22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Book Written Just for You; It Answers the Nagging, "Why?", June 1, 2005
This review is from: A Fine Romance: The Passage of Courtship from Meeting to Marriage (Paperback)
This relationship book is the best out there! I haven't read lots of relationship books, but I don't have to in order to know that I'm right. Woman or man, this book helps explain why we chose the partners we chose, why we expect the wrong things, why we expect the right things at the wrong times, what we do to push people away, and how to change so that our relationships work.
Dr. Sills' assessment of relationships and their phases are right on target, and her writing style is pure perfection--a mixture of get-on-to-yourself common sense and you're-not-alone reassurance. Her insights are uncanny. It's like she was in the living room, bedroom, car, bar, restaurant, etc. with you when either you or your partner said or did whatever you are now agonizing about. If you're a woman, Dr. Sills knows what you said when you stalked him after he didn't call. She knows why your cute voicemail message was a turn-off. If you're a man, Dr. Sills knows you snapped at her when she kept interrupting your football game to have a heart-to-heart talk. She knows why your girlfriends seem to become demanding and possessive just as you are losing interest in winning them. She not only pinpoints what you are feeling in each stage of a relationship, but also helps you understand what your partner is feeling.
I read this book when I started dating my first boyfriend. The relationship lasted for nine months. Although, things did not work out for us, the book helped me through Selection and Pursuit, including a phase called "The Switch," where the pursuer backs off and the pursued panics. My ex married his next girlfriend and credits me with helping him to build important relationship skills. Trust me, it was this book. Again with the book under my arm, I started dating my second boyfriend. I married him almost six years ago. I had the opportunity to thus apply the deeper relationship chapters in the second half of the book, which are also right on target. A friend of mine is almost 50, has never been married, and wondered why all his relationships fail. After he started a new relationship, I lent him my copy of this book. He is now two years into the relationship and engaged.
Don't start a new relationship without this book, particularly if you are a woman! When you get an urge to cry, overanalyze something he's said, or call him so you can feel closer, read the book instead of conveying a needy and demanding image that is not the real you. Once you are further along in your relationship and sure that you have one (Dr. Sills defines it), share the book and its tips with your partner, too. Regardless of your sex, age, or previous marital status, this book feels like it was written for you and about you. At each stage of your relationship, there will be hurdles. It answers the question, "Why?"--most helpful since your partner can't or won't answer this question for you. Better still, the book helps you change your own way of thinking so that the relationship mistakes aren't perpetuated by your own behavior and so that you can help your partner come to terms with his or her own fears of commitment and closeness. Buy several copies! Make it your ritual to read it, mark it up, then throw it out if you break up. You'll feel a sense of renewal when you initiate a new copy. You may even find one or two copies are all you need;) Happy reading and good luck!
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Critical Reading for Single Folks, April 14, 1999
If only I had read this book twenty years ago! Sills does a great job of laying out the territory in a plain and easily understandable manner; so much of the romance landscape makes sense with the perspective that her work provides. And like Excess Baggage (her other must read work), this book gives you the understanding you need to chart your own course; no preaching or judging, just a clearer understanding that can only lead to better choices.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A relationship saver!!, January 24, 1999
By A Customer
I found this book to be extremely helpful. My boyfriend and I are both separated and of course have had moments of ambivalence and doubt combined with feelings of extreme love and closeness and major fear. This book has taught me that ambivalance and doubts are a normal part of any relationship. Relationships are a dance of moving forward and backward all the time. Just because someone is having doubts or isn't sure, doesn't mean the relationship isn't a wonderful one. This book has kept me hanging in there because now I understand that what we are both feeling and going through are a normal and expected part of any healthy relationship.
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