On Your Own Again

Rating:
Summary: Recommendation of book by reviewer
Review: "The collaboration between a sensitive, experienced, caring psychiatrist and a skilled journalist results in great wisdom in a very readable form...refreshingly free of jargon....Both personally and professionally this guide to getting through a divorce or separation is very helpful. It is well worth reading several times as one goes through the process, and I will certainly be recommending it to my patients and my friends." - Reid Finlayson, M.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Ottawa, and President of the Ontario Psychiatric Association

Rating:
Summary: An excellent tool to enhance understanding
Review: I read this book when it was recommended by my therapist, after I had realized I was permanently seperated from my wife. I found I read this book in two stages. The first stage, when I fully understood that I truly was on my own again, I was able to read and appreciate roughly the first half. I found interesting insights into the day to day process of adjusting to the reality of having my marriage end, and now dealing with the crush of details demanding attention. After a few months break, I found myself diving in to read the rest of the book, and finding how closely my own life was following the path described in the book. This book is not a how-to guide to divorce or seperation. It IS a tool to help understand the emotions you are experiencing, the panic, the feeling that you are where no one else has ever been. And, it has helped me to understand that there are things that I miss and desire, but whose time has yet to come. I hope others will find similar benefits in this book. My only complaint is that at a time of such great stress, including the major financial uncertainty involved in seperation and divorce, it seemed a bit expensive for less content than I had hoped. This only served to make me think twice when this book should be a no-brainer.

Rating:
Summary: Not helpful to me!!
Review: My boyfriend recently broke up with me and broke my heart in a second.I'm 27 years old and never felt like this before. I searched and bought many books trying to find a way to make me feel better and find answers to the tones of questions and ifs that were bothering my mind.This book didn't help me a lot. The writing feels distant and it is difficult to see the author as a friend or at least as someone close to you and your feelings.It can be useful only if you were married and now divorced but not if you had a relationship and lived separately.It has a lot of chapters concerning how to raise your children after a divorce or how to split the money and the invstments, things that can't concern people who had a serious relationship,who loved the other very much but who haven't been married or lived together for a long time.Also I found its advice old-fashioned and out of date.

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Summary: On Your Own Again.....words of comfort and patience
Review: This is a wonderful book with words of comfort and patience that are as up-to-date as any thing else out there. This author writes from the point of view of a therapist AND a person who has been there himself. He does not seek to explain the why of a breakup...but rather how to move on. I found the section on the most common mistakes people get into in the acute stage of breakup wonderfully "right on time." While this book focuses heavily on marriage and heterosexual relationships, I think anyone just out of a committed relationship will find it helpful.

Rating:
Summary: Soothing words during a rough time
Review: When I read "On Your Own Again" just a few months ago, I still wasn't sure I would reunite with my love. In fact, we remain separated but hope that over time we can come together again - but not right away. Healing takes time. "On Your Own Again" helped me to understand from a healthy perspective what I need to heal in myself, regardless of whether we come together again or not. I discovered that "working things out" means learning how to care ABOUT myself (and someone else), versus caring FOR them, and hoping to be taken care OF. As a woman, this was a big obstacle to overcome. I now understand realistic expectations and I feel free to discover what makes me a productive, full and responsible person. And a healthy one. I realize that all of the things I want from a partner are virtues and characteristics that I must own, develop and BE for myself. I AM on my own again and when or if my love and I get back together, I will be a full, complete partner to him. If we permanently break apart, then even through the painful sadness, I will at least know that inside, I'm growing and sustaining myself. This isn't a "how-to" book (there isn't a quick remedy for this kind of thing). It's a guide that gently teaches you that you can be your own trusted friend and that no other person can be for you what you can't be for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Soothing words during a rough time
Review: When I read "On Your Own Again" just a few months ago, I still wasn't sure I would reunite with my love. In fact, we remain separated but hope that over time we can come together again - but not right away. Healing takes time. "On Your Own Again" helped me to understand from a healthy perspective what I need to heal in myself, regardless of whether we come together again or not. I discovered that "working things out" means learning how to care ABOUT myself (and someone else), versus caring FOR them, and hoping to be taken care OF. As a woman, this was a big obstacle to overcome. I now understand realistic expectations and I feel free to discover what makes me a productive, full and responsible person. And a healthy one. I realize that all of the things I want from a partner are virtues and characteristics that I must own, develop and BE for myself. I AM on my own again and when or if my love and I get back together, I will be a full, complete partner to him. If we permanently break apart, then even through the painful sadness, I will at least know that inside, I'm growing and sustaining myself. This isn't a "how-to" book (there isn't a quick remedy for this kind of thing). It's a guide that gently teaches you that you can be your own trusted friend and that no other person can be for you what you can't be for yourself.