Romance Stew: The Way to a Woman's Heart [Kindle Edition]

Becky Ruff Reed (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

If you’ve ever tried to cook up a man or woman in your life,
you’re going to love Becky Ruff’s colorful description of her
multiple Cauldron Crashes.

Her unpredictable Kitchen Capers through internet match websites keep manifesting the same fatal endings until ultimately they bring home the reality that life itself is a culinary experiment. Her optimism and love for self-discovery cast a net and soon she's landed "the marriage" and yet another feast of inner wisdom.

Becky Ruff-Reed is a copywriter, editor and girl Friday in her entrepreneurial business, www.reedpersonaassistant.com. She has two daughters, two grandsons and a newly acquired extended family. She lives with her husband and dogs in Montana.

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 123 KB
• Print Length: 79 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Dandelion Books, LLC; 2 edition (June 12, 2008)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001B0WFR4
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #834,979 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Hindsight: life with a bipolar, narcissist -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggk81ISRjNo

www.reedpersonalassistant.bravehost.com

Romance Stew shows the woman I was before I boarded the barreling freight train of life with a narcissistic spouse. (I feel the music behind this segment of story should be from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's movie format, "So long, so long...and thanks for all the fish! which captures the sense of humor) This has been my personal journey of choice using reality therapy. It proved an amazingly swift roller coaster of emotional turmoil. As an optimist and fairly bright gal, my attempt in the last chapters describing my marriage and the menagerie of distressed family members along for the ride was to take the high road, and yet I seemed unable to evaluate that my questions of what I wanted in this reality of marriage could not mesh with those of my partner. Only after much time had passed did I believe the category to have been narcissism. He presented so very well.

In the second edition, I included my journey within a marriage where not only "he" became the only presence that mattered, but his family supplied additional overwhelm. In this writing, the precursor to my awareness of narcissism, I worked to "take the high road." The finale found me less optimistic and "settling" with an expectation that life within my chosen domain would improve. Horrific emotional turmoil had me feeling insane and totally out-of-sync with the me of my world. I had begun the journey with this alien presence full of hopeful expectation and my belief that I had found "Mr. Right." The addition of the "Alice in Wonderland" surprises that awaited me on the other side of "I do," even if frightening and "Twilight Zone" like in appearance, frightened, appalled, and shook my world of beliefs.

There exists a more prescient awareness of the changing direction of our society and culture today with the introduction of writings on relationship narcissism from Lisa E. Scott's It's All About Him, Sandra Brown's How to Spot a Dangerous Man, and Sam Vaknin's Malignant Self Love. To include the emotional impact of such encounters and resulting "dark night of the soul" for recipients of this psychological act, blog sites must be included such as that of Betty LaLuna and her Narc Raider on Facebook. Something insidious has altered life perspective across the world regarding a sense of detachment with no empathy.

The "trek through the bowels of the twilight zone" reaches well beyond emotional devastation to include financially decimating the recipient of the narcissist's actions and expunging her sense of defined self to encompass even the loss of trust in basic belief systems.

I wrote my pieces to show - to have the reader actually FEEL my sense of pain, shock, disbelief, and the topsy-turvy change in my life - my utter anguish, total despair, and depression in falling "down the rabbit hole" and landing in such a relationship. I could not fathom nor reconcile the super-glue attraction with the dissolving of me, the entity.

Therapists rarely "got" it and I detested being pigeon-holed as codependent. It seemed the world of professional health care psychologists as professionals had missed this segment of awareness and were in no hurry to accept new data.

The most excruciating anguish covered me with surprise as I was rapidly and unceremoniously discarded - not only by my spouse, but by the entire clan...as precisely as a surgeon would use his scalpel. I had believed in commitment and longevity to cruise the bumps of the union. I had honestly felt I had paid my dues. My usefulness as an ATM machine, care provider, family member, and wife was terminated with the rapid acceptance of another taking on the role. I had no idea auditions were being held.

I was left to pick up the pieces within the barrel of sheer heartache and to begin again. My finances were at a zero balance and my heart and soul screamed in agony as I arose from my numbed state. The process is ongoing.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A slice of reality, October 21, 2008

By 

Tonette Joyce "Tonette Joyce" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Romance Stew: The Way to a Woman's Heart (Kindle Edition)

This is a book about Romance;
romance of mature, (and immature), men and women, and of the soul.
This is not the Carrie Bradshaw character of Sex in the City, a 30-something female claiming to be searching for `Mr. Right' while running from any commitment; this is a real, live, die-hard romantic,(with a few more years of experience), in search of her Other Half, taking you down roads she passed and pointing out the potholes she avoided or hit.
"Let nothing stop you", is the theme of the book, which gives you a brief insight into the difficulties faced from one woman's loving parents who became violent alcoholics ruined by a cult, then into their personal redemption; past her relationships, marriages and motherhood into 50-something grandmotherhood, while remaining, if not growing, in romanticism and sexuality , which is the heart of this book. She has seen it all, in her relationships, travels, businesses and jobs,(which include a brief stint in law enforcement), but she has taken out of these the best of the experiences and attempts to show you how you, too, can leave bitterness behind. In this world of internet `friendships' when you don't even know your neighbors, of eating without dining, of seldom making family of friends and friends of family, the author wants you to learn that life, love and romance passes you by only if you let it; that false teeth do not rule out passion, and that romance is still very much alive at any age.

4.0 out of 5 stars over 50 romance...marriage, July 3, 2008

By 

Rebecca J. Reed "warrior student struggling f... (Hamilton and Anaconda, MT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Romance Stew: The Way to a Woman's Heart (Kindle Edition)

Romance and marriage for those over 50's who have tried match services and dating sites - the ups and downs from excited first meetings through getting to know not only whether one has found "Mr. Right" or "not-so," but discovering a wealth of information about yourself and one's baggage, illusions, and expectations....life with complications, emotinal highs and lows, extended families, and self-development and growth...wisdom tidbits from self-help ideas...looking yourself in the eyes within your mirror and knowing that we all have fractures and contusions of our ideals - it's OK to get up and go again. There is a plan and unity within this universe.