Stable, happy love affairs, joyful sex, continuous passion, endless desire for the right and, if at all possible, the same partner – a beautiful daydream or everyday relationship reality?
Sooner or later, the passion many couples feel for each other cools or even disappears completely. And in spite of this, our ideals of marriage and togetherness remain as strong as ever. Psychologists, researchers and theologians unanimously place the blame for the break-up of relationships on the couple, making them feel like failures. With dubious cures concealed behind such terms as „working on the relationship“ or „developing sexuality“, they cause harm – whether intended or not. Provocative and critical, Michael Mary shows us how to uncover the five most important lies surrounding love and sex. He demonstrates persuasively that fading passion is not only a completely normal process, but that it is an entirely healthy part of long-lasting relationships.
Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to consciously control your life and love? Many psycho counsellors promise this. Michael Mary contradicts these theories and shows that love in general and couple relationships in particular cannot be consciously controlled. They are one of life’s ultimate adventures. It would be absurd to want to control them. The author views couple relationships as independent beings. In this way, curiosity and ambition arise to discover and explore relationships. Which makes much more sense than trying to control them. Because for all our longing for security and reliability, being able to control love would have fatal consequences. Life would suffocate in predictability and habit. And that would be the end of love … whose task it is to break up habits and free people from the boundaries of their ego.
Make yourself fit for value discussions.
In relation to this book, being fit to deal with the topic of values means taking up what is generally claimed about values, establishing what is believed about values, examining what values actually are, illustrating how they work in society and what they are good for, and showing how to deal with the topic sensibly in discussions about values.
However, the right answers to such central concerns cannot be found in any guidebooks or from wise people or those who claim to be wise. The answer to the meaning of life can only be found in one place: within oneself – in one’s life dreams.
But the matter is not quite that simple. Your life dreams do not point directly to the meaning your life, but rather in a hidden and indirect way. Their messages need to be decoded, so to speak. Otherwise, the path of life becomes an aberration.
This is a poor sap who knows what he is doing but doesn’t know what he is doing it for. Those who realise what exactly they are dreaming about when they dream of a specific life are immune to such foolishness. There are real goals behind the goals, and they need to be discovered.
Accusations are one of the most difficult topics in relationships, as they are based on the respective needs of the partners. If they are addressed, they draw attention to the partner’s mental and emotional state. As soon as this is recognised, reproaches arise. This book provides an overview of the dynamics of reproaches and uses an exercise to show how partners can create a good starting point for dealing with their needs.
How can you change your partner’s behaviour? There is no point in working on your man. There is only one way to change your partner’s behaviour: by changing your reaction to him. After all, a couple’s relationship is the story of how two partners react to each other. In other words, both partners are always involved. The starting point for improving the relationship comes from your own involvement in the course of events.
Religions – in contrast to religiosity – have a violent core. As soon as believers join together to form faith communities, the aim is to eliminate doubt.
For believers, religions offer identity, belonging, hope, comfort, confidence, the prospect of life after death and reliable answers to unanswerable questions.
But for non-believers or people of other faiths or „unbelievers“, all religions pose potential dangers. Because cowards can’t stand not knowing and not being able to know.
How do couples manage to stay together happily for ten, twenty or more years? The secret is quickly revealed, but not so easily practised: Long-term couples adjust to their relationship and don’t expect it to be based on their individual wishes. In „Live the love you have“, Michael Mary shows how couples can discover the possibilities of their relationship and motivates them to learn to appreciate what they have together.