What is Reddit's opinion of How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I haven’t read this book, but my own mother asked if I knew how to improve a marriage without having to talk about it. And I searched on Amazon and this exists:

How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It

Sorry little intense😅 there is a book that talks about this dynamic yes!

This has been one of the best lessons I have learned in my Life!

Sorry it’s an Amazon link not trying to get you to buy anything but here is the book 📚 The book

You guys are shaming each other. It’s crazy, because usually women have a tone in their voice when they are distressed that sounds like nagging. Males pick up on it and get shamed by the females voice and usually barks back in a defensive tone. It’s a cycle where all you do os piss each off and never get anywhere. My wife and I had this problem. We listened to this audio book:

https://www.amazon.com/Improve-Marriage-Without-Talking-About/dp/0767923189/ref=nodl_

I am able to understand my wife when she snaps and she’s able to understand me. When we have had a problem, we talk. I will say, this is what bothers me and why. She listens, apologizes, and we move on. When I snap, I apologize and explain where I’m coming from. We don’t drink alcohol because alcohol causes people to lose control. We smoke weed and talk. You guys need to get to know each other again, because you’ve both have changed in marriage. Also, workout for yourselves because it’s stress relieving and makes sex better.

Men deal with shame as a primary fear. For women it is abandonment and deprivation. Your acceptance of him in his struggle is rare. Reaching out to his mom is golden. Good for you for not being jealous. Keep up also the non verbal physical connection. Here is a good book that helped us in this journey. It takes a lot of help beyond our abilities to keep marriages intact.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923189/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_t1_hag2FbCN9PAHM

LOLLL I just laughed out loud about the breath thing.

I’m super sorry about the affair. That’s terrible. Your very strong to want to work through it. I really hope things turn around for you. Thank you for the suggestion on the book. I also have a suggestion on one we recently read which gave us both a lot of insight and I did notice a change in behaviour after reading it. Here’s the link for amazon. It was really insightful and helpful. Every night we would read a few pages together and they had some quizzes in there as well that you can take and discuss.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0767923189/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_guzdCbWPB8KVP_nodl

I really appreciate your honesty and advice!

You're a college aged woman who has opinions formed in the absence of knowledge when it comes to how men work, especially when it comes to sex. I highly recommend you pick up Steven Stosny's brilliant book which will transform your ability to communicate with men.

http://www.amazon.ca/Improve-Marriage-Without-Talking-About/dp/0767923189

Here's a relevant quote:

"Talking about the relationship, which is guaranteed to remind him of his inadecquacy, is the last method he would use for comfort, in the same category as choosing a bed of nails for a good night's sleep. This is why he often goes to a fight or flight response to ease his distress and not to a heart-to-heart talk with the woman in his life."

When /r/sex gives advice to talk it is usually a woman poster, or a feminized man giving the advice, and when OP is a woman struggling through something with a man, it is often lousy advice to insist on more talking.

Hey OP, things are moving so fast right now it may be difficult to catch your breath & change course. But, here's a couple of thoughts.

When it seems an argument is starting, grab a notebook & pen, and start taking notes. Slow it down and identify the problem, and solutions.

Do some reading, I suggest John Gottman. Also, try looking for Stosny & Love's book, 'How to improve your marriage without talking about it.'

https://www.amazon.com/Improve-Marriage-Without-Talking-About/dp/0767923189

The whole time involving pregnancy, birth, & child rearing is stressful & demanding in a way people just can't understand before going through it. Many guys just can't cope, there is a lot of bad behavior that happens during this time. Women go through untold stress, fear, physical & emotional demands. There's weird stuff; for my first wife one month all she could keep down was Gatorade, the next month lobster. It's all a little crazy.

The best things to work for are patience, tolerance, and focus on what's important.

