Should I Stay or Should I Go??

Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay : A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship (Paperback)
by Mira Kirshenbaum

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452275350/002-2736247-2962458?n=283155

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Trying to make the agonizing decision whether to get out of a troubled, potentially life-wrecking relationship is the specific ambivalence this book addresses. The reader is offered a focused way to deal with one critical issue at a time rather than sort endlessly through the whole messy bundle of emotional pros and cons. Kirshenbaum's expertise allows her to pinpoint the pertinent questions. The Boston psychotherapist, who does relationship counseling, offers a series of them, amplified with guidelines: "Power people poison passion"; "If your partner can't even see what it is about him that makes you want to get out, it's time to get out"; "If it never was very good, it'll never be very good." And threaded through the book, which is written in a sympathetic, chatty, accessible style, are validating anecdotes that dramatize how other people have experienced and responded to the same problems the reader is going through. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

For those struggling to decide if a relationship is worth trying to save, Kirshenbaum (clinical director, Chestnut Hill Inst.) knows the issues and explains them clearly, presenting 36 well-phrased and well-ordered diagnostic questions, giving examples, and then succinctly offering guidelines to follow. Those who give certain answers to the diagnostic questions will be faced not only with a realization of how deep the problems may be but also with Kirshenbaum's repeated admonitions that "most people who answered the question the way you did were happy they left and unhappy they stayed." Her emphatic prescriptions for such nuanced problems, as well as her promise that "new hope is now entirely realistic for you" and assurance that "there are definite answers for you here," should make most readers wary. But Kirshenbaum does caution that "nothing in the book overrules what a good therapist...might tell you," and she will help readers sort out ambivalent feelings about relationships. For larger public library collections.?Susan E. Burdick, Reading, Pa.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About My Favorite Books

Books I list in this blog will be books I have read for myself. I may not always enter my own personal comments or reviews, and am more likely just to cut & paste from Amazon.com.

However, I will post books that I think reflect my interests or personality.

I read a lot and love to read many things. I am a news junkie, but I am not opinionated about news in general. I'm one of those people who likes to read the newspaper front to back.... I can't even stand to read the sections out of order... LOL. I love newsprint on my fingers and in order to keep up with news in other parts of the country where I've lived, I've resorted to reading some newspapers online.... blech!

Just an FYI... Magazines I love to read:

Harvard Business Review
Time
Newsweek
People
Oprah
InStyle
Rolling Stone
Vanity Fair
Penthouse (Forum -- letters to Penthouse)
Entertainment
Wired
New York (not New Yorker)

Undressing Infidelity

Undressing Infidelity: Why More Wives are Unfaithful
by Diane Shader Smith, Publisher: Adam Media Corp. (February 9, 2005)

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly

Sidestepping statistics and sociological analysis in favor of good old-fashioned steamy storytelling, this book offers an insider's perspective on the phenomena of cheating wives. Smith reveals her personal fascination with the subject of female adultery in the opening chapter-a flirtatious relationship with a handsome man she met on a business trip once caused her to risk her comfortable marriage by almost starting an affair. Her cautionary tale reads like the opening of a romance novel, engrossing the reader with the daring of her flirtatious encounters. After her near affair, Smith began interviewing other women who had actually cheated in an attempt to figure out why women stray. These 14 absorbing stories are told through the wives' unique voices. Jennifer, a soccer mom with a bad sex life but a loving husband, found that her affair with a doctor actually raised her self-worth and helped her marriage. Theresa, a teacher in her 40s from the Midwest, with a "prim demeanor" and strict parents who never broached the subject of sex, cheated on her abusive husband with a cowboy she met at a bar. Smith admits that every person she interviewed challenged her assumptions about the type of woman who could be unfaithful, but unfortunately, she does not seem to have reached any more substantial conclusions than that. The book offers insufficient insight into how to prevent a good marriage from going sour, but what it lacks in social significance, it makes up for in intrigue and romance. Readers will be entertained by these real-life accounts of cheating wives, even if the overarching question of why women cheat is ultimately left unanswered. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Book

Description

Real women. Real Stories. Real Life.
Undressing Infidelity is a fascinating, steamy, and compelling book that takes you beyond the cold taboo statistics of divorce and infidelity, and into the everyday lives of married women who are having extramarital affairs.
Who are these women?
They are your neighbors, your friends, your coworkers. They go to your gym. They shop at your grocery store. They are the women you see every day who seem to have it all. So why are they cheating?
Statistics tell us that 65 percent of married women cheat-but what does that really mean? Diane Shader Smith has uncovered the truth behind the numbers by doing what no one has ever done before-listening to them. After resisting the temptation to have an affair herself, she sat down one-on-one with more than 150 women, all of whom shared the intimate secrets of their affairs.
In Undressing Infidelity, Shader Smith not only reveals the fascinating results of her research, she also provides an up-close-and-personal look at the most telling stories she encountered. She takes you deep inside the marriages and affairs of twelve fascinating women-from Midwestern moms to Manhattan execs-who chose to cheat. Told in their own words, these stories weave a surprising and compelling tapestry of love, sex, and changing loyalties in today's marriages.

To Love Honor and Betray

To Love, Honor, and Betray: The Secret Life of Suburban Wives
by Adrienne Lopez, Stephanie Gertler; Publisher: Hyperion (February 9, 2005)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers WeeklyCalling all desperate housewives. While the subtitle might suggest a broad look at the state of marriage in the suburbs, this is more a beady-eyed stare into the lives of suburban married women who are having, have had or are contemplating having affairs. Gertler, a novelist (Jimmy's Girl, etc.), and Lopez, an attorney and independent producer, contribute seven pages of an introduction and brief introductory paragraphs; after that, it's the subjects and their first-person testimonials. The women, whom the authors reached through friend and family networks, tell of cheating in retaliation for a husband's affair; because their husbands wouldn't sleep with them; or out of loneliness, spite, and even surprise ("All of a sudden, I found myself having sex with this man"). Not all of them are sympathetic characters, that's for sure. But some stories are poignant. Thirty-one years after marrying a withholding man and four years into a loving, passionate affair, "Mrs. E." admits that she fantasizes about her husband asking her how to love and pleasure her: "That would be the fairy tale.... You see, if I had my choice, I wouldn't be in this position." The lack of communication in her marriage feels symptomatic of the book as a whole. A gathering of dissatisfactions not unified by any authorial voice, this demoralizes more than it enlightens. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Book

Description
A provocative look at the lives of 26 married suburban women, offering a fascinating and nuanced portrait of marriage and infidelity.
Extramarital affairs are often whispered about behind closed doors. In this groundbreaking book, the doors open. Stephanie Gertler and Adrienne Lopez take an intimate and sensitive look at the lives of 26 married or previously married women who have either had an affair, are having an affair, or are wrestling with their conflicting emotions and loyalties as they consider the possibility of being unfaithful to their husbands.
The women are between the ages of 35 and 70. They hail from various cultures, races, professions, and economic levels. Most have children. Many crave passion, intimacy, conversation, romance. And when those things aren't forthcoming in their marriages, they seek them elsewhere. To Love, Honor, and Betray never judges: It provides candid conversations, rendering women's lives in ways that are surprising and moving, while offering remarkable insight into the complexity of long-term relationships. It's the book that women have been waiting for.