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How Can I Get Through to You? Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women | 
 enlarge | Author: Terrence Real
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $4.50
You Save: $10.50 (70%)
New (33) Used (34) from $4.50
Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 18509
Media: Paperback
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0684868784
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.8286
EAN: 9780684868783
ASIN: 0684868784
Publication Date: December 31, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"What happened to the passion we started with?
Why aren't we as close as we used to be?"
PROBLEM: If you are a woman who is unfulfilled in your marriage...if you feel unheard or overburdened...if you quietly live in a state of slow-burn resentment...
PROBLEM: If you are a man unhappy that your partner seems so unhappy with you...if you feel bewildered, unappreciated, or betrayed...
This book offers a solution
Bestselling author and nationally renowned therapist Terrence Real unearths the causes of communication blocks between men and women in this groundbreaking work. Relationships are in trouble; the demand for intimacy today must be met with new skills, and Real -- drawing on his pioneering work on male depression -- gives both men and women those skills, empowering women and connecting men, radically reversing the attitudes and emotional stumbling blocks of the patriarchal culture in which we were raised. Filled with powerful stories of the couples Real treats, no other relationship book is as straight talking or compelling in its innovative approach to healing wounds and reconnecting partners with a new strength and understanding.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 Own Up! September 2, 2008
A.B. (Durango, CO)
That's what this book helps you to do...it's hard to seperate responsibility when emotions are running high. Sometimes it just helps to know that someone else has been where you are and lived to tell about it!
Relational Intimacy in an Era of Changing Roles August 31, 2007
J. Winokur (Denver, CO USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book. Real has thought through couple's issues in a smart way, refreshingly different than many who have preceded him.
In this book, Real faces head-on the reality that many women come into couples work with fierce anger, frustrated by trying to achieve true emotional intimacy with their man. His premise is that many women's responsibilities and aspirations have grown as part of the women's movement and their resulting, empowered roles, during decades when many men's roles and expectations have progressed less dramatically. As difficult as the tone of the anger and complaint, Real suggests the substance of women's frustrations is right-on, which will provide some much needed vindication for women readers.
This book is full of composite examples of couples-therapy sessions where the woman's attitude sounds in complaint and withering anger. The man in these examples sounds clueless, and deeply hurt by the woman's anger. Real's prototypical woman comes off like a nag, shaming while complaining. It is at this point where men typically recoil avoiding facing women's needs, and their own fears.
In Real's analysis, unconscious and almost always unacknowledged entitlement characterizes the man's side of the relationship problems. We were raised to quietly sit back in much that happens in the home, letting things take care of themselves. In reality, things don't really take care of themselves; women are taking care of them. Men's toughest work, it seems, is traditionally as breadwinner outside the home. Once home, perhaps enlightened some by the women's movement, we may do some chores and help some with the kids. But we may also quietly avoid the challenging work of true relational intimacy with our woman. The man often sees no problem, or at least no rational issue.
The man may think, "what's the problem: I am nice and thoughtful. I don't rage or abuse....." But the rub may be in his disengagement, and in his urgent avoidance of shame. Having studied male depression (I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression"), Real understands that men's issues are often driven by shame, where women's are often driven by fear.
Because women are most heavily tasked with maintaining relationship, and are very often dependent on the man for economic and child-rearing reasons, women's fears are usually first expressed circumspectly, on eggshells, rather than angrily. The fierce anger arises later -- after more delicate strategies have maddeningly failed. The anger feels like poison to the man.
Real's approach is much needed, and this book not only explains unflinchingly, but suggests ways out of the deadlock. There have been important contributions along the way - e.g., Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. And there are libraries full of hyped up, supposed love-life panaceas. This fellow has a smart, tough set of insights, with ideas for finding our way out of the wilderness of too many current relationships. Highly recommended, for both men and women, and for couples therapists.
Real has since published an excellent follow up book structured a bit more as a "how to" guide: The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work. This is also very highly recommended.
 Not convinced June 8, 2007
Brian Brandt (Lansdale, PA USA)
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Mr. Real asserts as an established fact that traumatizing events in childhood cause us to adopt patriarchal male and female roles in our adult lives and in our relationships. Even if this were true - and for the record I wasn't convinced - he has precious little in his book that a lay reader can take away and use. I found his writing style to be pedantic and touchy-feely at the same time (not an easy thing to pull off), and sprinkled with long stretches of incomprehensible gibberish. Why use one little word when ten big ones will do? The guy just wouldn't get to the point.
Professionals in this field may have a better appreciation for the style and content of this book, but I would not recommend it to those in need of counsel.
How Can I get through to you? May 12, 2007
Pamela M. Moyers (Portland)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book was written before the Marriage book Terry wrote. In some ways I got more information that I needed. If you are trying to improve any relationship this book is a must read. Terry Real is right on!
A must read for therapists as well as couples October 22, 2006
Russell W. Carrington (Leonardtown, Md. USA)
I read this book to get continuing eductaion credits for my social work license. It's completely changed how I look at the therapy process. It's also completely changed how I look at my marriage. It provides an effective, yet not impossibly complicated, roadmap through the dilemmas and no-win situations in which couples find themselves. It gave me insights into what I was doing wrong, and ideas of how I could quickly change.
Is this a male bashing book? I thought so at first. As much as I liked the book, I resented being stereotyped as a male with a certain commitment to accomplishment at the expense of vulnerability and feelings. I'm actually just the opposite, a product of 1960's encounter groups. Toward the end of the book, though, Real does acknowledge that every now and then there is a male who has the opposite problem. He's in touch with feelings, the nurturing side of life, but perhaps viewed as a loser in the world of accomplishments. And that fits me dead on!
The book's style isn't typical for a book about therapy. There's a great deal of self-revelation on Real's part, and also many passages that would pass as high-caliber fiction were they not obviously based on fact. Real is a skillful writer. And that makes him easier to read.
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