Introduction 1
1. Dominant Culture's Scripts Are Still Shaping Our Relationships
Feeling Bad While Things Are Bad 16
Breaking Ties with Tired Cultural Scripts 19
Central Lies of the Romance Myth 25
How Does the Romance Myth Mess Up Our Relationships? 28
The Truth About Love 31
Marriage Isn't Love or Liberation 33
Scarcity Mentality 37
Disposability Culture 41
"What Else Is True?": Getting Perspective When We're Grabbed by Cultural Scripts and Autopilot Reactions 47
Why Bother Doing Emotional Work? What Will This Get Me? 53
Can People Really Change? 57
You Are What You Practice 66
2. Stuck on Autopilot: Swinging between Numbness and Temporary Highs
Numbing to Get By in a Painful World 80
Mostly Numb, but Chasing Fantasies 83
Building Awareness of Nuance and Subtlety 86
Tools for Building Emotional Awareness 90
Costs of a Limited Emotional Range 92
Numbness and Emotional Labor 93
Numbness and Respectability Politics 94
Numbness and Microaggressions 96
Accountability: Not Minimizing, Not Punishing 100
Chasing Cultural Fantasies about Sex and Romance 104
Getting High 109
Where All This Chasing Leads 115
Waking Up to Reality, or "Being Present" 125
3. Falling in Love and Losing Your Mind: The Romance Cycle
Childhood Shaping 132
Falling in Love 138
Denying Parts of Ourselves and Performing False Selves 143
Leaving the Honeymoon Phase 147
Entering the Conflict Phase 152
Urgent Demands, Agitated Emotions, and Accusations in the Conflict Phase 154
The Romance Cycle Shows Up in Nonromantic Relationships, Too 159
Navigating the Conflict Phase 161
Breaking Up 169
Should We Break Up? 172
When We Do Break Up 174
4. Encountering Fear, and the Courage to Say Yes and No
Fears of Abandonment and Engulfment 186
Staying Connected, Even When We're Afraid 192
Attachment Styles, Core Fears, and Conflict 195
Boundaries 202
Boundary-Making Can Be a Way to Re-Parent Ourselves 205
Fear, Distorted Motivations, and Loss of Boundaries in Romance 207
Real Talk About Relationships 209
Yes? No? Maybe? 214
Respecting Others' Yes, No, and Maybe 219
5. What Are We Fighting About?: Communication and Repair
We All Have Sore Spots 227
When Your Sore Spot Gets Rubbed 235
Listening 238
Apologizing 243
Forgiveness 246
Maintaining Connection 252
Acknowledging When It Works 256
Attachment to Others and Feeling Ourselves 260
6. Revolutionary Promiscuity-Getting Free Together
Allowing, Accepting, or Even Liking Our Differences 272
Generating Our Own Safety and Security 279
Not All Relationships Are for Everything-Being Here for What's Here 288
Being Intentional About Levels of Connection 294
Jealousy 302
What We Can Ask of Others When We Are Jealous 311
Accepting Change 316
Conclusion 321
Acknowledgments 327
Notes 331