Most Helpful Customer Reviews
195 of 198 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful wonderful book!!, February 3, 2007
My husband (of nine years) and I are having trouble, and despite a couple of visits over the years to a therapist we both respect and like, we may be heading toward a divorce (his choice). I began reading this book, and then began reading it out loud to him. (I always read to him while he drives us to and from work; we've gotten through many, many history and philosophy books, and the very occasional marriage and intersex relations books.)
When I would ask if I should continue reading, he always said yes. (!) He was surprised and disappointed when I reached the end of the book. This book explains SO much about the conflicting ways we see things, and each other! Especially this, from page 196:
============
The Compassion Paradox: If Available Whenever Needed, It's Rarely Needed
Research shows that when people - men and women - feel secure that compassion and support will be there if they need it, they are far more independent. Worry that it won't be available when needed creates a deprivation mentality. You can think of deprivation mentality the following way. If you haven't eaten for over a week, are you likely to hold out for a gourmet dinner and eat it with your napkin in place and cut up your food carefully? Or will you shovel whatever food you can get into your mouth as fast as you can? You're likely to resemble a hungry wolf more than a well-mannered diner. Well, the last thing you want is for your partner to be as hungry as a wolf for emotional support. That will make her think about her emotional needs all the time and want more and more attention, until it seems to you that she can never get enough. The trick is applying preventive compassion in small doses, so that she knows it will always be there when she needs it. Once she knows that, she will hardly ever need it.
============
The book also discusses at length the physiological reactions of both sexes, and how that plays out in our reactions to each other. Starting at birth, males react more strongly, and act to avoid over-stimulation (hence, for instance, the boy baby looking away from a direct gaze way sooner than a girl baby who enjoys it. Boy babies enjoy it too, but it it too stimulating and so they must look away and look back to reduce their stress.) Girls and women "repair' relationship breaches and problems by talking; for men talking makes then feel worse (physiologically -- not emotionally or mentally...)
Fantastic book -- buy it whether you're married or not; it will help you understand ALL the men (and women) around you!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
135 of 139 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Oversimplifies gender roles a bit, not for somewhat healthy marriages looking to get even healthier, October 29, 2009
Honestly, this is probably a case of me buying the "wrong book" for my needs. I bought this based on the largely positive feedback. Upon reading, I discovered the book is largely directed to couples that have broken off communication altogether, are on the defensive with each other constantly, and are steps away from breaking it off. I gathered from the title that it would address communication barriers, certainly, which I believe men and women have between each other naturally. I just didn't realize the extent to which the author would build a case tying nearly everything wrong in a marriage back to the male's need for unabashed acceptance and glorification (i.e. not being shamed) and the female need for security.
I DO actually agree with the author that, in general, these are traits of the genders, accordingly. I just feel the book oversimplifies and generalizes things a bit too much. It paints men as neanderthals, unable (biologically) to communicate, while women are all incessant naggers and nit pickers.
In my own relationship, this simply isn't the case. No relationship is perfect, and certainly my marriage is far from it, but I (the husband) am quite often the instigator of relationship talk. She seldom nags, we do tell each other we love one another regularly, and there is a general respect and kindness in our home.
We certainly could use improvement in many areas, which I hoped to find in this book. Instead, by far and large, I found a certainly well developed case that shame and fear are at the core of nearly every relational challenge.
The book did have a few high points for me, which will make the $10 Kindle download pay itself back fairly quickly. The last chapter, a formula for marital improvement, is (although a bit hokey) more than likely a gold pot. It's a short list of super simple routines you can perform daily to demonstrate your love and build a stronger relationship. Also, buried within the rhetoric on shame and fear are some very true but ugly behaviors we nearly all exhibit, and some great ways to accept and acknowledge their root cause and
If your marriage truly is on the very brink of being over and done with, I would definitely read this book. If you feel, or have even been told, that you are the typical male that "never listens, never wants to talk and just shuts yourself off," this book is for you. Women, if you find yourself chasing your husband around the house trying to engage your husband in confrontation, are burdened with fear of not being protected, provided for, your dreams are being neglected, this book will no doubt be a great resource for you.
I learned a little, skimmed over a lot. I'm still searching for the best book on strengthening the marital bond (as opposed to pretty much restoring a marriage that has been so severaly neglected), intimacy, etc. Perhaps the secret is to do what I have been doing. . . . take in a lot of books, and extract a few "nuggets" from each one until you are properly armed.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
111 of 114 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A MUST READ FOR EVERY HUSBAND!!!, February 10, 2007
I've never written a review, but five minutes after finishing this book I was logging on to Amazon to give some honest feedback to the potential shoppers out there wondering if this book is worth the money. First off, I'll let you know that it was WORTH EVERY PENNY (and I actually went out in the snow to get it at full price from a B&N bookstore in the middle of the night). This book puts into words exactly what I've been unable to express for the past 5 years of marriage. It describes not only what I've been feeling, it describes what my wife has been trying to get through to me, why I felt how I did, why my wife responded how she did, everything. I have a handful of relationship books from a variety of different authors, and none of the other ones were as useful or powerful as this one. The book doesn't just throw out a few "answers" and treat them as though they're intuitive facts. Instead it goes into supportive information for these simple "truths" that have elements that are physiological, psychological, biological, sociological, (and a few other -logicals to boot). I found it interesting to read about real life anecdotes, historical anthroplogical findings, and chemical brain reactions all on the same page.
The main idea of the book is to show how women are hypersensitive to Fear, Isolation, & Deprivation, and men are hypersensitive to Shame & Dread of Failure. When I actually sat back and thought about it I realized that almost all of my negative emotions can be traced back to either Shame or the Dread of Failure, and most of my wife's emotions fell into one of her F/I/D categories as well. This bit of information alone was useful and worth the the price. The book also goes into a chapter specifically for the male to understand the female point of view, and also one for the females. At the end there's a "Man to Man" chapter writeen by Steve that's interesting as well. The book spends a lot of time ensuring that the reader fully understands the power of our Fear/Shame emotions and how they're the basis for the disconnection that occurs so often in a marriage. Throughout the book there's advice for breaking the pattern, and the "secret formula" at the end seems so simple and yet is so hard to consistently do.
All in all it's a well-written easy to understand book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and will be reading again soon to get a more in depth understanding of the material and to actually work through the various exercises and surveys.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
