1998, ISBN: 9780732267049

Simon & Schuster. Very Good. 24 x 16cm. Hardcover. 2003. 224 pages. dj<br>It is estimated that one of every three married couples struggles with problems associated with mismat… Mehr…

Simon & Schuster. Very Good. 24 x 16cm. Hardcover. 2003. 224 pages. dj<br>It is estimated that one of every three married couples struggles with problems associated with mismatched sexual desire. Do you? If you want to stop fighting about sex and revit alize your intimate connection with your spouse, then you need th is book. But The Sex-Starved Marriage is not just another book ex plaining the reasons you or your spouse might not be in the mood for sex. Bestselling author Michele Weiner Davis will help you un derstand why being complacent or bitter about ho-hum sex might co st you your marriage, and with her acclaimed psychobabble-free, s traight-shooting advice, she'll show you how to bring the spark b ack into your bedroom and into your relationship. Because relat ionship expert Weiner Davis is convinced that feeling sexy is a t wo-person job, she looks at the problem of -- and the solution to -- low sexual desire from a couple's perspective. Whether you're someone whose passion has faded or someone who's been hungering for touch, you'll learn life-altering lessons about bridging the desire gap and restoring intimacy and friendship to your marriage . And because Weiner Davis knows that one spouse is often more mo tivated than the other to work on a relationship, she offers crea tive ways to inspire your partner to change. Separate chapters address the spouse who's hot, the one who's not, and then both to gether. If you're the spouse with a lagging libido, you're far fr om alone. And if you're a man, you'll be surprised to learn that staggering numbers of men, even men whose sexual machinery works just fine, get headaches too! If you're the low-desire spouse, you'll learn about the physiological and psychological factors, i ncluding unresolved relationship issues, that may contribute to t he chill in your bedroom. You'll learn the truth about sexual des ire: that for millions of men or women it doesn't just happen; yo u have to make it happen. Finally, you'll find specific, pragmati c, and often provocative solutions to help you discover the siren or seducer within. If you're the more highly sexed partner, yo u'll breathe a sigh of relief. At last someone understands your f eelings about the void in your marriage. Discover why your pleas for touch have fallen upon deaf ears and why your approach to the lull in your sexual relationship could be a sexual turnoff. Most important, you'll find tools you can use to reach out in ways th at will make your spouse more responsive. Finally, if your partne r is willing, you will learn how to keep the flame of desire burn ing together. Full of moving firsthand accounts from couples who have struggled with the erosion of sexual desire and rebuilt the ir passionate connection, The Sex-Starved Marriage will give you and your spouse the inspiration, encouragement, and answers you n eed to find your way out of a sex-starved marriage. Editorial Re views Review In contrast to its tabloid title, The Se x-Starved Marriage offers candid and sensible counsel for couples with mismatched libidos. Seasoned sex therapist Michele Weiner-D avis skewers two stereotypes about sex in marriage. First, she je ttisons the idea that husbands are hot and wives are not, giving examples of low-desire men in her practice. Next, she upends the longstanding model of sexual response and advises readers: Just d o it. Desire is a decision. Once the low-interest partner allows him/herself to be touched and aroused, this will trigger a strong desire to continue being sexual. The strength of her approach to the causes of sexual stalemate lies in her insights about the st ruggles of both partners. Her suggestions (how to break the ice, how to court your partner, nag busting, and the Hallmark solution ) are not gimmicky and are presented as techniques for couples, n ot individuals. Weakened only by a final chapter--one that disclo ses too many details about the authorÂ's marriage--this perceptiv e book will inspire couples to add heat and light to their marria ge. --Barbara Mackoff From Publishers Weekly Author (The Divorce Remedy), therapist and Oprah regular Davis offers a frank and re assuring guide for couples struggling with the desire doldrums. I t's been estimated that one-third of couples face issues of low d esire, the impact of which is felt beyond the bedroom: Unsatisfyi ng sexual relationships, Davis writes, are the all-too-frequent c auses of alienation, infidelity and divorce. Unfortunately, libid os are rarely equal; most marriages have a low-desire spouse and a high-desire spouse. Davis offers advice for both, bolstered by numerous examples of how that advice has worked for couples she's encountered during her two decades as a marriage counselor. Cour t your partner the way he or she wants to be courted, Davis tells high-desire spouses; for low-desire spouses, sometimes the best idea is (to borrow a line from Nike) to just do it. Her field-tes ted tips are sensible rather than earth-shattering-talk openly, b e kind, commit to making a change for the better and set concrete , attainable goals-but in the hard-to-talk-about realm of sex, ve ry welcome indeed. