Make me believe it, even if it's just for one night... Micah Geller considers himself lucky: At 27, he has more money than he needs, a job he loves, a debut book coming out, and a brilliant career in information security before him. What he doesn't have is a partner to share it with-a fact that's never bothered him much. But the romantic in him isn't entirely dead. When a moment of weakness finds him with a contact to a high class escort specializing in fulfilling fantasies, Micah asks for only one thing. Show me what it's like to feel loved.
The most ambitious work of fiction by a writer widely considered the most important novelist working in China today In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flowerbeds and false reports fly. Conspiracies abound in a community that normalizes paranoia and suspicion. Some try to flee—whether to a mysterious gambling bordello or to ancestral homes that can only be reached underground through muddy caves, sewers, and tunnels. Others seek out the refuge of Nest County, where traditional Chinese herbal medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self. Each life is circumscribed by buried secrets and transcendent delusions. Can Xue's masterful love stories for the new millennium trace love's many guises—satirical, tragic, transient, lasting, nebulous, and fulfilling—against a kaleidoscopic backdrop drawn from East and West of commerce and industry, fraud and exploitation, sex and romance.
Do your relationships tend to follow the same destructive pattern? Do you feel trapped by your family's expectations of you? Does your life seem overwhelmingly governed by jealousy or competitiveness or lack of confidence? In this ground-breaking book, clinical psychologist Oliver James shows that it is the way we were cared for in the first six years of life that has a crucial effect on who we are and how we behave. Nurture, in effect, shapes our very nature. James combines the latest scientific research with fascinating interviews to show that understanding your past is the first step to controlling your present.
"We live in the same house, we're raising the same kids, we're spending the same money -- but we're just not connected. We don't even know each other anymore. I feel so alone." Does this sound familiar? For many people, marriage is not the intimate fulfilling relationship they had assumed it would be. Therapist and radio host Randy Carlson compares a good marriage to a vast banquet table loaded with scrumptious food. But when you don't connect as a couple, the table is bare -- you become starved for affection. If you long for a more satisfying relationship with your spouse, there is hope. Your marriage can again have renewed tenderness, intimate closeness, and intense passion. In Starved for Affection, you'll find practical help and encouragement to strengthen your connection with your mate in all aspects of your relationship. And in doing so, you'll again find the table spread with a banquet of blessings that God has prepared just for you. - Back cover.
Practical, accessible, and easy to use, this resource shows readers how to create a more vibrant and intimate relationship by identifying and maximizing the combination of the husband and wife's two unique time styles.
Love is a little word with a universe of meanings and has engaged people’s interest throughout human history. The need to give and receive love lies deep within human nature. Philosophers, poets, theologians, sociologists, and scientists have all attempted to explain its exact origin, but is it an evolutionary adaptation, or a social construct? Walsh discusses that the nature of and need for love has biological origins. He draws upon Darwin’s sexual selection theory to define the perceptions of love by infants through the process of experience-dependent brain wiring. He observes that mother love makes a child capable of loving and that father love makes a child feel worthy of love. He appraises the origin and purpose of romantic love in his discussions on sexual reproduction by looking at chemical and neurological responses to love and the influence of love on one’s physical and mental health. With frequent quotes from literary masters like Shakespeare to orient one’s scientific and humanistic understanding of love, Walsh goes on to explore various styles of romantic love, including monogamy, promiscuity, bartering love, and betrayed love; the effects of a skewed sex ratio on dating and mating practices; and the age-old quest for a perfect society populated by perfect people obeying the biblical command to “love one another.”
Recovering Love is the first self-help guide to focus on ways for couples to work together to defeat codependent behaviors without ending their relationships. Dr. Cookerly describes the differences between authentic “mate love” and codependency and how codependency inhibits intimacy, sexual fulfillment, and the growth of healthy love. Readers will discover how to defeat the special problems of codependency through loving teamwork. Recovering Love explores techniques couples can use to escape the destructive victim-rescuer-persecutor triangle with self-love and teamlove. Case examples show how couples are using Dr. Cookerly’s CoRecovery love knowledge to put an end to codependency factors that prevent them from succeeding at love. Included are eight major ways people demonstrate love, and their benefits to health, self-esteem, and relationships. Couples will discover how to avoid codependency by learning the skills of real emotional intimacy. For parents, Dr. Cookerly provides specific techniques for breaking the generational chain setting children free to lead non-codependent loving lives. Recovering Love gives new hope to codependent couples everywhere, and serves as an authoritative source of innovative ideas and strategies for the professionals who treat them.
