Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships

Quotes I loved from this book:

"When we believe that hormones run the show, we send kids the unconscious message that we don't really expect them to control their crotch while they have zits on their face. We give kids a double message: we'd like you to delay first intercourse, but we think it's impossible and you'll be giving up the best sex you'll ever have."

"Low sexual desire is almost always considered a problem. (I've found it often reflects good judgment: healthy people don't want sex when it's not worth wanting.)"

"Expecting your partner to sacrifice for you in the name of love KILLS marriage, sex, intimacy, and love."

"We often feel afraid to say things that might affect our marriage, and in our fear we withhold information. Then show more we look with disrespect upon our partner, who we assume couldn't handle what we fear to say! The best sex and intimacy in marriage often come out of mutual respect. Respect is a bond of the highest order."

I highly, highly recommend this book. It has been a paradigm changer for how I think about relationships and sex. I couldn't read more than a few pages at a time when I normally fly through books because it prompted so much thought and processing of what I read. This book cuts straight through the fluff and gets to the details of why and how to fix a relationship. I think that this might be the best book I have ever read about committed relationships and sexuality, and I have read a lot on this subject. show less

As a former pastor and current chaplain, I marry a lot of people, and I have been married for 27, almost 28 years. I have read tons of junk on marriage and family, and some things on sexuality. This is head and shoulders the best.

I refer to Schnarch more than any other figure in my work as a therapist with couples, and I have found his work personally enriching. His basic concept is to stand firm with what you want out of the relationship, being grounded enough in yourself that you are truly relate the other without being enmeshed, ie losing yourself in the other.

What I like about this book is that it is both theoretical and practical. It works. Not all the time, but more than most books. I would recommend it to people getting show more married, and they were usually blown away by it.

If you like the theory behind his ideas, I recommend going deeper with The Sexual Crucible, but it is more for professionals, and not the lay reader.

The Passionate Marriage, on the other hand, can be read, enjoyed and and put to use by any intelligent person who wants to work on their marriage. show less

This is the one self-help type book that I always recommend to people. Some reviewers have complained of the writing style, but I feel the content is what's important. I recommend this to both single people and couples, gay or straight, because it really discusses sex and intimacy issues important to everyone. I was surprised but glad for its candor and blunt language.

After reading some of this book I began evaluating various love songs and romantic comedies as "differentiated" or "undifferentiated." Guess which one's better? If you don't know, I guess you have to read the book!

An excellent book about differentiation, interdependence and trying to stay close but not co-dependent. They say marriage is a people-growing machine, and this gives some clues about how to do a people-growing marriage.

Far and away the best book on the subject that this former Marriage Guidance Counsellor has ever read. Very much a book for the mature reader in a mature relationship.

From the back cover: “One of the most daring and pioneering books ever written on human sexuality … David Schnarch’s uplifting message that the greatest sexual pleasure and emotional fulfillment in a person’s lifetime are possible in the middle and later years.” Differentiation, hugging til relaxed, and holding onto yourself are a few of the themes developed in this practical, readable book on relationships, laced with stories from Schnarch’s own practice.