Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Really Useful Book
Comment: This is a rare book, in that it's truly helpful, wise, the advice rings true and is doable. It really highlights the negative behaviour we are all locked in and provides good insight and easy ways to change your thinking, reactions and hence your relationship. I reccommend this book highly.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: anti-woman "self-help"
Comment: I have read a lot of "relationship" books lately. 90% of them have the same problems: (1) they over-simplify male-female relationships; (2) there's a "schtick" that explains everything; and (3) they ignore the power imbalances in the patriarchal family/marriage/relationship.
This book is no exception. In some ways it's worse than average. I did a little research on Stosny and found out that he worked in a domestic violence program and was offended by the model that most domestic violence programs use. This is the Duluth model, which emphasizes protecting the victims from further harm and holding perpetrators accountable. Stosny thought that was "anti-male" and "sexist."
Domestic violence is not the subject of this book, but Stosny's anti-feminist bias shows. He basically says that women are mostly afraid and men are mostly ashamed, as if these two problems deserve equal consideration and priority. Women are afraid of physical harm. Men feel ashamed if somebody, especially their wives or girlfriends, disses them, even slightly. And criticizing them in any way activates their "shame" to an intolerable level. So sad.
He claims that they are born this way. ;-) Whereas women are born afraid.
I kind of notice that women are afraid because men attack, rape, and kill them. That seems like a more important problem to address than the terrible shame of having your wife say, "Honey, we need to talk." Seriously. Stosny says this is too shaming: never say it.
I also learned from his website that Stosny's antidote to everything, including domestic violence, is "compassion." He takes tough, angry men and tells them to visual the word "heal" flashing in front of their girlfriends' faces. This is supposed to stop the abuse! Ok, compassion is great, and I'm sorry that some men get mad because they feel dissed. But the idea that ALL abusers are really hurt little boys is quite dangerous. Many are incapable of compassion, and your compassion for them won't help them; it will likely just make it harder for you to protect yourself.
A dangerous, anti-woman book masquerading as a gentle self-help book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It actually makes sense
Comment: I was skeptical about how helpful a book would be that claims to help you improve your marriage without talking about it but the techniques discussed really do make sense. Also, mine and my wife's roles seem to be reversed from the "typical" suggested in the book: I am the one that has to talk about things and she is the one who shuts down and avoids talking - so I wasn't sure if this book would be applicable to us. After I got about half way into it however, everything started to make sense. The idea that you need to first "connect" at emotional level using non-verbal methods (e.g. a touch or a smile) before attempting a verbal discussion, never occurred to me. This technique and others discussed in the book have made it much easier for me to focus on something other than just talking - which by itself hasn't worked.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book
Comment: This books shows you a complete differnt way of looking at your marriage and yourself. I recomend it to anyone that is having marrage problems
Customer Rating:
Summary: $10 is a laughable cost for such insightful information.
Comment: My marriage is not out of the woods yet, but hopefully this book (and perhaps counselling) will help us get there.
I burned through this quick read within a two day time-span. It really brings a great deal of insight to either party about how the other may be feeling or interpreting what is being said. I can't even begin to describe how much of my own life I've read in these pages.
If you are having ANY marital problems, or even have the potential for them (if you're married, you do), you should read this book. Not reading this book is a disservice to any marriage, in my personal opinion.
I am going to try to read it to my wife, if she'll allow it. If not, I'm going to strongly encourage her to read it before we make our first counselling session.
There are a few things I would like to print out, because they actually ask you to write/circle things. I'm using Kindle on my PC and iPhone so that really doesn't work out. I spent an hour today transcribing the two long surveys into Word documents so I could print them and use them with my wife.
Many thanks to the authors, even if I can't save my marriage.
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