Good luck and, hopefully, congratulations!

hmmm. Maybe try reading this book https://www.amazon.com/Improve-Marriage-Without-Talking-About/dp/0767923189

I'm also hosting a zoom call to answer questions live for people in my community tomorrow 12/9 from 1-2:30 Pm if you're interested. The link to sign up is on my website. www.howtofixmysexlife.com

Both of you should read this.

I can relate to some of what you describe here. I have a hard time processing emotions that are more complicated than happy/angry. Things like sad, anxious, afraid are really easy to just express as anger or irritability, because there's usually a cause or target for you to focus on, rather than having to deal with your internal space, where there are no easy solutions.

Finding out who you really are is a difficult process that involves asking a lot of questions. Like "what do I consider important?" Then following that question up with a series of "Why?" until you've dug down deep enough that you can't ask again.

For instance, you might consider working out important. Why? Because you value physical fitness. Why? Because it's part of being healthy and capable? Why do you value health (or capability; the question may branch at this point)? Because I want to live without being tired or sick all the time, or dying early. Why do you want to live a long time? Because I want to experience all life has to offer. Like what? Like watching my kids grow up and have successful lives of their own. Why? Because I love my kids. Why? Because... they're my kids?

If your questioning follows this line, then you know one of the roots of your love of working out is that you love your kids. Likely it has other roots as well, and following those lines of thought will give you a better idea of who you are and what you value.

Once you know what you value, you can start evaluating your choices in light of those values, and evaluating alternate choices based on how they relate to your values.

Another thing is that it's hard to live a lot of this stuff out loud. Don't ever try to change who you are like a set of clothes. Work on yourself privately, and you'll see the outward behaviors changing as a result; Trying to change the behaviors first will rarely work; Only focus on curbing behaviors that are actively harmful (violence, slurs, etc.); Working from root causes will cause the rest of the behaviors to change naturally over time.

A book I found to be very insightful (though I found it after it was too late for my first marriage) is "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It". It focuses on men, since we're (stereo)typically the ones who avoid talking about our problems or feelings, but the behaviors are pretty generally helpful. The basic idea is what I talked about above; Working on yourself to change the outward expression of yourself by focusing on the positive aspects of your true self, and through improving your expression of self, improving your relationship by extension.

I made this login to reply. I usually only lurk because this is not a space for me.

I've been married for almost 20 years to an amazing guy. He is the smartest person I know, top of his field, physically strong. He would take you limb from limb if you tried to hurt me or one of our kids - but he would just laugh if I tried to make him sleep on the couch. He is also softer-hearted than I am. After all this time he is the only man I've desired since the day I met him, and I love him more now than when we married. When I see the internet talk about alpha/beta, red/blue-pill, I wonder where are the guys who won't take shit off anybody, but are still big-hearted?

I got interested in what men were really thinking about things after one of my friends got divorced. She was the breadwinner, and her husband quit working, got fat, didn't do anything around the house or with the kids, basically played X-box all day, and was kind of a needy, whiny twerpy guy. I was totally disgusted by his behavior, and also by how he went after her in the divorce - she gave him primary custody because he had spent the most time with the kids, was paying tremendous child support to him - and he still managed to take tens of thousands of dollars that wasn't supposed to be his.

What bothered me the most about this situation was realizing how much I had become like him as my kids went to school and I didn't have a lot to do all day, and we were living in a place where I couldn't work (visa status). How he was simply doing all the things women encourage each other to do in a divorce. I realized, why is this okay for women to do and not for men? Why was I so disgusted by what he was doing if I would applaud it in a female friend? Why was he so gross when we could reverse genders and it would look unnervingly like me? My thinking on all of this changed - and it was a huge wakeup call for me personally. I started thinking about how wrecked my father, my grandfather, and my FIL were by women, totally destroyed.

My own marriage had hit a low spot at this time, too. In the end, even though I thought I was being a great wife - I was faithful, and careful with spending, never said no to sex, kept the house clean, kept him totally supported & ready to go to work every day... he was still very unhappy, and I was unhappy because I felt I couldn't please him. He lost interest in me physically, and I got so depressed about this that I gained a lot of weight - which only made him less interested, of course.

