Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships

David Schnarch talks good sense which genuinely connects with experience. The two - related - central ideas are differentiation and self-validation. These may be strange terms before you begin it but his book makes their meaning and importance absolutely clear. You will be able to apply them to your experience in marriage in a way that continues - or restarts - your journey. It is clear that his insights come from practice and study combined and it is delightful to find a professional who accepts and uses paradox.

I found this a very interesting book with I think many good pointers about relationships. There are some very erudite reviews on this book which I can't compete with but OI couldn't put it down and found so much stuff which I could relate to and find help from. bu to it takes 2 to tango so if you are in a relationship both parties need to wholeheartedly take part in whatever action you would wish to go forward with! It is true I think that you have to 'forgive the guy for being American.' I don;t like the way Americans come over as arrogant in the way they write but look at the content and not the writer for the value in this book!!

I think this book contains some amazing insights into intimacy and it genuinely changed my approach to intimacy with my partner. Hugging till relaxed, kissing with eyes open, maintaining differentiation and putting the emotional connection first all make intuitive sense to me and have improved my attitude towards my relationship. I did find the writing style a little rambling though, and felt the author reinforced his own success a little too much. I also thought he didn't always succeed in treading the fine line between self help and professional memoir. I get that sexual aggression is not generally predatory in a loving relationship, but many lay people will not appreciate the nuances in what he was saying in this area. Overall, whilst hard work at times, I enjoyed the book and gained an imense amount from it. It did leave me feeling 'if ever a book needed a co-author' though. With some more considered editing I think a refreshing and unconventional approach to intimacy could be made more accessible.

Passionate Marriage offers a unique view on marriages and sex in marriages. Passionate Marriage challenge contemporary, popular ideals of sex and marriage. Definitely a great book to not only grow your knowledge but also grow you to get the marriage that you want.

Whether you are a professional - counsellor, psychotherapist etc, or anyone engaging in any kind of a relationship with another human being, it is a must. David Schnarch is a professional sex therapist and he does not mix his words. Not only is it a fantastic read there is something to learn. I highly recommend this book.

It sometimes is hard to understand some of bits Dr. Schnarch is telling you. But this book helps to understand how to became more of a human being and to understand how much work relations need to be put in. It sort of contradicts some of stuff I have read before and explains his point of view. I hope that with all this information I have now I will be able to solve my problems.

Definitely a great read and helpful highlighting relationship distress and what to consider. All chapters have related case examples and is supported with ways to do things differently expresses in a straight talking style. Couples and individuals will find this book of use.

Our counsellor recommended this. I still do this know why. It is a very long book with very small print, and i don’t think it was of any use at all. The author may be an experienced counsellor but his experience has not translated into a book that is easy to read, nor easy to identify what actions to take, nor easy to summarise. At the end he has included summaries of some, but not all, chapters by other readers. Some chapters (each 20 pages long zzzz) weren’t summarised so I assume other readers couldn’t make sense of those chapters either! The case studies didn’t demonstrate his points. There are a lot of five star reviews on Amazon and I really don’t know why. I agree with the other 1 star reviews which are more accurate. I persevered and read the entire book, hoping for valuable insight and actionable tips but he used a hell of a lot of words to explain one philosophical point (self differentiation), and anything useful was hidden behind more words. I wish i had stopped reading and given up after chapter one. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Schnarch is absolutely brilliant. There are books you read and forget, and there are books that force you to meditate on each line. For the first time, I had my pencil handy and made notes throughout. I started reading it again as soon I got through it the first time. There’s just so much wisdom here.

Is a great read, usseful and specific sugestions to improve your relationship. I really recomend this read to all couples!

As someone in a long-term relationship and as a counsellor I found this book to be one of the most enlightening and refreshing insights into what prevents intimacy – both emotionally and sexually. I read and reread this book and keep finding valuable insights. I think to benefit from this book, one has to be prepared to take a candid, humble and critical look at oneself but it is well worth it. We do things subconsciously and compulsively and this is how we recreate the same patterns and even motivate our partner to behave in ways we don’t like. While sexually explicit at times and perhaps uncomfortable for some, this book offers an incredible insight into the false roles we occupy in our relationships to stay both protected and accepted. I think encapsulating the subjective desires or issues of everyone is almost an impossible task but David Schnarch has done a wonderful job of giving examples. (I’d like to see more material from David Schnarch specifically in the area of treating relationship sexual issues that involve trauma or shame.) The concept of learning to differentiate is key. If we are differentiated, we are free to be ourselves instead of whom we think we should be in the face of our partner. We learn to accept our partner’s feelings, thoughts and behaviours as being different from us without out feeling invalidated. We learn that through self-awareness and self-validation we have the strength and resilience to be intimate and connected. We learn that once we accept complete ownership for our own happiness, we are more genuine and spontaneous and it is from this place that we might have an overflow of personal fulfillment from which to give to our partner (the idea to be giving from the overflow and not frequent personal sacrifice). We do need to develop our observing ego and I recommend this book as an excellent companion to relationship counselling or even if you just wish to work on you or your relationship.

