Thank you very much to flowmom, who recommended this book to me.

The authors maintain that the key to a better relationship is not communication skills, but connection between the partners. Connection is lost when the woman feels fear and the man feels shame.

Some ways in which women invoke shame in their men:


Men create fear in women by leaving them alone emotionally.

Generally whenever a woman feels fear, her partner is feeling shame, and vice versa. When you begin to feel those feelings, step outside yourself and try to see things from your partner's perspective. When your partner is embroiled in negative emotions, "step into the puddle" with them to help them out of it. This increases your connection.

In your communication, you must also think about motivation - not goals. All communication has one of three motivations - approach, attack, or avoid.

I highly recommend this book and I wish it had been one of the very first that I read. I agreed with the author's descriptions of what women felt and how to soothe those fears, and the descriptions of the male perspective seemed to fit my STBXH very well. If you are a women with a WAH/WH who had strong shame tendencies anyway, read this early in your journey.

Thank you, I fixed that mistake.

I found an excellent summary of Chapter Four of
"How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It"
Patricia Love, Ed.D and Steven Stosny, Ph.D

The Worst Thing a Woman Does to a Man: Shaming
http://warmsouthernbreeze.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/making-a-loving-relationship-more-loving/

The article includes an inventory of female behaviours and words that men experience as shaming.

Here's a couple exercise that seems to be based on the above book...a good introduction to and summary of the concepts covered in that book:
http://www.thepmrc.org/files/celebratelove/couples/07_may.pdf

Shaming = counterproductive. Seriously bad. Shaming is the opposite of what Dr. Willard Harley calls Admiration, which is a huge emotional need for most men. Mark Gungor covers this, as well, and he's funny...



Bottom line: this is one of the worst things you can do. Most experts hit quite heavily on this subject.

I believe their are two threads on this book.

This one and the one linked below.
It is a great book IMHO.

http://www.marriageadvocates.com/ubbthre...arriag#Post1115