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With the divorce rate spiking at a dizzying 60 percent, it’s safe to assume that young couples and experienced partners alike may lack the skills and understanding necessary to sustain a committed relationship. Psychotherapists Linda and Charlie Bloom present 101 techniques delivering practical guidance and make it clear that, regardless of past experience, anyone can develop the basic strengths, skills, and capacities needed for a great relationship. Each lesson is presented as a simple, one-line thought followed by an explanation using real life examples — from the authors' own experiences in sustaining their marriage of 31 years to those of the thousands of couples they've professionally counseled or who have taken the Blooms' life relationship seminars. This book demonstrates how anyone can find ways out of a painful relationship, and how couples can enrich their own relationships through working through love's challenges.
| Acknowledgments | xv | |
| Foreword | xvii | |
| Introduction | xix | |
| 1. | Great relationships don't just happen; they are created | 3 |
| 2. | Vulnerability is disarming | 5 |
| 3. | If your job gets your best energy, your marriage will wither | 7 |
| 4. | One of the greatest gifts you can give your partner is your own happiness | 9 |
| 5. | There's a difference between judging and being judgmental | 12 |
| 6. | It's possible to hate and love someone at the same time | 15 |
| 7. | When you complain about your partner to your friends, remember that their feedback is based upon distorted information | 17 |
| 8. | The only rules in a marriage are those to which you both choose to agree | 19 |
| 9. | Commitment isn't a prison; it's a means to greater freedom | 21 |
| 10. | It isn't conflict that destroys marriages; it's the cold, smoldering resentment that is bred by withholding | 23 |
| 11. | If you choose monogamy, keep your agreement | 25 |
| 12. | It's not what you've got; it's what you do with it | 28 |
| 13. | Even good marriages have recurring seasons, and there can be some hard winters | 30 |
| 14. | Your primary relationship is with your partner, not your children | 33 |
| 15. | If you think you're too good for your partner, think again | 36 |
| 16. | Growing up in a happy family doesn't ensure a good marriage, and growing up in an unhappy family doesn't preclude having one | 38 |
| 17. | It's never too late to repair damaged trust | 40 |
| 18. | Secrets are lies | 43 |
| 19. | Sex can improve with age | 45 |
| 20. | If you're keeping pace with the people around you, you're probably moving too fast | 47 |
| 21. | If you can't be happy without your partner, you won't be happy together | 50 |
| 22. | Marriage is like yoga | 53 |
| 23. | The prince isn't going to come | 56 |
| 24. | Getting help when you are unable to work things out isn't a sign of weakness; it's a sign of intelligence | 58 |
| 25. | One person, no matter how much they love you, cannot meet all of your emotional needs | 60 |
| 26. | Love isn't always enough to sustain a marriage | 63 |
| 27. | True intimacy can exist only between equals | 66 |
| 28. | The real issue is usually not the one you're arguing about | 70 |
| 29. | Love isn't just a feeling; it's an action that shows our caring | 72 |
| 30. | Expectations set us up for resentment | 74 |
| 31. | Arguments can't be avoided, but destructive ones can | 76 |
| 32. | One of the greatest gifts we can give our partner is our focused attention | 78 |
| 33. | Even people with great marriages sometimes wonder whether they might have married the wrong person | 81 |
| 34. | Your partner cannot rescue you from unhappiness, but they can help you to rescue yourself | 84 |
| 35. | The cost of a lie is far greater than any advantage you gain from speaking it | 87 |
| 36. | Even the best marriages have irreconcilable differences | 90 |
| 37. | Your opinion is not the truth | 93 |
| 38. | Vacations are necessities, not luxuries | 96 |
| 39. | Trust takes years to establish and moments to destroy | 99 |
| 40. | Ultimatums and threats do more harm than good | 102 |
| 41. | Guilt-tripping won't get you what you really want | 105 |
| 42. | Give what you want to receive | 107 |
| 43. | Don't neglect your friends just because you've acquired a spouse | 110 |
| 44. | If you think, "You're not the person I married," you're probably right | 113 |
| 45. | Resisting the temptation to prove your point will win you a lot of points | 116 |
| 46. | What you judge in your partner is a reflection of what you judge in yourself | 118 |
| 47. | Your partner is your teacher and your student | 120 |
| 48. | Commitment is not a one-time event; it's an ongoing process | 124 |
| 49. | Generosity of spirit is the foundation of great relationships | 127 |
| 50. | If your partner is being defensive, you may be giving them reason to be | 129 |
| 51. | Marriage isn't 50/50; it's 100/100 | 131 |
| 52. | Trust can be rebuilt, even after a painful betrayal, but it may require hard work | 134 |