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc . Review Publishers Weekly -Author (The Divorce Remedy), therapi st and Oprah regular Davis offers a frank and reassuring guide fo r couples struggling with the desire doldrums. Unfortunately, lib idos are rarely equal; most marriages have a low-desire spouse an d a high-desire spouse. Davis offers advice for both, bolstered b y numerous examples of how that advice has worked for couples she 's encountered during her two decades as a marriage counselor... (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information. About the Au thor Michele Weiner Davis is the author of The Divorce Remedy, Di vorce Busting, A Woman's Guide to Changing Her Man, Change Your L ife and Everyone in It, and In Search of Solutions. A regular gue st on Oprah, 48 Hours, the Today show, and CBS This Morning, she created Keeping Love Alive, a PBS broadcast seminar. An internati onally renowned seminar leader and marriage therapist in private practice, she lives with her family in Illinois. Excerpt. ® Repr inted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One: The Sex-S tarved Marriage Dear Michele, Please, please help me. I am goi ng through hell!! I am twenty-eight years old, married with a thr ee-year-old daughter. For the past three years, my wife has avoid ed being sexual with me. It has slowly gone from having sex maybe twice a week to now, if I'm lucky, once a month. And even then, it's not really having sex. It's more like her saying, Hurry up a nd get in here, and let's do this before our child wakes up. Ther e is no foreplay. She doesn't even kiss me. I'm the one who alway s is initiating any sort of affection. I get completely angered , hurt, and resentful toward her because I can't understand how s he could be so cruel to me. I want to tell her, If you don't love me anymore, then we can split up and move on, but we have a chil d together, and I don't think that's right or fair to our daughte r. I want to be there when my little girl wakes up in the morning and goes to bed at night. But I also don't want to be with a wom an who doesn't want to be with me. So I struggle every day with what I should do because I can't keep living like this. I'm mise rable. I have talked to my wife about how I feel numerous times, and nothing I say seems to change anything. Is there anything els e I can do besides getting a divorce? Is there something you coul d write to her so she hears from another person about the importa nce of a good sexual relationship in a marriage? Does any of th is sound familiar? Are these things you've thought or said to you rself? Or have you heard words like these uttered from your spous e in an attempt to get you to change? Either way, you need to kno w that you are not alone. It is estimated that one out of every t hree couples struggle with problems associated with low sexual de sire. One study found that 20 percent of married couples have sex fewer than ten times a year! Complaints about low desire are the #1 problem brought to sex therapists. And if you've been think ing that low sexual desire is only a woman's thing, think again. Many sex experts believe that low sexual desire in men is America 's best-kept secret. Just read what women have to say about what really goes on behind closed doors: I am so tired of reading ar ticles in women's magazines and watching talk shows that perpetua te the myth that men are always more interested in sex than women . This is a bunch of hooey! There are many, many women who would love to have a spouse who wants to have sex, touch, or kiss. I' ve spoken to many women who have this same problem....Their husba nds simply aren't interested. I cannot believe my circle of frien ds is so different from the average. None of their husbands are g etting it on the side...they simply are not interested. In my cas e, my husband of 26 years has never been as interested as I in se x, and during the last 5 years our sex life has been nonexistent. *** This lack of sex is more than just a lack of physical at tention....It goes deep into a woman's heart. I think in a normal marriage, a couple can fight about anything, but then they can m ake love and soothe the bad feelings...sort of like a rebirth...a forgiving ritual. But when you are deprived of even that, bitter ness and resentment and desperation accumulate. I have a husband who is a good guy, great father, good provider, but I have no lov er. I'm angry about the wasted years, the years I could have been loving, but spent agonizing about why I was being deprived. It's so much more than sex. It's feeling wanted, and sexy and desired by the man that you are committed to for life. As you can see, women have no corner on the low libido market. Maybe you're aski ng