Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships

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.

"Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships" by Dr. David Schnarch is a groundbreaking and insightful book that offers profound wisdom for couples seeking to strengthen and revitalize their relationship. Having read this book, I can confidently say it is one of the most impactful resources available for understanding and nurturing intimacy in a long-term partnership. Comprehensive and Practical Dr. Schnarch's approach is both comprehensive and practical, blending psychological theory with real-life examples and practical exercises. The book delves deeply into the dynamics of committed relationships, exploring the interplay between emotional connection and sexual intimacy. Each chapter is filled with actionable insights that couples can apply to their own relationships, making it an invaluable guide for both new and seasoned couples. Insightful and Transformative One of the standout features of this book is its emphasis on differentiation - the ability to maintain your sense of self while remaining emotionally connected to your partner. This concept was a game-changer for me, as it helped me understand how personal growth and self-awareness are crucial for a healthy and passionate marriage. Dr. Schnarch provides numerous examples and case studies that illustrate how differentiation can transform relationships, leading to deeper intimacy and a more fulfilling connection. Realistic and Honest Dr. Schnarch's writing is refreshingly honest and realistic. He doesn't shy away from addressing the challenges and difficulties that couples face, and his candid approach helps readers feel understood and validated. The book encourages couples to confront and work through their issues, rather than avoiding them, fostering a sense of resilience and mutual respect. His emphasis on mutual growth and the importance of facing discomfort for the sake of deeper connection is both inspiring and empowering. Engaging and Accessible The writing style is engaging and accessible, making complex psychological concepts easy to understand. Dr. Schnarch's expertise and experience are evident throughout the book, and his compassionate tone makes it feel like you're receiving guidance from a trusted friend. The book is well-organized, with clear headings and summaries that make it easy to follow and revisit key points. Highly Recommended "Passionate Marriage" is a must-read for any couple looking to deepen their love and intimacy. Whether you're newlyweds or have been together for decades, this book offers valuable insights and practical tools to enhance your relationship. Dr. Schnarch's wisdom and guidance can help couples navigate the complexities of intimacy, leading to a more passionate and fulfilling marriage. I highly recommend this book to anyone committed to nurturing a loving and enduring relationship.

This book was recommended to us by another couple who have what looks like the most amazing, accepting, and supportive marriage we've seen -- and they are both dramatic, high maintenance people you might think difficult in daily life. We found Schnarch's positive approach refreshing and useful -- he teaches you to view marriage as a growing process, rather than a fairy-tale. Then, you will expect conflicts with your spouse and know how to harness them to actually bring you together -- instead of being freaked out and feeling like your relationship is in trouble and failing. Your spouse becomes the partner who helps you grow into your best potential -- but you each do the growing on your own, so your partner isn't an emotional crutch. It may sound wrong to say you have to stand apart on your own to get closer, but Schnarch's book really shows you why this is so -- and we are definitely feeling a renewed intimacy applying his techniques and attitude. The book also helped us understand how any relationship can be very committed and loving, and still have a lot of conflict -- and not be on the rocks. Being angry and even hating my spouse at times of stress doesn't mean our relationship sucks -- now I see that it's a sign that we're at the edges of our personal growth. And THAT'S exactly the time where we can break through to even MORE love, MORE intimacy as a couple, while becoming more adult individually -- it's an incredible process. If you're happy with your relationship -- this will help you deepen it. If you are struggling with your relationship, this can totally transform it -- and the best thing is, it only takes one person to shake up the dynamic. You can work just on yourself, and the relationship HAS to change if you change. The main drawback to the book is that it is really dense -- I am an avid reader, and it took me some time get through it. My spouse is NOT a reader -- and he gave up after a few pages. If you don't mind very cerebral academic writing, there's a lot to get out of this. If you are NOT a reader, I suggest you buy the CD set of his seminars first, _Secrets of a Passionate Marriage_. That has a condensed version of the ideas, and is easier to follow, with plenty of wisdom to bring to your relationship. When you're ready for more, follow it up with the book.

