need be careful of defining absolutes as opposed to observable behavior based on theoretical positions. Family systems therapy has been working with this idea for decades, and Leman has overgeneralized concepts that are best used with professional therapists. He has, however, given a very serious concept the possibility of more widespread attention when one enters into relationships or seeks to improve or understand those in which one is involved.

I found this book to be insulting and unrealistic. Dr. Leman warns readers not to marry anyone who falls into one of the categories of his list of what he calls "red flags". Some of the "red flags" were those who have been sexually abused, those who are selfish and controlling, etc. I agree that some of the "red flags" that Dr. Leman notes should be considered in choosing a mate, however, it's unrealistic that any one person will not have any struggles. If you do choose to read this book, I suggest that you read it subjectively, as this is only one man's view- and it is only an opinion!