How Can I Get Through to You? Reconnecting Men and Women

By: Terrence Real

Narrated by: Terrence Real

Why is love between men and women so difficult? In this groundbreaking new book, best selling author Terrence Real analyzes the crisis in intimate relations, a crisis that has lasted more than a generation, yielding divorce rates of 40 to 50 percent. Our culture prepares us to fall in love, but it does not give us the skills we need to stay in love. Here Real offers a radical new vision of love and the practical tools with which to achieve it.

The current crisis is a product of changing gender roles, Real explains. In the past 30 years, women's roles have changed radically and men's have not. For the first time, adult women are asking their partners to access the very skills - emotional sensitivity, expressiveness, responsibility - that most men have had stamped out of them as boys. Patriarchal culture does not raise boys to be intimate; it raises them to be competitive performers. At the same time, girls are taught to be compliant and accommodating. The result is that men feel bewildered and unappreciated while women feel unheard and resentful. Conventional therapy, which reinforces "traditional" male roles, has failed. The demand for intimacy in marriage must be met with new skills.

Real draws on myth, literature, film, and heartrending stories of the men and women he treats to illustrate his compelling analysis. Breaking taboos about love, marriage, and passion, Real not only reconstructs gender roles but also shows that patriarchy's idealized model of love is impossibly flawed. He teaches partners to replace it with a love that acknowledges imperfections, and he then provides five Core Relational Skills designed to help every couple reach their full potential. Innovative, powerful, and eminently helpful, How Can I Get Through to You? is the book that every couple has been waiting for - and our culture needs.

©2002 Terrence Real, All Rights Reserved (P)2002 Simon & Schuster Inc., SOUND IDEAS Is an Imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.

Profound - for Men and Women

Any additional comments?

A real eye opener, spirit shaker for me. Only wish I'd heard and known 20 years ago. Not all specifics are totally in alignment with my experience (and failures) but the vast majority are. Am grateful for getting it when I did. The authors description of the dynamics may be intuitively known, but are presented in a fashion that resonates and gives substance to how they are created, allowing those with inhibited awareness to see more clearly (and get it at the core).

easy to understand relationship complications.

great background infomation of relationship theory. but lacking enough couple example to help with real life applications.

great content, helpful stories

this is a great book, especially for couples trying to better understand each other or trying to get through a difficult period.

Illuminating book

Terrence calls it like it is, again. This book read as though his other books, the new rules of marriage, and I don’t want to talk about it, had a love child. He briefly dips in to his research of covert male depression, and the societal conditions, or patriarchy, unfairly placed on men, and the consequent results. He mostly focuses on couple dynamics through the rest of the book. Unfortunately, all of us can relate to this material in some way. But, it is fortunate, in that Terrence’s research can help foster compassion and backbone to deal with these struggles at home. I have found his work to be incredibly insightful, and relieving to hear. The more you know...

The one star review by the person who only listened to the sample, is uninformed and misleading. Yes, Terrence begins with addressing the male behavior, for reasons he describes later, but rest assured, he works with the females on their sh*t too.

Thank you, Terrence, for sharing your profound wisdom. You’ve helped me greatly.

Real Stuff! (Pun intended)

By my measures, this is, quite simply, the best couple's therapy book I've ever read. Erudite and contextual, Terry Real nevertheless offers direct and personal courage to help guide us on our own winding way. Points out the elephants in the room that we've been insisting are just old hatracks. Profound.

I’ve never heard anything like this

This book was amazing. I listened to it in 2 days and have been obsessed. The perspective on how patriarchy has hurt men is fascinating and totally resonated. Especially as a mother of 2 young boys. Terry’s perspective also validated what I’ve observed and also why therapy has been so ineffective for us.
I highly highly recommend.

A Good Reminder

This book does a great job of synthesizing information I've encountered throughout my life, from reading my mother's/stepmother parenting books as a kid to psychology classes I took in young adulthood to feminist theory I learned throughout my life. But what I especially appreciate is that it gives that information through a thoughtful male perspective.

incredible

Terrence Real says it like it is. I'm a graduate student in family therapy, and I recommend this book to my professors and fellow students. It's been incredibly helpful in my relationship with my husband.

Great book

This is a great book. I would recommend it for therapists and for couples - especially couples in the earlier stages of marriage that are beginning to struggle. This information would and could (possibly) have been extremely helpful for my husband and I, if my husband had been interested in listening to it and discussing Real’s points. Might be too late for us in our particular situation (without counseling), but the book has still been valuable to me in terms of helping to think about our personal marital struggles in a broader context. Seems to me that Real is spot-on in his description and interpretation of the historical and sociological underpinnings of the difficult power dynamics that many heterosexual couples in the US face. Note my qualifiers though: this book doesn’t directly address every possible permutation of diversity in couples. To his credit, he doesn’t claim for it to apply to everyone in every situation (since very little psychosocial theory actually can, anyway). For the large slice of couples to whom his work applies (those in a culture strongly influenced by patriarchy and traditional gender roles, historically and currently), his insights are really applicable, compassionate and helpful. Highly recommended.

must read

incredible insight and great relational guide. i've listened more than a few times. The more I listen, the more I pick up. it's tough to write while listening in my car!