This book represents a milestone in both the fields of marital therapy and sex therapy. While it is not known or generally realized by most people, sex therapy and marital therapy have developed as separate disciplines with a totally different set of theoretical concepts and methods. In this book, which is based on Schnarch's first book, "The Sexual Crucible", Schnarch dares to suggest that in fact, one's sex life might actually improve if one's marital life improves. And, further, he notes that this improvement in both the marital life and the sex life is not dependent on either one, but is in fact, a function of the "self-differentiation" of the individual person himself. This does not belie the present day concepts of both marital therapy and sex therapy totally, but it does mostly. Schnarch beautifully demonstrates to the reader, in a "lingo" that is very vernacular in nature, suitable for any enlightened reader to grasp his meaning, how the search for personal self-definition and identity, in fact allows one to relate in a deeper and more meaningful way to the one to whom you have made a lifetime commitment. In fact, most of the concepts in Schnarch's book may be able to be generalized to most any relationship. That is to say, that people who are more self-assured, self-developed, and/or "self-differentiated", to use Schnarch's term, can communicate in more effective and meaningful manners. If one sees sexual intimacy as a manner of intimate communication, more than just a process of procreation, then it only follows logically that a more "self-differentiated" person, or better yet, two of them together, can communicate in a manner not heretofore experienced in the sexual forum. Schnarch takes this to its conceptual limits by outright stating that two people who are deeply committed to one another can reach a state, almost bordering Nirvana, if not there itself, through sexuality. In a sense, I felt the book represented a reading of D.H. Lawrence for the unititiated, in that Lawrence preached and wrote about physical, spiritual, emotional and intellectual renewal through sexual intimacy. In his book, Dr. Schnarch takes "Lady Chatterley's Lover" from the ephemeral to the mundane, and then back again. While a true reading of this book can create a window upon oneself that is not always pretty, the point of Schnarch's concept is to promote growth. Any person who has experienced intense personal growth realizes that it comes with a price, and the price is often highly emotional. I would highly recommend the book to anyone looking to find a more meaningful balance to their lives, particularly people who believe they have a good marriage, as this book will only serve to enhance that feeling and bring that communication to new pinnacles of intimacy.

I don't think I can say enough wonderful things about this book. Not only has it changed our marriage, but it has had a major impact on how I deal with people in general (including family members, in-laws, colleagues, and friends). I would recommend it to anyone who is in a relationship or not. While a great portion of the book deals with sex, the deeper, more impactful message of the book has to do with how we relate to and use others in an unhealthy way vs how we can relate to others and hold onto ourselves to create healthy, meaningful relationships. After having been through marital therapy and sex therapy, neither of which helped, I wasn't sure that there was anything out there that would genuinely "fix" our marital relationship, but this book did! Schnarch explains the reason relationships become so difficult: we're too "emotionally fused" with our partners, and no longer independent people speaking our own truths and validating ourselves. According to Schnarch, in order to improve your relationship (and eventually achieve "wall socket sex"), you must differentiate and self-soothe, without relying on your partner to do that for you. Schnarch also explains why traditional marital and sex therapies fail: 1) they're thought of as separate disciplines, when in actuality they are very much related, 2) marital therapies focus "other-validation" (creating a safe space for your partner to share and then validating what your partner shares) rather than "self-validation", 3) sex therapies rely on "sensate focus" and tuning into yourself, rather than looking at and touching your partner with feeling. If you are questioning whether or not to purchase this book, I would say it is the single best "self-help" book I've encountered. You can't afford not to get this book, especially if you have recurring problems in your intimate relationships.

This book has truisms, omissions, assumptions with its genius. Example: "People want different things" and "the person who wants it less is in control" sounds more like a sitcom plot than a marriage guide. Too often this book becomes verbose and philosophical, where it instead should give more examples of key concepts: differentiation, emotional fusion, withholding, etc. However, it is groundbreaking to demonstrate that marital and sexual conflict can lead to personal growth and better sex. What's sad is that point could have been made in about half as many pages, and that space filled with chapters addressing other important marriage issues. What Scnarch leaves out is: the effect of conflict on your children (who are seldom mentioned), the prevalence of illness and disability in long term relationships (physical and mental), and the financial motivations of marriage and divorce. He promotes a vision of a marriage as a 'people growing machine' (in which sex is a barometer) when in legal terms marriage is a financial contract in which sexuality has little relevance. In other words, this book is more heavily weighted towards sex than marriage itself. Ideally a marriage therapy book should touch all relevant aspects: communication, sex, children and money. This book is worthwhile but by no means a complete picture of marital therapy.

