Bring Back the Man You Fell in Love with [Paperback]

Carolyn N. Bushong (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2003

Every woman wishes she could recapture the days when her adoring partner showered her with affection and promised undying love...Well, now there's a way to bring him back! Carolyn Bushong candidly shares her own success story, as well as those of her clients, whose partners became more caring, attentive, sensitive, and romantic as a result of applying her relationship advice.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Carolyn Bushong, a psychotherapist and relationship expert, is author of The Seven Dumbest Relationship Mistakes Smart People Make!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Bring Back the Man You Fell in Love With by Carolyn Bushong, L.P.C.

[H1]Getting Back the Man of Your Dreams

[NF]Men are not bad; they’re just scared. Their bad behaviors reflect their own problems and insecurities, not necessarily rejection of us. The truth is men and women want love and respect, but each gender values these qualities differently and goes about achieving them differently. For a relationship to be healthy, it must be equal and these differences must be understood and respected.

Not all men can or will change, and not all relationships can be saved. Your man could be an alcoholic, a cheater, or an abuser. If so, he has a serious problem that probably requires more than simple behavior modification. By using the techniques in this book, however, you can change almost any man’s bad behavior, no matter who he is. The techniques I’m teaching you will not change a man’s personality or cure his addictions. You can only change the way he treats you.

[B]Ten Clues He’s Worth It

[BT]

[NL] 1. He respects some women.
[NL] 2. He has loving moments with you.
[NL] 3. He is strong but also able to ask for help in certain areas of his life.
[NL] 4. He can be vulnerable with children and pets.
[NL] 5. When you do hold your ground, he responds.
[NL] 6. He understands the concept of an equal relationship and admits to wanting one.
[NL] 7. He knows a healthy couple he admires.
[NL] 8. He has taken some steps to change his behavior.
[NL] 9. He desires quality time with you.
[NL] 10. He sometimes admits he’s wrong.

[EBT]

[H1]Should You Try to Change Him?

[NF]Is the "man of your dreams" inside your mate? I don’t know. But I do know that if the following three questions are true, I can show you how to find out.

[NL] 1. Is he committed to the relationship? (He must be invested to making it work or you can’t gain enough power to change his behavior.)

[NL] 2. Are you still in love with him? (You need to be in love with him to stay motivated enough to hold the boundaries.)

[NL] 3. Does he have redeeming qualities? (Is he a good father, have you seen glimpses of his warmth? He needs to have redeeming qualities as a human being to guarantee the likelihood of success.)

If all three answers are "yes," you’ll probably be successful at changing him back into the loving man you once knew. If you’re not sure, just know that changing your behavior will help you become a better person and behave healthier in all your future relationships with or without him. By changing your behavior, and setting boundaries with your man, you can not only get him to treat you the way he used to, but also develop a better, more deeply bonded, healthy, emotional and romantic relationship with him.

[B]Men’s Secrets

[BT]

[BL]I’d like to be closer to you, but I don’t know how.
[BL]I’d share my feelings if you wouldn’t think of me as weak.
[BL]When I give in to you, I hate you a little more!
[BL]Your emotions frustrate me and entertain me.
[BL]I fear being in love will turn me into a wimp.
[BL]When you act like my mom, it turns me off!
[BL]My controlling ways feed off your weaknesses.
[BL]I let you yell at me to relieve my guilt so I can be bad again.
[BL]When you act desperate, I want to get away from you.
[BL]I’d feel like a wimp if I told you when you hurt me.
[BL]I feel unloved when you’re not into sex with me.
[BL]If I told you how much I really love you, I’d feel like a wuss.
[BL]I know I’m strong because I can endure your bad behavior.

[ETB]

[H1]Sayings for Chapter 1

[NL] 1. Men will treat you as badly as you will allow.
[NL] 2. A woman cannot change a man, but she can change the way he treats her.
[NL] 3. Most of men’s bad behavior comes from trying to cover up their insecurities.
[NL] 4. Men avoid confrontation with women because they believe they can’t win.
[NL] 5. Men use women’s nagging to justify continuing their own bad behavior.
[NL] 6. To men, strength means not letting their emotions affect them.
[NL] 7. Men believe they lie to us for our own good.
[NL] 8. It’s better to lose him than to keep him and have him treat you badly.

[H1]What Roles Do You Play?

[NF]Are you jealous? Sexist? Domineering? Needy? Passive? Is he? Any one of these roles is as destructive to the relationship as the other, and all are built on insecurities. If you’re a victim, it doesn’t matter what style of victim you play (princess, passive-aggressive, manipulative, needy, avoidant, or addict), you hand over your power in the relationship. If you’re a controller, it doesn’t matter if you act domineering, obsessive, jealous, like a con artist, sexist, cheating, or abusive, you try to control others. These two roles working together create the dysfunctional fit that is behind the problems in your relationship.

The most fascinating and useful part of discovering you and your mate’s personality types is that knowing them makes each of your behaviors understandable and predictable, and gives you the information you need to change your behavior to influence his. Following is a list of dysfunctional personality types (identifying each as a victim or controller) showing the ways in which most of us recognize them by what they do and what they say. Which one are you? Which is he?

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (March 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580627501
• ISBN-13: 978-1580627504
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,837,300 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Negotiating Romance, October 2, 2005

By 

Leslie Halpern (Central Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bring Back the Man You Fell in Love with (Paperback)

This book advises women about what to do when the honeymoon is literally and figuratively over. How can you bring back the romantic man of your dreams? According to Bushong, it's through establishing equal power and honest negotiations.

Using abstract theory and concrete examples, she shows how men will only treat women as badly as the women allow. This simple concept of reclaiming power is one of the most important ideas that runs throughout the book. It can be applied to male-female relationships as well as parenting and on-the-job situations. She offers many examples of how to do this effectively. I tried some of her ideas. They worked.

Her four steps to powerful negotiations seemed a little awkward when I first read them. How can you comfortably introduce a set negotiation formula into a casual conversation? Reluctantly, I tried this, too. It also worked.

"Bring Back the Man You Fell in Love With" offers some wonderful suggestions for restoring the love and romance from those early newlywedded years. Most married women would benefit from reading this book.

Leslie Halpern, author of Reel Romance: The Lovers' Guide to the 100 Best Date Movies and Dreams on Film: The Cinematic Struggle Between Art and Science.