Customer Reviews

Ten Stupid Things Couples Do To Mess Up Their Relationships

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Dr. Laura pulls everybody's covers in this very useful book that maps a straight path through the minefields of contemporary relationships. It's like a book about brick-laying for brick layers! Insightful, specific and to the point, the book shines a bright light on all our little games--from power trips to pettiness to screwed up priorities Before you let Mr. or Ms. Right slip away from you, get this book and make sure you're not doing the dumbest thing in your life. Married couples,too, can learn how to identify and work through common problems in a long-term relationship and save the laywer's fees!! This book comes at just the right time when all of us are more conscious than ever of how precious our loved ones are and how deeply we treasure our families...This book will help us make the most of the important relationships in our lives.

Reading the missives from the extreme naysayers, it is obvious that many believe Dr. Laura to be a hypocrite because she made some poor choices early in life. Therefore, she has no business dispensing advice on these matters. Following such misguided rationale, few of us have any business offering advice to anyone, including our children because we're also hypocrites. We all have pasts, the highlights of which we are not necessarity proud.

Very often the folks who have made the most egregious errors in their lives are the very best and most credible with words of counsel because of their experiences, the toughest way to learn.

Dr. Laura's boot-in-the-rear style isn't for everyone; no one's is. We're all different and have varying needs. However, she is a breath of fresh air to those who have been mollycoddled too much. Things are much blacker and whiter than many believe and bless Dr. Laura for explaining them.

The book presents a compelling and eye-opening viewpoint and provides a good basis for couples who want to build better skills at relating by re-examining their behaviors. While reading, I did recognize behaviors in myself that I have also engaged in but was previously not aware of.

It is clear that Dr. Laura has strong beliefs and is passionately committed to her ideas and to her viewpoints. The information is presented in a straightforward manner and is often on target. Though Dr. Laura's style of communication is strong, the message and content is ultimately geared to help readers recognize their behaviors and to prevent broken relationships.

I have also read another book on relationships that I found to be extremely enjoyable and helpful as well. The book is "Working On Your Relationships Doesn't Work" by Ariel and Shya Kane. This book explores a new technique geared toward mending relationships and building ones that are nurturing and fulfilling. This book uses examples from many of the Kanes' clients and associates, from their workshops and seminars, as well as from their own personal life journey. By bringing awareness to our ingrained patterns of behavior, they guide readers to discover satisfaction and increased productivity in their lives and relationships, without having to "work" on their
problems...as well as how to have a lot of fun along the way (that "fun" part is right up my alley!)

Self proclamation does not a doctor make. Dr Laura's credential's are not within the field of psychotherapy-she who preaches so loudly from her pulpit about family ties and togetherness, has been estranged from her own family for years. She who points the finger---has also had the finger pointed at her. Posing nude, living with a man without the benefit of marriage, having an affair, becoming pregnant without the benefit of marriage, have all been written about Dr. Laura Schlessinger and made public. Noone willingly takes the advice of a hypocrite, unless of course, they hide behind a syndicated radio show and a willing agent.

'Ten Stupid Things Couples Do to Mess Up Their Relationships' is Laura Schlessinger's best work. Her insights are profound and her prose is delightfully readable. All couples will benefit from Ms Schlessinger's knowledge. Particularly impressive is the final brief chapter, in which Laura recapitulates, in simple headings, the ten mistakes detailed earlier. On page 214, she writes, 'Let me summarise the ten stupid things couples do to mess up their relationships.
1) Date
2) Get engaged
3) Get married
4) Have a kid
5) Have another one
Some people even do these things AGAIN, following divorce. It's a simple equation; 5 + 5 = 10.'

This book is essential reading for couples everywhere.

Right on target... really helps to align your priorities on what matters most.... if you choose a relationship, then make it work.. if you choose to have kids, make the time. Very good, assigns equal blame to both parties.

Laura Schlessinger's best book remains her first, _Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Relationships_. Her next book in that vein was for men, yet it lacked both the snap and the balance of her first advice book. By the time Ten for Men was published, Schlessinger had hitched her wagon to the conservative multiverse, and her no-nonsense viewpoint began unravelling.

This latest work in her Ten Stupid Series, for couples, is heavy on the reader replies and light on Schlessinger's original deft touch. While easy to read, the comments are often at odds with each other, and it appears Schlessinger didn't read them through enough to notice how they weakened her own thrust. Furthermore, little of the advice in this book on relationships moves beyond what was covered in the Women and Men books. Tolstoy observed more than a century ago that unhappy families are each unhappy in their own manner, yet Schlessinger doesn't allow more than Ten Stupid failings per book, and she is reusing a few.