yourself, If low sexual desire in men is commonplace, why are they so closed-mouthed about it? That's a good question. When a w oman lacks sexual desire, although it may be troubling to her, sh e's not likely to start questioning the core of her femininity. A fter all, she's almost supposed to have headaches. Men, on the ot her hand, are thought to have only three things on their minds: s ex, sex, and more sex. To be disinterested in sex is to feel less than a man. Just thinking about low libido, let alone talking ab out it, strikes terror in men because it threatens the very found ation on which their feelings of self-worth are based. No wonder they're tight-lipped. But make no mistake about it: there are mil lions of people, women and men, who just don't feel turned on. It would be one thing if these lustless men and women were marrie d to each other; they could agree to go off into the sunset, bask ing in platonic bliss. But as fate would have it, it rarely works that way. People with low sexual desire are generally married to partners who desperately yearn for more sexuality, intimacy, phy sical closeness, and connection. And this chasm between them -- a desire discrepancy -- spells trouble. How do I know? I've been a marriage therapist for two decades. I've been privileged to he ar the real stories of people's lives: the joys, the pain, the ch allenges, the payoffs. I've had a bird's-eye view of what truly h appens to marriages in which one spouse has little or no desire f or sex and the other yearns for it desperately. I can tell you wi thout a shadow of a doubt that a marriage void of sexuality and i ntimacy is a marriage doomed to fail. Take Debra and Tom, for exa mple. When I met Debra and Tom, they had been married for ten y ears and had two sons, ages eight and five. They were strikingly handsome individuals, devoted parents, financially well off, in g ood health, and surrounded by loving and attentive friends and fa mily. It's easy to understand why outsiders believed that they we re the perfect couple. Yet despite all of this, their marriage wa s precipitously close to ending. Debra spent much of our time t ogether in counseling complaining about Tom. He was angry all the time and impatient with everyone in the family. His short-temper was poison to her soul. He snapped at her over the littlest thin gs. He yelled at the kids for just being kids. According to Debra , everyone always felt as if they were walking on eggshells. Debr a also complained of Tom's lack of involvement at home. He never seems to want to do anything as a couple or even as a family anym ore. It's as if he's given up on our marriage, she said. He never talks to me or even asks how my day was. Tom had no shortage o f negative things to report about their marriage either. He was q uick to tell me that he didn't like being around Debra because al l she ever did was complain. Whether he was completing a home imp rovement project or helping the kids with homework, Tom felt that Debra always found fault with him. Tom also talked about a deep disappointment in Debra as a companion. He wistfully recalled the ir early years of marriage: She used to be fun to be with. She ha d a great sense of humor. She made me feel like I was the funnies t man in the world. Now, everything is serious. And after a momen t of silence he added, We don't have anything in common anymore. She does her thing, and I do mine. At this point, I actually pref er it that way. We met for several sessions, and very little ch anged. I was unable to help Debra and Tom find their way out of t he exasperating labyrinth of blame versus counterblame. They were both more intent on being right than finding solutions to their long-standing problems. Nonetheless, Debra and Tom still claimed that they wanted to stay together. Yet I could see that unless so mething drastic changed, they were headed for marital disaster. C onfused, I asked the couple, What's the glue holding the two of y ou together? and Tom's response offered the first real inkling of what had been really troubling them and why they had been so stu ck. Tom's tone softened considerably as he spoke. I've given th is a lot of thought, and besides staying together for the sake of our boys, I think I'm still holding out hope that some day we'll be able to recreate some of the feelings we had earlier in our m arriage. And Tom proceeded to describe what he saw as the progres sive unraveling of their intimate relationship. Tom said that w hen they first married, he was passionately in love with Debra an d found her irresistib, Simon & Schuster, 2003, 3, HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd 5/6/1998. 8vo. hardcover. 296pp. Another rich story from the Australian master of this Vatican game. . .West spins an intriguing tale. He likes big people and big questions, and Eminence has them.nnFrom Library JournalnA priest spirited to Rome after being tortured by the Argentine military in the '70s finds his faith tested again when the Pope dies and a woman he once loved reenters his life.nnFrom USA TodaynAnother rich story from the Australian master of this Vatican game. . .West spins an intriguing tale. He likes big people and big questions, and Eminence has them.nnFrom Publisher"s WeeklynWest succeeds in balancing contemporary Vatican intrigue and details....