I Do, I Don't

Back Cover: There’s a gremlin on your shoulder: it’s the voice in your head. It interferes with seeing, hearing, and understanding your partner. The internalized voices of your mother, father and unconscious might be wreaking havoc in your primary relationship, unbeknownst to you. How you react to your beloved is based on “normal” behavior from your family of origin—whether or not it was healthy.

Join Ben and Grace, a couple in love—and having issues—on their journey of learning and practicing the tools and skills needed for a lifetime of intimacy. Readers are introduced to visual representations of the normally internalized voices of their parents, as well as the unconscious voice of each partner, distorting their communication. Negative self-talk and intergenerational trauma, combined with underdeveloped coping skills, lead to difficult interpersonal relationships. Ben and Grace learn the scientific and psychological theories that underlie this distorted communication. They are given solutions through the tools the therapist teaches them. They falter and recover as they learn what an emotionally connected relationship is. Each chapter includes a “Put it Into Practice” page. All couples need to work on their relationship after saying “I do.”