Customer Reviews

The Weekend Marriage: Abundant Love in a Time-Starved World

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When I first ran across this book I thought, Hmmm, might be worth checking out. I counsel a lot of couples and I've long been aware how busy we all are these days. But The Weekend Marriage is a revelation. Finally someone has put her finger on what is causing so much trouble in our relationships: no time for love. This is important because as Kirshenbaum shows we can now stop the destructive business of blaming each other for the state of our relationships. What I think is very special about this book is the practical advise that really will, I'm sure, turn things around for every busy couple. There is real help here, not silly fluff. Kirshenbaum covers everything. How to bring closeness and affection back. How to stop fighting and still express your needs. How important it is to take care of yourself. How to break free of old patterns. I am going to beg all my patients and friends to read and use this blessedly short book that I really enjoyed. Thank you, Mira Kirshenbaum.

We have been married for 43 years but we had reached some new problems with retirement togetherness. This book is intended for the married with children group when both partners are too busy for nurturing a relationship. But we found and adopted some of the ideas brought forth in this book. My husband is amazed how quickly we found answers that are working GREAT for us now. We are creating positive energy where none was before and finding solutions that revitalize our lives and bring FUN into our 43 year old marriage. We learned models for making decisions ways to manage anger, break free of old patterns, and ways to get close that makes us the envy of our friends.
I recommend this book to any couple, it is easy to read and understand. It provides some good suggestions that anyone could easily adopt. If you buy this book, it won't gather dust after you have read it, you will go back to it again and again for more of the great ideas you find here.
Linda K. DeCamp
Michigan

Thank GOD there is finally a book for married people that deals with the real problems we all face, and actually says something, and has tons of real help. On almost every page I thought, this is me, this is my life. And you can DO the things Kirshenbaum suggests, and they WORK. Throw all your other so-called relationship books away -- this one sees you in your real life and offers real help. Oh, and it is really, really well written. I'm so impressed. I know this is going to make all the difference for me and my husband.

I have been a couples therapist for 20 years, and finally there is a book I can recommend whole heartedly to my patients. This book brilliantly makes the point that the lives we live these days aren't healthy for our relationships. If you've been wondering why there are problems in your marriage, this book is more likely to have the answer than any other. But the most important thing about this book is tremendously helpful advice it contains. I've racked my brain, and there is nothing left out. If you are living with someone in a committed relationship, read this book. It will make all the difference.

Mira Kirshenbaum is an award winning, bestselling author of several books on relationships including Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Helping You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship, The Gift of a Year: How to Give Yourself the Most Meaningful, Pleasurable, and Satisfying Year of Your Life, Women & Love: The Eight Make-or-Break Experiences of Love in Women's Lives, Parent/Teen Breakthrough: The Relationship Approach, and Our Love Is Too Good to Feel So Bad: The 10 Prescriptions to Heal Your Relationship. The author is married to her college sweetheart, Dr. Charles Foster, who has co-authored at least one of her books. Her career accomplishments include thirty years as a couples' therapist, being a two-time finalist for the national "Books for a Better Life Award", and serving as director of The Chestnut Hill Institute in Boston, MA.

I didn't set out to read a book on relationships. I was merely browsing the shelves of "New Arrivals" at the local library. But the title of this book just reached out and grabbed me. Being married to an adorable but self-professed workaholic husband, the title spoke to me. Never being one to check out a book without first reading a few pages to be sure it is something I will want to take home, I read first one page and then another. Before I knew it, I was halfway done with the book and had not made it to the checkout line! Kirshenbaum hooked me from the introduction and didn't let me go until the final word. The following is excerpted from that Introduction:

"This is the weekend marriage. It's the marriage most of us have these days: during a typical week you have only minutes, not hours, to spend feeling like a couple -- getting close, having fun together, feeling intimate." "Few of us are exempt. Whoever is the busiest or most drained determines how much time the two of you have together. If he or she has only a few minutes a day for the relationship, that's all the relationship gets."

With her own personal insights as well as lessons learned from her many years as a therapist, she brings a fresh perspective to the whole issue of how couples spend their limited time together. In her rather short but richly detailed book, readers can:

*Take the No-Time-For-Love-Test to "determine whether your problems come mostly from the fact that you have no time for love or mostly from how you fit together as individuals."
*Discover secrets of successful weekend marriage couples.
*Determine whether you are a "dog" or a "duck" (her terminology), and whether you are in a "dog-dog," dog-duck" or "duck-duck" relationship. Sorry folks, you'll have to read the book to learn exactly what is behind this cryptic message!
*Consider her "insights for action" and many more insights that likely hit a chord in not just weekend marriages but any and every relationship.

Kirshebaum says that when too much time goes by "...You forget how well suited to each other you are." She encourages readers to take heart in the fact that even in a time-starved world, there is hope for a satisfying relationship. Her insights for action offer reasonable, practical suggestions for those who have no idea where to start in trying to work on the task of spending quality time together, doing those things that allow you as individuals to remember and nurture the reasons why you were so well matched. You were and still are--if only you had the time!

This should be required reading for anyone entering into a relationship. After this insightful reading experience, I plan to see what other pearls of wisdom Kirshenbaum has to offer in her other works.

by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women