Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change

Hi there this and it was such a good book and explained so much about how I love and how my mom lives and why we are the way that we are. I ended up writing her a really kind letter and giving the book to her for her birthday. She’s an alcoholic and I hope that this book Helps bring her awareness of why she acts the way she does and how to get help.

This book is not a feel good, fuzzy and fun to read book... however it makes you look DEEP into your emotional wounds and traumas that keep you stuck in perpetual cycles of unhealthy relationships. I'm only through the first chapter and the tears are flowing. It's heavy and going to take me since time to process everything I've learnt and realized about myself and my patterns before I can open it back up to take on chapter 2. I'm hopeful but I'm also realizing that even through my therapy with my therapist and how much I thought I've healed my inner child, little girl me is still broken. I'm sad but hopeful... and ready to face the rest of my healing head on. I am certain this book is a solid road map.

This is an easy read full of information for women surviving a tough situation. Highly recommend for all women!

Sat down this Sunday morning to read a few chapters in Robin Norwood's Women Who Love Too Much and finished the last chapter 4 hours later. I found Norwood's work insightful and easy to digest. Her belief is that the Love Too Much condition arises out of dysfunctional childhood experiences leaving the woman (or man) recreating familiar circumstance in an adult relationship to work through the childhood problems (not sure, but I believe this principle is also the bases for Imago Therapy?). "A dysfunctional family is one in which members play rigid roles and in which communication is restricted to statements that fit these roles...Members are not free to express a full range of experiences, wants, needs and feelings, ....we learn to not believe in our own perceptions or feelings....We become unable to discern when someone or something is not good for us." I grew up in a nice home with parents that provided well for the family, I never heard my parent fight or saw them drunk, but perhaps typical of kids in the 1970's south, we girls were expected to always be nice, polite and respectful......we were NOT allowed to express any type of "negative" emotions or disagree with them EVER. My book is now if filled with underlined and highlighted passages, but here is another of my favorites; "True acceptance of an individual as he is, without trying to change him through encouragement or coercion, is a very high form of love , and very difficult to practice...There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy, but to place the source of happiness outside ourselves...means we avoid our ability and responsibility to change our own life for the better." There are lots of Norwood's case studies that are woven through the book that keeps the reading interesting and thought provoking...I had to laugh and agree that I could be a woman who is "addicted" to pain in suffering in personal intimate relationships....hope this helps me break the hurtful pattern.

As I read the reviews here, I see why I thought the stories in this book were a bit redundant. They weren't 'true' stories about 'patients' but just fictional stories. I could not relate to her stories very well at all. Only one of them hit close to home but not totally. My therapist suggested I read this book and it wasn't until the last 2 chapters that I actually found anything I truly related to or anything that would really help me grow and change. I would recommend this book to anyone who has found themselves struggling to control their life and the lives of those around them and to anyone who wants to change the person they love but can't figure out how to do it. This book will help you change yourself so you can accept your loved one for who he is or kick him to the curb, whichever you prefer. Even though the first few chapters didn't hold a lot of 'true to my life' meaning, they were interesting stories with commentary afterward that helped me when I got to those last 2 chapters that are absolutely wonderful. If you aren't really ready for a deep change in your life, then this book will fall short of the mark for you. But, if you truly feel like you are dependent on everyone around you to make yourself happy or if you believe that if he would just stop doing 'this' or that he would just start doing 'that', you could live a happy life, this book is the book for you!

One of the best books I’ve read in my life! It helped me to understand a lot of things🥹

This book opened my eyes to how I can take charge of my life and stop unecessary suffering. It was written a few decades ago but every page of it is still relevant today.

I really liked this book. Described a lot of what I’ve been through and made me understand a lot about myself. A must read for people who suffer continuos abuse in the relationships and understand the roots of it

Good book for women who tend to lose their identity in a relationship

Incroyable. J'aurais dû lire ce livre il y a 5 ans. Un must read!! Je vois enfin les causes de mes schémas relationnels, et une véritable voie pour tourner cette page.

Good book