Imperfect Harmony: How to Stay Married for the Sake of Your Children and Still Be Happy - Hardcover

Joshua Coleman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031228974X ISBN 13: 9780312289744

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2003

Synopsis

Dr. Joshua Coleman is a caring psychologist who nonetheless isn't afraid to tell the truth: not all marriages can be joyful at all times, but that isn't a cause for divorce, especially with children involved.

Even if your marriage is never going to be the one you dreamed of, you can still live happily ever after. Dr. Coleman provides wise and compassionate advice on becoming a happy person in an unhappy situation.

In this groundbreaking work, Dr. Coleman also teaches readers how to:

- Reduce out-of-control conflict in the home
- Let go of the fairy-tale marriage ideal and create a better reality
- Accept change in your partner and make peace with what you can't change
- Maintain domestic harmony in times of crisis

Unhappy husbands and wives finally have an alternative to the devastation of divorce. And by maintaining imperfect harmony, each parent has the opportunity to love, to care for, and to teach his or her children "full-time."

About this title

About the Author

Joshua Coleman, Ph.D., is a psychologist with practices in San Francisco and Oakland, California. He is on the training faculty of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group and has served on the clinical faculties of the University of California at San Francisco/Mt. Zion Hospital Crisis Clinic and the Wright Institute Graduate School of Psychology. He has been a frequent contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle and currently writes a column for TWINS Magazine. He is a member of the Council on Contemporary Families and the National Council on Family Relations. Dr. Coleman lives with his wife and twin boys in the San Francisco Bay Area.

From Publishers Weekly

"Contrary to the wisdom of pop psychology, it is not essential to your or your children's well-being for you to have a great marriage," writes psychologist Coleman in the opening to this frank (and, to borrow from Lewis's foreword, even "radical") guide for struggling couples. In prose studded references to recent research and case studies from his own practice, Coleman clearly and compassionately outlines the stresses on contemporary marriages; discusses the need for spouses to grieve for what their marriages don't offer them; urges them to understand how their parents' marriages affect their own and to work on changing their own attitudes and beliefs instead of trying to change their partners'; describes depression's effects on marriage; covers sexual difficulties, affairs and "different kinds of marriages"; and numerous other topics. Coleman's argument is that barring abuse or debilitating mental illness, it's better for kids if parents stay together, and here, he carefully shows them how. Some readers may object to what can seem like a "you're not going to get it, so you might as well stop hoping for it" philosophy of partnership, but Coleman's words are a welcome antidote to unrealistic portrayals of domestic bliss. With practical advice and genuine empathy, Coleman encourages spouses to stick it out: their marriage may not change drastically for the better, he says-but then again, it just might.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 031228974X
• ISBN 13: 9780312289744
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224