About It Takes One to Tango
- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Touchstone (April 4, 2017)
If it takes two people to fix things, what happens when one partner is deeply discouraged, or has one foot out the door? Or when one partner is desperately longing for a more vibrant and loving relationship and the other digs in his heels or think things are fine as they are? Does that mean the more optimistic partner should just call it quits?
Conventional wisdom says yes. Marriage and family therapist, Winifred Reilly, disagrees.
In IT TAKES ONE TO TANGO: How I Rescued My Marriage With (Almost) No Help From My Spouse—and How You Can, Too (Touchstone Hardcover; April 4, 2017; 978-1-5011-2582-9), Reilly assures unhappy partners that one partner, acting alone, can create far-reaching positive change, often accomplishing change in a marriage that cannot be made any other way.
Unlike most self-help books about marriage, IT TAKES ONE TO TANGO uses the author’s personal story about trying to keep her own once troubled marriage from coming apart. Like most couples she works with, she wanted a happier marriage, not a divorce. And waiting for her change-averse husband to leap up and joyfully embrace her grand plans for remodeling her marriage wasn’t working out any better for her than it was for her clients. So she decided to rescue her marriage by herself, even though, at the outset, she had no idea whatsoever what that would take.
This witty, optimistic, and inspiring guide combines psychological theory, practical advice, and personal narrative to empower readers to take a proactive, independent approach to fixing their marriage.
Purchase Links
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About Winifred Reilly
Winifred M. Reilly is a marriage and family therapist, with a private practice in Berkeley, CA. She has been committed to helping couples and individuals build strong, loving relationships for more than 35 years. Winifred is the author of the relationship advice blog Speaking of Marriage, and her work has appeared in The Good Men Project, xoJane, and The Huffington Post.
Connect with Winifred
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My Thoughts:
I am not a big fan of self help books, actually saying I'm not a fan is putting it mildly. I don't like self help books, I find them quite boring and dry material, and I've never been able to get through a whole single book.
When I agreed to review It Takes One to Tango, I knew that I was pushing the boundaries within myself, but the subject at hand is near and dear to my heart and I realized that I needed to read this book, to help me, to help my husband, to help us as a couple.
Boy am I glad I did.
I will start by saying that it's not like the usual self help books. It is told from the author's perspective and personal experience within her very own marriage, and I think that made the difference in the world.
My husband and I have been married for almost 19 years, it will be 19 years in August. We've been together for 20 years. We have a good marriage, but we also have struggles and days were we just want to smack each other upside the head. Marriage is HARD, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you all that.
This book puts things into perspective, it takes a deeper look into what it takes to make the marriage work, especially when one partner is not too into it, or too busy, or doesn't like change, or thinks it's not going to work.
It teaches you that it takes but ONE person to make some of the most important and bigger changes that can kick start your marriage back to a peaceful and happy place. I'm always willing to do the best I can to ensure that we continue to have a good marriage.
Great book, I actually enjoyed it even though it is a self help book. :)
4 comments:
Well congratulations on your up coming anniversary......ours is aug 6th 18 years, been together 19..... when is yours? This is our both second time around, his first wife passed away, I divorced......we brought two families together two teenager boys and two teenage girls.....we had our struggles, but we stuck together....they are all grown, married, children of their own....our marriage is great.......wonderful to see you liked a self help book, I am not a fan either.......
Blessings
Rhonda
Aww thank you Rhonda. Ours is August 12th. Congratulations to you and your husband too on your 18 years :)
Yeah self help are definitely not my style at all, but this was quite good and I enjoyed :)
Marriage..something I never did and at the ripe old age of 57, probably won't. It's not that I didn't want to but the "right" person never came along. In addition, I didn't see a really good marriage modeled for me by any of the adults in my life. My mother was married 6 times to 4 different men, my father was married 3 times to 2 different women. And I didn't see much 'love' 'respect' etc in the marriages that I was a around for. I saw a lot of fighting, sniping, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and some physical abuse. I don't know if I would have been a good wife but my gut feeling is that I wouldn't have been just because I never saw that behavior modeled by my mother or my stepmother.
Thanks for the nice review. My goal was to do just what you described: to write a self-help book that's more of a memoir or a story for people who aren't big self-help readers and still want some practical ideas for making marriage work.
And yes, marriage is hard. Fortunately, it isn't impossible!
Winifred
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