Mars and Venus Starting Over: A Practical Guide for Finding Love Again after a Painful Breakup, Divorce, or the Loss of a Loved One

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060175982 ISBN 13: 9780060175986

Publisher: Harper, 1998

John Gray, author of the history-making publishing phenomenon Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, addresses the particular relationship concerns of those who are starting over -- newly single after a death, a divorce, or other serious breakup.

Everybody Wants a Love That Will Last Forever ... But for Many reasons, relationships end. Last year, there were more than 1 million divorces in America, nearly 1 million spouses were widowed, and millions more broke up with their long-term partners. The healing period after such a loss can be difficult, but getting past the grief, anger, and pain can be much easier with expert help. Now relationship expert and dynamo John Gray offers comfort and empowering advice on how to overcome loss and gain the confidence to engage in new relationships.

In his previous mega-bestsellers Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus; Mars and Venus Together Forever; and Mars and Venus in the Bedroom, John Gray has shown us the differences between men's and women's desires and expectations in a relationship. His most recent book, Mars and Venus on a Date, is designed to help men and women find their soul mates. He's led us through the trials of dating, to the joys and conflicts of marriage, and even into the privacy and pleasure of the bedroom. In Mars and Venus Single Again, he instructs readers how to move past the pain, how to recognize when they're ready to try again, and how to negotiate the new dating frontier. For the millions of newly single Americans, Mars and Venus Single Again is like a lifeguard at the dating pool!

Review:

A breakup, divorce, or loss of a loved one isn't just the end of your relationship with that person. It's a continuation of every feeling of abandonment you've ever suffered. It's the loss of a system of approval you'd come to depend on. The struggle, as Gray points out in Starting Over, isn't just to find a new partner, but to get over those feelings of abandonment or loss or anger or whatever else gets dredged up by the end of a relationship.

Perhaps the book's most crucial chapter posits that the best way to get over the loss of love is to focus on the "love" more than the "loss." That may seem impossible, especially if the bum took off with your best friend, your life savings, and your Lyle Lovett CDs, but Gray didn't get to be a household name because the advice in his Venus and Mars books doesn't work. Remembering only the bad parts, Gray says, leaves you with an important part of your emotional being closed to new business.

As for the Venus and Mars stuff, that comes in the second half of the book, when Gray looks at how men and women start new relationships from different points of view, with different priorities (a man might want to have fun with no strings attached; a woman might carry with her a lengthy list of requirements for her next partner, a list that excludes virtually all available men).

If you've never read Gray's work before, you have to be prepared to check your cynicism at the door. This is earnest stuff, but it's also based on decades of experience counseling clients. He's not one of those photogenic, nine-times-divorced shrinklets who's telling you how to conduct your relationships without any real clue of what makes love last. This is the real package: nothing glib, nothing quick and easy, nothing you could've figured out from a "Love Is..." cartoon.

From the Back Cover:

Starting over after a painful breakup, a divorce, or the loss of a loved one can be the most challenging experience of a lifetime. Drawing on insights derived from twenty-eight years of counseling thousands of men and women in making wise choices in the process of healing their hearts, John Gray has once again written a groundbreaking book--one that abundantly provides guidance and comfort to those who find themselves single again. With the processes John Gray has developed in counseling and leading workshops, Mars & Venus Starting Over opens the door to finding a rich and fulfilling lifetime of love once again.

The first section of the book addresses the part of the healing process that is basically the same for men and women. Dealing with the pain of a breakup or loss is not easy, and John Gray makes it clear that although the pain of loss is an inevitable part of life, suffering is not. He explains that the heart often lags behind the mind, that we must experience our grief in order to become whole again. He compassionately shows us how to find forgiveness and explains how good endings make good beginnings.

Although the healing process is fundamentally the same, starting over on Venus is often different from starting over on Mars. Women tend to push love away to avoid getting hurt again. On the other hand, men often get involved right away, but have trouble committing. Part two, "Starting Over on Venus," explores the twenty-three common challenges women face, which include the new pressures of dating, glorifying our past, staying stuck in grief, overromanticizing, women who do too much, fear of intimacy, and putting children first. Part three, "Starting Over on Mars," deals with sex on the rebound, work, money, and love, living out fantasies, holding back, being in a hurry, bigger is better, and self-destructive tendencies--to name a few of the land mines men face on the road to healing.

Mars & Venus Starting Over will inspire you to rise to the challenge of healing your heart and to move on to find an even greater love. You will fulfill your soul's deepest purpose--to love and to be loved.

There is hope! You will find love again...

John Gray has helped millions of men and women develop better relationships with his phenomenal New York Times bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

Now he turns his attention to the millions of people who find themselves single again and compassionately presents a process for healing a broken heart. Here are just some of the issues and challenges John Gray covers in this supportive and practical guide to becoming whole again:

• Emotiontal Lag Time

• Grieving the Loss of Love

• Getting Unstuck

• Good Endings Make Good Beginnings

• The Feeling Better Exercise

• Finding Forgiveness

• Saying Good-bye with Love

• The 90-10 Principle

• Processing Our Hot Spots

• 101 Ways to Heal Our Hearts

Starting Over

• Date Around, but don't Sleep Around

• Glorifying Our Past

• Overromanticizing

• Focusing on the Negative

• Who Needs a Man?

• Women Who Do Too Much

• Fear of Intimacy

• My Children Need Me

• All or Noting

Starting Over on Mars

• Sex on the Rebound

• Work, Money, and Love

• Positive Addictions

• We Don't Have to Stop Loving

• Soul Mates Are Not Perfect

• Can't Live With Them and Can't Live Without Them

• Holding Back

• Bigger is Better

• Self-Destructive Tendencies