What I wasn't doing was being strong enough emotionally and confident enough in myself to let him be himself. I wouldn't argue about anything he wanted to buy or hobbies he wanted to do, or ways he wanted to spend his time, I didn't try to control him in any way... but I was emotionally needy and kept him kind of drained. There wasn't room in our relationship for him to have a bad day and need emotional support because I took up all of that. I put my every emotion out there, begging for him to understand me and for us to somehow feel connected, and it never happened. He just pulled farther and farther away. Meanwhile I was pretty confused about how I could think I was doing everything right and he didn't appreciate or respect any of it. I was turning myself inside out to please him - but when you talk about how selfish women are? I was being selfish in the worst way, emotionally, without knowing what I was doing.

When I read here, I don't think, "aw you haven't met the right woman yet" because it took me 20 years to learn what I wasn't taught growing up, and I'm still learning. Now I'm trying to teach my daughter. I don't know many women who aren't kind of awful in some way. I look through our families and we have no good examples of women, really. Reading here gives me insight into what men are really going through - you're kind of the worst case scenario, so disgusted that you've walked away from women totally, so you're pretty honest about exactly why, not pulling any punches. You don't try to soften the blow because you don't care what we think - and there's a lot of value in that for women, if they can listen and not speak.

I've had a theory for a long time that men are the stronger gender physically, and women are the stronger gender emotionally. As in, a man could kill a woman with his hands... but a woman can break a man emotionally in no time at all. There is a lot of focus on men not hurting women physically, but women are not taught that this emotional strength means you can't wield it as a weapon. You have to use what you're capable of and be in charge of these emotions you're so good at identifying and understanding. The age of "venting" is completely destructive. The fact that I am emotionally stronger than my spouse means this is my primary job: to keep my shit together so that I can support everyone else emotionally. It means I can't take it personally when my husband snaps at me because he's had a long day (I have to step back and say, "do you need some time to yourself, or do you need me to put down what I'm doing and give you some attention right now?"). I have to realize that when he's had a horrible day and needs me to be there, he isn't going to tell me what happened - he needs me to rub his back and NOT make him talk about it and NOT make emotional demands on him. If he needs to be left alone, it means I need to leave him alone and not take it personally or be unhappy about it - if I just go make myself happy somewhere else, he will cheer up faster. It means when I am moody, I have to go for a run instead of trying to make my husband deal with it. In particular I have to set this example for my daughter and correct her when she misuses her "power". I can't fix the world, but I can work on myself and I can try to teach her a better way.

The hardest part of all is that when he has a complaint about me or my behavior, I have to take it, and just listen, and usually apologize, and not try to justify or turn it around or make it about his failings instead. And this might be the worst thing of all: that we women do this constantly to men, maybe daily. But when it is reversed we cannot deal with it at all. We can't self-analyze or take the criticism, at all. I'm trying to learn how. This is one thing I mean by women being emotionally stronger: I can take any conversation and flip it around on him. I have to make myself NOT do this. It is shameful how hard it is. It shames me that for nearly 2 decades he did not feel he could say these things to me at all, but I freely criticized him all the time.

FWIW, I think women were taught this by example at some points in history - but aren't now.

It's kind of shocking that my house isn't as well kept now (I'm retraining so that I can get a higher-paying job and contribute more financially, now that our kids are older), I'm not as beautiful as I was ten years ago, but my husband loves me more now than he ever has, and desires me more than ever (we have more sex now than when we were newlyweds!) simply because I'm learning how to use my emotional strength in the proper way. When I read MGTOW, the only thing I find sad is how we women are driving men to such an extreme by being so emotionally abusive. I don't think most women know how awful they're being - they haven't been taught what it means to be emotionally mature.

It also serves as a reminder to me, when I read here, to keep striving to be better, to not fall into old patterns. A great book that was recommended to me by a man and helped me to see what women can do to men (and how to be better) was this one.