| 53. | You can pay now or you can pay later, but the later you pay, the more penalties and interest you accrue | 136 |
| 54. | The cheap thrill you get from putting down your partner isn't so cheap | 139 |
| 55. | Marriage does require sacrifice, but what you stand to gain is infinitely greater than what you give up | 142 |
| 56. | Good sex doesn't necessarily make a marriage great, but it sure helps | 144 |
| 57. | Forgiveness isn't a one-time event; it's a process | 146 |
| 58. | Even the tiniest spark can reignite the fire of love | 149 |
| 59. | If you find out what your partner wants and help them get it, you'll both be happier | 153 |
| 60. | Marriage alone does not make you a better person, but accepting its challenges does | 156 |
| 61. | Creating a great marriage generally takes more time and effort than it seems it should | 159 |
| 62. | Creating a marriage is like launching a rocket: once it clears the pull of gravity, it takes much less energy to sustain the flight | 161 |
| 63. | Being attracted to someone else doesn't diminish the quality of your marriage; acting on that attraction does | 163 |
| 64. | A successful marriage has more to do with how you deal with your current reality than what you experienced in the past | 165 |
| 65. | In order for it to thrive, love requires separateness as well as togetherness | 167 |
| 66. | We all have a terminal diagnosis | 169 |
| 67. | Don't keep feelings of gratitude to yourself | 172 |
| 68. | Knowing where your lines are and being willing to draw them serves your partner as well as yourself | 174 |
| 69. | You don't have to be able to love well to get married; the training occurs on the job | 176 |
| 70. | Privacy won't hurt your marriage, but secrecy will | 179 |
| 71. | Possessiveness and jealousy are born out of fear, not love | 182 |
| 72. | Facing your fears builds strength; avoiding them diminishes it | 184 |
| 73. | Authenticity is contagious and habit-forming | 187 |
| 74. | Don't say anything about your partner that you're not willing to say to them | 189 |
| 75. | Your greatest weakness can become your greatest strength | 193 |
| 76. | Of all of the benefits of marriage, the greatest is the possibility of using this relationship to become a more loving person | 195 |
| 77. | If your partner thinks something is important, it is! | 197 |
| 78. | Marriages never outgrow the need for romance | 199 |
| 79. | The sparkle of a new relationship is always temporary | 203 |
| 80. | There is violence in silence when it's used as a weapon | 206 |
| 81. | There's a difference between sex and intimacy | 209 |
| 82. | It's better to focus on what you can do to make things right than on what your partner did to make things wrong | 212 |
| 83. | The fire of infatuation has to cool before mature love can develop | 215 |
| 84. | Nothing deadens sexual desire faster than unresolved differences | 217 |
| 85. | The biggest risk is in not risking | 219 |
| 86. | If you think marriage counseling is too expensive, try divorce | 221 |
| 87. | Forgiveness is its own reward | 223 |
| 88. | Revenge is its own punishment | 225 |
| 89. | When two hearts are connected, the biggest problems become workable; when they are not, the smallest difficulties seem insurmountable | 227 |
| 90. | Constructive criticism generally isn't | 230 |
| 91. | The capacity to feel joy grows in proportion to the capacity to experience pain | 232 |
| 92. | There is no greater eloquence than the silence of real listening | 234 |
| 93. | External conflicts are often outer expressions of internal ones | 238 |
| 94. | One of the greatest questions you can ask your partner is, "How may I best love you?" | 240 |
| 95. | There's more to be gained by understanding your partner's world than trying to get them to understand yours | 242 |
| 96. | A loving marriage can heal old emotional wounds more effectively than the best therapy | 244 |
| 97. | Just keep talkin' | 246 |
| 98. | Assumptions are fine, as long as you check them out before acting on them | 248 |
| 99. | Marriages can stay fresh over time | 250 |
| 100. | Intention may not be the only thing, but it's the most important thing | 252 |
| 101. | The amount of joy and fulfillment available in a loving partnership is considerably more than you can imagine | 254 |
| About the Authors | 257 | |
| Contact Us | 259 |
Anonymous
Posted July 21, 2010
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
With the divorce rate spiking at a dizzying 60 percent, it’s safe to assume that young couples and experienced partners alike may lack the skills and understanding necessary to sustain a committed relationship. Psychotherapists Linda and Charlie Bloom present 101 techniques delivering practical guidance and make it clear that, regardless of past experience, anyone can develop the basic strengths, skills, and capacities needed for a great relationship. Each lesson is presented as a simple, one-line thought followed by an explanation using real life examples — from the authors' own experiences in sustaining their marriage of 31 years to those of the thousands of couples they've ...