When Good People Have Affairs and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more

Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Start reading When Good People Have Affairs on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

When Good People Have Affairs: Inside the Hearts & Minds of People in Two Relationships [Hardcover]

Mira Kirshenbaum


Available from these sellers.


Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition --  
Hardcover --  
Paperback CDN $13.36  

Book Description

May 27 2008

A world-renowned therapist, Mira Kirshenbaum has treated thousands of men and women caught in the powerful drama over what to do when an affair reaches into their emotional lives.  Now, in When Good People Have Affairs, Kirshenbaum puts her unsurpassed experience into one clear, calming place.  She gives readers everything they need to cut through the thickets of fear, hurt and confusion to find their ways to happier, more solid relationships with the person who’s right for them.  For example, Kirshenbaum identifies seventeen types of affairs, helping readers figure out which type they’re in and what it means.  Is it a:

--“See-if” affair?
--Ejector-seat affair?
--Distraction affair?
--Unmet-needs affair?
--Panic affair?

Kirshenbaum encourages honest answers to such questions as:
--What am I missing in my marriage?
--How do I decide between two people when it’s like comparing an apple to an orange?
--How do I decide to end my marriage, end my affair, or end them both?

She leads readers through six easy-to-navigate steps that will take anyone from anxiety to clarity.  When Good People Have Affairs will be a lifeline to any man or woman who feels caught between two lovers, and its insights are indispensable to anyone else touched by an affair.

 


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press (May 27 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312378475
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312378479
  • Product Dimensions: 2.3 x 17 x 23.9 cm
  • Shipping Weight: 476 g
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #184,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Product Description

Review

“Whether you are having an affair or are thinking about it, or your partner is having an affair, this book is for you. Kirshenbaum brings us practical steps for understanding affairs and utilizing the mistakes we make for a deeper healing. This book can help strengthen all our relationships.”—Rabbi Ted Falcon, Ph.D., rabbi of Bet Alef: An Inclusive Spiritual Synagogue in Seattle and co-author of Judaism for Dummies

"Kirshenbaum addresses the often painful question of whether good people can and do have affairs and provides methodical, insightful answers to this very disturbing dilemma. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has had an affair, been the object of an affair, or anyone who has thought of having an affair".— Arthur P. Ciaramicoli, Ed.D, Ph.D., author of Performance Addiction and The Power of Empathy 

"This book is brilliantly written for anyone entrapped in a messy affair. Powerful, pragmatic answers clarify how to sanely address infidelity."— Lee Raffel, M.SW., author of I Hate Conflict! Seven Steps to Resolving Differences with Anyone in Your Life

“Kirshenbaum meets us right at the heart of an illicit affair and juggling two lovers.  Her research and experience shows most people who have affairs want what’s best for everyone involved.  Her absolute acceptance and wisdom teach us how we can trust ourselves, despite feeling crazy, to untangle our love triangles and live with choices that are free of regret and ambivalence.  We can clearly decide what is good for us and what will lead to our happiness.”—Diana Mercer, JD, Attorney-Mediator and Founder of Peace Talks Mediation Services

 "An important and insightful book on a very difficult topic."—Gayle Rosenwald Smith, author of Divorce and Money: Everything You Need to Know  

"The ‘sexual correctness police’ surround us all the time and are so menacing we are often afraid to speak honestly and hence revert to humor to diffuse our  anxieties. Mira Kirshenbaum has dared to break the rules, not by advocating  for affairs (which too often are very destructive) but for acknowledging that  they are happening, and giving advice to minimize the hurts and maximize the  capacity of people to treat the others involved with the dignity and honesty  they deserve."—Rabbi  Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun Magazine and chair, The Network of Spiritual  Progressives    

“Every pastor, therapist, and counselor should read this book.  Mira Kirshenbaum, through decades of clinical experience, demystifies affairs with wisdom, humor, buckets of common sense, and most of all, deep compassion for all involved.  She provides from every perspective, including the children, clear guidelines for decision making and the follow through necessary for a long and healthy relationship.  This book resonates profoundly with my 38 years of ministering with people in relationships.  Even the happily married would benefit from reading When Good People Have Affairs.”—M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts

“Mira Kirshenbaum has done it again! She has tackled the most difficult of issues and in so doing offers the reader clear and powerful tools for moving on and through the complexities of an affair. Every psychotherapist in the field knows that working with people involved in affairs is painful for all concerned. These are not bad people, as it would be too easy to assume. These are good people working through complicated issues, feelings and needs. With steps for identifying why and then what next, this book will serve not only those who are personally involved with affairs, but also those in the helping role. I look forward to having it available as a recommendation for clients and as an aide in my own psychotherapy practice.”—Dr. Dorothy Firman, Director, The Synthesis Center, Amherst, MA.  Co-author of Daughters and Mothers: Making it Work; Chicken Soup for the Mother and Daughter Soul; Chicken Soup for the Soul: Celebrating Mothers and Daughters and: Chicken Soup for the Father and Son Soul

 

From the Back Cover

“When Good People Have Affairs helps unfaithful partners cut through their confusion and choose a course of action that serves their best interest. A wise and welcome addition to the self-help literature on infidelity.”—Janis Abrahms Spring, Ph.D., author of After the Affair

“If you've found yourself caught up in a love triangle, from any angle, Kirshenbaum provides an indispensable guide to what the person in two relationships is dealing with.  If you are that person, this book will save you from a world of misery and help you do what's best for everyone.  If you're the spouse or lover, this is a necessary guide to help you survive and thrive in the face of what you are really dealing with.”—Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., author of Five Wishes and co-author, with Kathlyn Hendricks, of Conscious Loving