Though this book is often found in the secular self-help section of your bookstore, it offers much more than "ten easy steps" to change your life. Though he seems negative towardss Christianity, Dr. Schnarch has observed God's laws of personal growth and articulates them in a deeper and more profound way than I have ever seen. Dr. Schnarch teaches a concept called "unilateral" movement. Unilateral movement is what one who lives out his or her integrity does. When one person acts out of his or her integrity by a unilateral expression of love, it affects the whole family system (marriage, small group...). This ability to act in love is based on personal holiness, what Dr. Schnarch calls: "differentiation." You know you are differentiated if you can be very emotionally and physically close to someone and still be separate (in contrast to being enmeshed). Integrating this through a biblical lens, I believe that we can safely conclude that a person who remains separate (emotionally) in close proximity to spouse or significant other is on the path to what I believe is personal holiness. Being set apart onto God doesn't mean we are far away from people. It means we love people without expecting anything in return. We love them unilaterally, not because of reciprocity (i.e. expecting an affirming response). We do not have to "hold out" on someone to make sure our needs for love, acceptance or affirmation our met, because we have Christ in us, the hope of glory. God has declared us righteous through Christ. We can define ourselves by God's rendering. Yet, as we walk in the Spirit, Christ is in us trying to manifest His glory, His righteousness. Sanctification is the process whereby we become more and more like Jesus Christ. This miraculous transformation is made by the power of the Spirit in us as we unilaterally unconditionally love God and others (Gal. 6:2; Romans 5:4-5). This book has helped me to better articulate an understanding of the importance of personal holiness and how it relates to marriage and other primary relationships. It has also given me new meaning to the pain we experience in our most significant relationships. The better people understand that God uses their suffering, especially in marriage, the more encouraged they become and the more likely they will let God use it to help us mature in Christ.

While I agree that this book is poorly written and messy, I throughly enjoyed reading this book (I've read it a couple of times). I think Dr. Schnarch's ideas are a bit complicated and the book is so messy, so many people (who like and dislike the book) have difficulty in putting the ideas in the book together. Here, I will summarize the main points of Dr. Schnarch's approach, and please feel free to comment me, so we can put all our ideas together. 1. As time passes within a relationship, two major problems occur: these are lack of emotion (relationship becoming too monotonous, void between partners), and too much conflict. 2. This problem arises because of a few reasons: first, deep emotional connection is anxiety provoking (the loved one may cheat, die, leave, etc) and as, in time, as people get closer, this anxiety grows. So, although we claim to seek intimacy, we also try to push our partner away, to reduce anxiety. Another problem is, we all have conflicts about how we see ourselves and how our loved ones see us. We want to be seen by them in a certain way (we have a distorted self-image) and when they don't, we don't feel "loved", we get mad, or sad. On one hand, we want to be accepted as who we are (unconditional love), yet mostly we are afraid that self-disclosure can get us rejected, hurt, etc. We dont take the risk of self-disclosure, so we dont have the possibility of feeling accepted. 3. We choose people with similar personal growth level to us in our relationships (and in our family, people already have similar growth levels), and sooner or later, we hit "the gridlock", which means a seemingly unsolvable conflict with deep emotional overtones. 4. The solution to this gridlock and the root of providing further intimacy is, to stop fighting our partner and confronting ourselves. However, this is hard because, it involves our very emotional hot-spots. It means going against your own weaknesses. The task is to discover who you are, and "getting yourself together". 5. Another problem with self-confrontation is that the society's values and opinions about love and relationships directly discourage self-confrontations and encourage conflict with your partnet. Yet, it is not possible that someone else accepts you for who you are, if you conflict with yourself abour who you are. We have unrealistic expectations of ourselves and relationships, mostly because things seem easier that ways (but in reality, it is much harder). 6. Sexuality is only an extention of a couple's emotional intimacy, not a biological function. Thus, self-confrontation and building true intimacy is good for a couple's passion and excitement (in and out of bed). EDIT: Here is a video by Dr. Schnarch, where you really get an idea of what this book is about. I strongly suggest that you see this if you are considering buying this book: [...].

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.

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.

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.