'Women Who Love Too Much' - A synopsis, please?

[Bast]

Could those of you who have read this book or investigated this theory please enlighten me about the concept, or add your perceptions of it?

I fully intend to order it, asap but could desperately do with some insight while I'm in a receptive mood!

Many thanks.

"Everything you do is wrong."

I understand the 'loving too much' concept as loving someone (actually more like clinging to/attempting to reform/rescue someone) who isn't worthy of it or doesn't respond.

Basically an inability to let go of a destructive relationship.

It's a good book.

Its a bit extreme, talks about those who have been abused in childhood, sexually, physically etc. But it is a good book. Basically looks at codependence, 'rescuing' loosers. Trying to get someone who is incapable of loving to love you back as your playing out your childhood patterns from what I can remember.

IIRC there's a pretty acerbic chapter in "Backlash" about it, claiming that it and the movement that followed it basically worked by blaming women for their husbands' emotional abuse/DV. So if you're going to read it maybe take it with a pinch of salt.

I'm half way through it and it has made me realise that I am the reverse of what it talks about. Rather than looking for someone to fix I have been the one in need of fixing. I've looked on others to make me whole.

When I first started reading it I kept thinking 'well, that doesn't apply to me' but then realised it is better to read it without trying to apply it but more as if I was just reading about other people IYSWIM.

If you can gain any knowledge or insight from any self help book it has to be a positive thing.

I read that book a long time ago but have a lasting memory of it.

For me, I remember it described some of the strongest attractions were to people that represented our own unique childhood experience.

For example, someone who may have experienced an insecure or unsettled childhood may well find them selves drawn to an unpredictable partner. Thus 're-creating' those familiar feelings of childhood. Even if those feelings in childhood were undesirable they have become very familiar and comfortable and someone who brings those feelings up in you again can feel like a soulmate, or the 'right-fit'. These people then become the hardest to walk away from.

It is great if you had a well balanced and supportive childhood but not so useful if it was a more disfunctional situation.

That was the overpowering message I got from that book. I thought it was very interesting.

I found it irritating in style but it helped me to see what I was doing, and why. I recommend Karmann's approach. Well done for deciding to do something about it :)

I read it.. and I think there was one paragraph that really resonated with me, although it did help me see a pattern in my relationships which I'm now trying to address.

Thanks all

I know there my childhood was surrounded by unhealthy dynamics, unsurprisingly my adult relationships have followed suit. It would be really nice to strike balance and healthy adult interaction!

Have any of you looked into attachment in adults?

Yes, I've got attachment disorders all over the place! (thanks, Mum & Dad) While I'm building on a whole raft of reading & therapy, my "Bible" for fixing myself is Paul Gilbert's "The Compassionate Mind" (Amazon: you can 'look inside'). It's a very packed book, based on a mixture of contemporary brain science, psychiatry and Buddhism, so maybe not everyone's cup of tea.
It's working for me :)

It's a very insightful book. I found it very hard going when I read it (about 3 yearts ago; started crying after the first few pages because it was me, completely. It was how I loved, how I defined what love was; I was addicted to the high's and lows.) I remember feeling such relief because I felt understood for the first time. Everytime I had talked about my feelings in a pretty destructive relationship to my friends, no one had ever understood me. Reading the book I felt like I was face to face with the author and she was speaking to me.

However I confess I didn't quite finish it as I wasn't quite ready for the level of mental re-configuring it needs/ed (the author warns you that you will find it hard to persevere if you are a woman who loves to much) although I still think it really has helped me and stopped me from giving 'all' of myself in a relationship, if that makes any sense. I recommend it for all women who keep ending up in relationships that keep hurting and go nowhere.

I truly bless the author.

Oh that wasn't quite a synopsis was it? Ignore me O.P.

Shiney, I read it about 3 or 4 times during a 5-year destructive relationship and it was only when I felt literally beyond hope
that I started to apply it (though I did it in my own way, not exactly as prescribed in the book).

It is hard to persevere. For me it was hard to grasp the sheer power of my unconscious need to make a futile relationship work.

Shiney - your post may not have been a synopsis but useful all the same.

After I've read this one I'm going to read 'Co-dependent No More' by Melody Beattie - I think loving too much and co-dependency are closely linked.

I would also recommend 'The Language of Letting Go', also by Melody Beattie.

As you can see, I'm on a mission!

Shiney, I wont ignore you, if you don't mind?

I asked for synopses and perceptions because I think the mark of a good self help book is one from which people can take what they need and feel comfortable in doing so, as seems the case here

Most responses have encouraged me to have a look at it, with an open mind.

I suppose I'm preparing myself for having my world views and belief sets challenged at a deep and hopefully worthwhile level.

Thanks for the other book recommendations, looks like 'Amazon' is about to become my friend!

Grace, the day I succeed in compassion towards myself, is the day I'll start to live again, I think.