“How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About it”, by Patricia Love

Love, Patricia, and Steven Stosny. How to Improve Your Marriage without Talking about It: Finding Love beyond Words. New York: Broadway, 2007. Print.

This is the first book I’m reviewing without having it in front of me.  I almost used that as an excuse to skip it, but really, I’m not sure I would have more to say even if I could refer to it.

It really quite confused me.  It was so harsh on the typical woman’s approach of talking everything out, that I found myself tongue-tied every time I tried to speak to my husband.  The material presented about how women are primarily motivated by fear, and men by shame, didn’t match anything I’d heard or read before.  I realize this doesn’t mean that it’s wrong, and I can’t point to my own marriage to say it’s false, but it was disconcerting.

Their point about men’s wives providing the meaning in their life was particularly hard to take.  Surely my husband wouldn’t be aimless without me?

All in all, the book made me quite uncomfortable.  There are exercises, but some of them are silly, and most of them are “one size fits all” with no way to modify them for a particular couple’s needs.  I can’t say that I wouldn’t recommend it, because it might be just what a particular person or marriage needs… but I would certainly recommend getting it out of the library rather than buying it.