Since this book is thus more of an anthology than her own original work, kind of a Ten Stupid Kinds of Chicken Soup for the Messed-Up Soul, for it to succeed its editor needed a consistent series of tales culminating in each chapter's lesson. But some of the reader contributions don't fit under the chapter heading and only seem to be there so one chapter wasn't three times longer than another. And is Stupid Power (never backing down, never apologizing) really a different problem than Stupid Excuses (never taking responsibility)? Aren't both merely defense mechanisms? What really is the difference between Stupid Egotism and Stupid Happiness? The readers certainly describe these similar topics using similar terms. One almost wonders if some of the contributors had a name-change moving into a new chapter.

Finally, no review of a Laura Schlessinger book would be complete without mentioning her tendency to politicize an advice manual. It isn't enough that a caller is irresponsible; she is irresponsibile because she's a liberal, or a feminist, or was corrupted by the public school system and is too lazy to take her kids out and put them in Fine Religious Private Schools. Long-time observers of Schlessinger's radio show have noted that if a call (or caller) upsets her, there's probably some personal history involved, and some of the political rants seem to spin off messages from readers who struck too close to home. Second wife resentful of husband's devotion to children of first wife? Selfish brat (but no mention of how Laura ignored her husband's three children by his first wife after stealing him away). Husband uninterested in attending church with his wife? Lazy liberal (but no mention of her path into Judaism without her husband, then Orthodox Judaism with, only to desert again in summer 2003). Stupid hobbies or liaisons endangering the marriage? Not okay for her callers, but okay for her, regaling her listeners with sailboat race stories featuring Laura and an all-male crew. Thus, any book by Schlessinger always abounds with unintentional humor for the well-informed Lauralogist, but the casual reader will miss such gems.

This book, having fewer words by Schlessinger than her others, thus doesn't stay focussed on political rants, and the letters do offer some useful suggestions. However, uneveness and poor focus mean it's still not that good a book, and fans of her seminal 10 Stupid Things Women Do will be disappointed.

She makes a few good points, but they are redundant and obvious to any intelligent individual with even minute relationship experience. Anything useful stemming from that is overshadowed by her lack of openmindedness and lack of acceptance of any relationship that strays from her religion-induced norm. Not everyone fits into that mold and its really not helpful to essentially tell someone they must do so or else they're being "stupid." As a matter of fact, its insulting to alot of people. She's disguised as the Modern Thinking Woman With Morals but is really just a wound up version of your typical Baby Boomer woman still maintaining a little (read: alot) too much of the Stepford Wives mentality. She openly condemns working mothers, single parents, gays & lesbians (including even hate crime legislation) and yes, she herself condems feminism. This is to name a few of her favorite topics. Personally, this isn't a person I care to take relationship and love advice from.

Don't be fooled by her strong attitude. Just because shes opinionated and pushy, doesn't make her right nor does it give the core of what shes proclaiming anymore substance. Her so-called "no bull" approach is, in reality, proof of too much fundamentalist thinking. That everything is either black or white, good or bad. Life just doesn't work that way. If you have an open mind and don't want someone elses religious morals shoved down your throat, don't waste your time or money on this book.

Make no doubt about it. Dr. Laura is in charge, she sets the rules and that's the way it is. She has never denied it and it is more than obvious when reading her books.

As a librarian, I am part of the silent majority who agree with Dr. Laura. She has deservedly assaulted my profession enough, but I am also conservative-leaning and admire much that she has to say.

Yet I can't help being a little disappointed in this book. For the author's fans, it bears all of Dr. Laura's straight-forward, no bull language. It has plenty of nuggets of golden wisdom for those pursuing marriage. And it couches no words in sentimentality.

It's gems, however, are buried in Dr. Laura's self-aggrandizement, crude language and a repetition of the personality flaws that create problems for men and women in not only their couplings, but in all of their relationships. The "stupid things" the author decries can easily be stated in three sentences: Don't have sex before marriage. Don't be selfish. And have some self-esteem.

I wholeheartedly agree with those three points, but I can't imagine that this material was anything new from Dr. Laura's previous two "Stupid things" books. It serves mostly as a long synopsis, with samples, of the stupid problems her callers reveal on her radio show. She exposes and belittles the mistakes of her callers and mail correspondents. But she offers no possible solution for these callers to remedy their problems. It leaves me a little cold.

My biggest pet peeve: Dr. Laura repeatedly refers to "G-d." I'm not sure what that means. It is a blatant denial of recognition of the deity that most of her fans espouse. I would prefer she either complete the word "God" or skirt around diety's influence like the wishy-washy liberals she demonizes.

Read Dr. Laura and your life will be transformed as you accept a fundamentalist view of the universe where there are no greys and everything can be reduced to a simple black and white. Not only that but those who disagree with her can be cast into the darkness for she is God's voice on this planet. If you're fed up of thinking and want to be spoonfed your morality, buy this book. If you have a life and a mind, avoid.