I find it difficult to review this book. It is not because I am ambivalent about it; it is because this book is really having an impact on my life, my psyche, my point of view, my understandings of love, desire, intimacy, sex, and my self-conception. To review the book and do it justice would mean that I fully understood this impact, that I well understood where the changes that reading it has produced, is producing, are taking me. The truth is that I don't, not fully, yet. I only know that it is a scary ride, but one that has enabled me to find clarity on a large number of things or issues in myself which have, for the fifty-plus years I've been alive, frustrated me, confused me, and thwarted my development and fulfillment. Reading it has been a time-intensive task. It has taken me more than a month. Usually, I can digest a book this size in two or three days, or about a week or so, if its subject matter is more recondite. The issue is not that the book is hard to understand. It isn't. Dr. Schnarch is very clear and plainly written. Rather, it is hard to internalize, because it is crammed full of insights that cause one to think, hard. At least, it has inspired that reaction in me. Reading it, I found myself alternating between being unable to put it down, and unable to continue reading, because I simply had to stop and think about what I had just read and its implications on my life. I have found resolutions to apparent paradoxes and contradictions that have been confounding me for years. I found answers to things that had been going on in my twelve year marriage, which ended in divorce eleven years ago. Running into wisdom like this makes me wish this book had been published twenty years earlier and that I had found it then. I'm not really sure that things would have turned out better for my ex and I, but we would have been wiser, calmer, and better able to deal with things, I think, had we had access to the ideas Schnarch presents. I have no doubt that things would have been different, and better in many ways. Reading this has given me insights into things that have puzzled me in my dating life. Ironically and poignantly enough, it has enabled me to understand problems in my relationship with someone wonderful whom I met last year. She is the one who pointed me at this book, having read it herself some time ago. She hasn't spoken to me for a month and a half now, after a particularly rancorous fight that almost certainly could have been avoided, or at least handled way better, had I known then what I am learning now. I wish I had picked this book up when she first mentioned it to me, shortly after we began talking to one another, but I didn't. I know that if I get the opportunity, I will have a much better chance of repairing the damage done between us than I would have otherwise had if I hadn't read this book. I can't see how anyone who picks this book up and considers its ideas seriously will not have their life altered by the thinking. It is one of the best investments in self-actualization that I have ever read, and I have read a few books on the topic. Dr. Schnarch is very clear in explaining the concepts he has developed in his years of helping people. The book is populated with examples of people he has helped in going through relationship problems in their marriage, and these examples illuminate the concepts he is teaching quite elegantly. The reader can see the principles in action, and what's more, can appreciate how Schnarch's ideas are helping his clients to find themselves and hold onto themselves, and thus be able to pursue a better relationship with one another. Holding onto oneself in the face of growing intimacy with one's partner is one of the central ideas in the book. The author calls this process differentiation. The author makes no guarantees. This is not a book enumerating "better communication skills." It is the author's contention that people in intimate relationships communicate quite well -- they just may not like what they are saying to one another. The book is also not a primer of "do's and don't's" or proper "relationship etiquette." It does not tell one with whom one should be or how to analyze one's prospects. It does tell the reader about the importance of finding and holding onto himself or herself while in a relationship and the author states that being in a committed relationship is one of the best ways to experience the impetus to grow as a person, if the challenges are handled correctly, with the proper understanding. Conversely, while the author is quite clear about what he believes are the spiritual implications of his ideas, he is not a mystic, and this is not a book of sentimental hoo-doo and platitudes. The author is showing people how to change their lives, and in the process, become capable of sustaining deeper and more fulfilling intimate connections with a partner. It is not your average "marriage advice," or "couples therapy" book. It is a radically different paradigm, but one that I have found capable of leading the reader to really deep and useful insights. If people in a relationship were to pick this book up and consider what it has to say, whether their relationship was beset with problems significant enough to call into question the viability of the relationship or not, it would definitely change things for them. A reader could obtain benefit for his or her life even if he or she were not presently involved in an intimate relationship. The book is ultimately about how one deals with oneself. Exposure to these ideas changes one's fundamental understandings, if the reader is open.

This book has single handedly given my sexles marriage (8 years of forced celibacy) new license. Within a month of doing the first suggested holding until relaxed exercise, I finally confronted my own issues which I didn't realize were preventing me from authentically expressing my wants and being true to myself and BAM! My husband suddenly turned up the heat, a man who hadn't touched me in eight long years! I was ready to divorce, and this book saved my marriage and family. I will forever be indebted to David Schnarch. His ability to tell it like it like it really is has helped me and us grow. A year lmg marriage therapy brough peace, but no hot feelings of love. The Gottmann books and the Bill Harley books and Sue Johnson and Michele Davis books were valuable at the level of good communication and decision making and showing of empathy and really asking for things and adjusting allocations of time. But David Schnarvh's book blows these books out of the water when it comes to personal growth and reestablishing the feeling of love and intimacy. Highly recommend this book.