[in] this very intriguing novel of papal intrigue.nnFrom Kirkus ReviewsnThe latest ecclesial potboiler by West (Vanishing Point), this one centering on the troubles that await an Argentine cardinal who hopes not to be elected pope. Luca Rossini is a man between worlds. The son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, he now lives in Rome, where his Italian surname can't really conceal the fact that he is on foreign ground in more ways than one. As a young priest, Rossini spoke out against the military junta and its "dirty war" of the 1970sand was nearly killed as a result. Rescued from a squad of assassins by the wife of a senior diplomat, he was smuggled out of the country to the Vatican and has never returned. Now he faces a different sort of trial: the pope he has served for the last 20 years has died, and Rossiniwho was one of the pontiff's closest advisorsis looked upon as a likely successor. Where's the problem, you ask? Well, for one thing, Rossini no longer believes in God. And for good measure, he is still in love with Isabel Ortega, his rescuer, with whom he had a brief affair before leaving Argentina. Now Isabel's husband has been appointed Argentina's ambassador to the Vatican, and he and Isabel are moving to Rome. How can Luca find peace? A rich panoply of colorful typesincluding a crafty servant, an Opus dei prelate, several journalists of middling scruples, and (naturally) the entire College of Cardinalscombines to prove to Luca what he had always feared might not be true: namely, that God writes straight with crooked lineseven if his eraser leaves a smudge or two. Brain candy, to be sure, but who's counting calories? Vaticanologists will be having too much fun figuring out who's who in this aptlytimed romanaclef. very good+. / very good+ d/w. ., HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd 5/6/1998, 0<

1998, ISBN: 9780732267049

New York University Press. Used - Very Good. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects., New York University Press, 3, HarperCollins Publish… Mehr…

New York University Press. Used - Very Good. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects., New York University Press, 3, HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd 5/6/1998. 0. Hardcover. 8vo. hardcover. 296pp. Another rich story from the Australian master of this Vatican game. . .West spins an intriguing tale. He likes big people and big questions, and Eminence has them.nnFrom Library JournalnA priest spirited to Rome after being tortured by the Argentine military in the '70s finds his faith tested again when the Pope dies and a woman he once loved reenters his life.nnFrom USA TodaynAnother rich story from the Australian master of this Vatican game. . .West spins an intriguing tale. He likes big people and big questions, and Eminence has them.nnFrom Publisher"s WeeklynWest succeeds in balancing contemporary Vatican intrigue and details....[in] this very intriguing novel of papal intrigue.nnFrom Kirkus ReviewsnThe latest ecclesial potboiler by West (Vanishing Point), this one centering on the troubles that await an Argentine cardinal who hopes not to be elected pope. Luca Rossini is a man between worlds. The son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, he now lives in Rome, where his Italian surname can't really conceal the fact that he is on foreign ground in more ways than one. As a young priest, Rossini spoke out against the military junta and its "dirty war" of the 1970sand was nearly killed as a result. Rescued from a squad of assassins by the wife of a senior diplomat, he was smuggled out of the country to the Vatican and has never returned. Now he faces a different sort of trial: the pope he has served for the last 20 years has died, and Rossiniwho was one of the pontiff's closest advisorsis looked upon as a likely successor. Where's the problem, you ask? Well, for one thing, Rossini no longer believes in God. And for good measure, he is still in love with Isabel Ortega, his rescuer, with whom he had a brief affair before leaving Argentina. Now Isabel's husband has been appointed Argentina's ambassador to the Vatican, and he and Isabel are moving to Rome. How can Luca find peace? A rich panoply of colorful typesincluding a crafty servant, an Opus dei prelate, several journalists of middling scruples, and (naturally) the entire College of Cardinalscombines to prove to Luca what he had always feared might not be true: namely, that God writes straight with crooked lineseven if his eraser leaves a smudge or two. Brain candy, to be sure, but who's counting calories? Vaticanologists will be having too much fun figuring out who's who in this aptlytimed romanaclef. very good+. / very good+ d/w. ., HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd 5/6/1998, 0<