"The first practical, non-judgmental solution to infidelity.  Kirshenbaum’s ability to bring clarity out of a deeply confusing issue is amazing.  This book is a must read for the 50% of Americans whose lives have been affected by infidelity.  It could save many relationships."—Val Jones, Senior Medical Director of RevolutionHealth.com, and author of the blog “Dr. Val and the Voice of Reason”



Customer Reviews

There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com: 4.0 out of 5 stars  49 reviews
117 of 124 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars First Hand Experience! Jun 3 2008
By mirose - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is outstanding. It will help you figure out what you are doing and why you are doing it. Once you have figured that out, you can start to make the decisions you need to make to get your life back on track. being stuck between two relationships is no way to go through life. It is destructive and hurtful to EVERYONE involved. In NO WAY does this book try to condone the behavior of people who cheat. Mira simply recognizes that infidelity is a fact of life (75% of couples will be touched by it at some point), and the most important thing is to help people figure out why they have stepped beyond their primary relationship so that they can decide what to do next. Mira clearly distinguishes between sociopathic louts who cheat simply because they "can", and the otherwise good person who has, quite uncharacteristically, "strayed" and is now in WAY over their head in a second relationship.

The book is comprehensive but spends most of its time helping you figure out who is right for you, the primary partner or the affair partner. I think this section is outstanding, and Mira tackles a subject that few if any other authors have ever dared approach. While it is very helpful (she has found a way to compare apples to oranges!!!), I think one of the things left out (probably because it is so individual) is transaction costs. What I mean is even if you figure out (with Mira's techniques) that the "affair" partner is better for you, you still have to go through a divorce, split up money and assets, give up at least 1/2 of the time with your children, lose many of your friends, move out of the house, start your life over from scratch etc etc. How do you factor that in? How MUCH better does the affair partner have to be to justify this upheaval? Again, this will be different for everyone. Someone who has not much to lose might leave for a marginally "better" partner. Someone with a LOT to lose is only going to leave for a MUCH better situation. So in the end this is a difficult decision that should NOT be made impulsively. It should be made after careful thought and analysis, and this book CERTAINLY helps put 90% of the important issues into perspective to make this difficult decision. I recommend a good local therapist to help you out with the individual aspects of YOUR situation.

I have read the book from cover to cover and I recommend it HIGHLY. It helped me sort out my own situation. Thank god it came out in such a timely manner. Good luck with your own ordeal...I KNOW it is NOT EASY!! I have intentionally not said what I ended up doing....I remember when I first started trying to figure out what to do about my own situation I would read reviews like this and try to see who stayed and who left and tried to read into that information to see what I should do...I don't want to sway anyone one way or the other. GOOD LUCK!
103 of 109 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars If your life has been touched by an affair, this is a great book May 30 2008
By Dr. Susan from Chicago - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
If your life has been touched by an affair, whether you're the cheater or you've been cheated on, this is an incredibly wise and helpful book by someone with a LOT of experience helping people put their lives and marriages back together.
I want to say why this book is so good, but first I have to comment on Jillian C. "Qbridge"'s incredibly irresponsible review. Jillian has obviously not read the book, nor does she seem to have any experience actually helping people who are trying to deal with an affair, nor does she seem to be interested in helping people put their lives together after an affair. If she'd read the book, she'd have seen how Kirshenbaum clearly says you should not have an affair. But you do NOT help people who've been affected by an affair by labeling the cheater as "bad." Why would any wife want to heal her marriage if her husband is by definition "bad"? Does Jillian want every couple touched by an affair to get a divorce? Yes, the deed is a hurtful mistake, and Kirshenbaum goes to great lengths to show how, if there is going to be any hope of healing, the cheater has to show that he truly understands the pain and damage he's caused. That's the kind of thing in the REAL book, not Jillian's fantasy. It was careless and dishonest for Jillian to review the words of the title and not read or review the real book.
In reality, Kirshenbaum devotes many chapters to showing how to heal a marriage after it's been damaged by an affair, and this is the best help of its kind I've seen.
Another thing Kirshenbaum does that I've never seen before and is incredibly helpful is show that there are 17 different kinds of affairs. Each one grows out of a different need. Each one means something completely different. You can't know how to figure things out until you know why you or your partner had an affair in the first place. This is what a therapist would charge big bucks for, but you get it all in this book.
And Kirshenbaum has a lot of material on how to protect the kids and take them into account.
I've had a lot of experience helping people and couples deal with an affair, and I have to say this book will give everyday folk all the help they could need. The truth is that an affair is a turning point in people's lives. There's a lot to sort out. And a lot of anger and hurt. Kirshenbaum shows how to take all this into account and do what's best for everybody in the end.
70 of 77 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Help in the nick of time for me May 31 2008
By Jenny Miller - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Four weeks ago I found out my husband had been cheating on me. I was furious. I threw my husband out of the house. But I was devastated. We have three children, and I thought we had a good life. Everything seemed to be over for good. Then my therapist said something amazing. She said, "Look, he did a bad thing, but is he really a bad man?" That stopped me. I thought about our life together. He was a good man. I could always rely on him. My therapist lent me her copy of this book. I think it may have saved my life. I read it in one evening. I saw how my husband really could have been in pain even though he put me in pain.
Most of all, I saw that there were many reasons why people cheat, and most of them DON'T mean that your marriage is over. And I saw what the work was that my husband and I needed to do to put our marriage together. My husband and I have talked almost nonstop for the last two days. It's been pretty intense. But Myra Kirschenbaum's book has given me, given both of us really, the hope and understanding to work at healing our marriage.
This is one of those books that can save your life. I am so grateful for it.

Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback