Learning to Love

Book excerpt: What holds a couple together? Why are we afraid of intimacy? How can we keep our hearts open to one another in the midst of hurt and resentment? In this provocative book, Don and Martha Rosenthal, acclaimed workshop leaders and founders of The Heartwork Center, help couples move through conflict and difficulty toward the love and trust essential to satisfying relationships. Based on nearly two decades of highly successful couples workshops, as well as the Rosenthals’ own 35 years as committed partners, this book is a rare combination of timeless wisdom and practical guidance. Written in clear, accessible language, it offers workable strategies for listening to your partner with an open heart; asking for change; giving and receiving; dealing with anger; and releasing one’s own feelings of guilt, fear, and defensiveness. Yet it does all this with a spiritual depth that is both rare and compelling. By embracing as material the full range of our feelings, the messiness of our imperfections, it speaks compassionately to the human condition we all share. Learning to Love is a spiritual guide to relationship that truly works. Its unique strength lies in showing partners how to use their inevitable conflicts as the means to a deeper intimacy. And its fruits, to those willing to cultivate them, are the tools and resources that can make the sharing of unconditional love a daily reality.