by James C. Dobson
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Product Description
You've forgiven a thousand times. You've bent over backwards to make your partner feel loved and accepted. But the only reward for your loyalty has been anger, indifference, infidelity, or abuse. Your spouse may even be ready to walk out the door.
Do you feel like all is lost? Are you ready to give up? There IS still hope.
Dr. James Dobson's "tough love" principles have proven to be uniquely valuable and effective. Unlike most approaches to marriage crisis, the strategy in this groundbreaking classic does not require the willing cooperation of both spouses. Love Must Be Tough offers the guidance that gives you the best chance of rekindling romance, renewing your relationship, and drawing your partner back into your arms.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 I agree with some parts and not others, 2008-10-14
There are some parts of this book that I agree with and some parts that I don't.
Here's what I agree with:
-- that if your spouse tries to leave you for another person, you shouldn't act pathetic by begging and pleading for them to stay. Instead you should act like a person with self-respect and let them go. Makes sense to me.
-- that you shouldn't accept blame for an affair. You didn't even know the affair was happening so how can you be an accomplice? Your partner may try to shift the blame to you in order to alleviate their own guilt. The author advises that you shield yourself against blame so that it bounces right back to the cheater where it belongs. Makes sense to me, too.
Here's what I disagree with:
-- the length of the book. There are some parts of the book where the author is simply repeating the same points over and over again. I believe this book could've been shorter in length.
-- that if a cheater comes crawling back to you, you should take them back. I believe forgiveness is good for the soul and should not carry hatred around with you, it'll eat away at you. However, taking someone back who has given you solid proof that they are capable of showing such a blatant disregard for your feelings is not good for the soul. I know I'm in the minority here. Every book I've read about adultery encourages the victim to take back their abuser, but everyone I know who has taken back a cheater has been cheated on again. And these were not weaklings either. These were people who made it perfectly clear that cheating is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. And yet their partner cheated again. I even know a guy who left his wife in order to marry his mistress, only to later cheat on his mistress. It's not that the cheaters are evil. I believe they were sincere in wanting to change, but just couldn't. It's like an addiction. Therefore, the only way I'd ever consider taking back a cheater is if he treated the affair (even a one-time affair) like an addiction and sought counseling to get at the core of why he made this choice. All the books I've read on adultery seem to suggest that people cheat because of what the other spouse failed to do or not do, but I think it goes deeper than that. Just like there are kids from broken homes who don't lead a life of crime despite being vulnerable to it, there are spouses who come from broken marriages who don't cheat despite being vulnerable to it. So the fact that this person would says something about their character. Whatever it was that gave them permission to cheat (a victim mentality, a narcissistic sense of entitlement, a passive-aggressive coping style, an inconsistent conscience, whatever) will not just go away. Even if they don't cheat again, that mentality can pop up in the relationship in other forms. For a relationship to work, there must be trust. How can you trust someone with a track record of lying? For a relationship to work, you need to respect the person you're with. How can you respect someone that you're also viewing and treating like an unruly 2 year old? Also, the reason the cheater could be crawling back to you now is because the affairee has dumped them. Anyway, I'm not saying you shouldn't take them back (that's a personal call), I'm just saying sticking around waiting for an addict to change can shave years off of your life and they still may not change. I just think people deserve better than that.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Very Tough, 2008-10-02
I found Dobson's objectivity too tough on the first read, I was neck deep in my own horror stories and wasn't too interested in reading the sordid tales of others. Therefore, I skimmed over most of the "Real Life" stories meant to help readers connect or to feel they are not the only people to experience the pains of marital unrest.
Yet, here and there I was able to pull out some things that helped me put the breaks on my emotionalism. The stages of a woman's infidelity gave me a ton of perspective of what was happening in my marriage. The next book I read about how to deal with offense by John Bevere was more helpful in giving me a path to follow to help me out of all the pain I was feeling.
As far as Dobson goes, if you didn't know that sin is not pretty and that our culture is literally swimming in it, then you'll understand it when you finish this book. If you are a Christian, it's a sad commentary on the state of our affairs. Maybe my marriage will heal, maybe not.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Best first read - MUST READ!!! ... for the those who have been cheated on!, 2008-05-31
Super book! This is a detailed account of the cycle that the vulverable party creates by continually accepting/condoning inapproprriate behavior!
It gives a detailed description of the hard choices that must be made - to invoke "Tough Love"
Lots of examples from real life!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Good, but not for everyone, 2008-04-04
While the main points of this book seem sound, the heavy Christian emphasis may be too much for some people. Basically, the book deals with infidelity and says that in order to save the marriage, the wronged party must stand firm on what he or she wants. It is time to stand strong on what you will not tolerate. Seems like good sense to me, but to someone who is not that involved in a church, the religeous overtones may overshadow some of the common sense approaches in the book.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
The best advice (from non-Christian), 2008-03-21
I have lived a year with a spouse engaged in infidelity. Shock and despair have been my constant companions. All the crying, pleading, yelling, begging, and reasoning did no good at all - my spouse kept relapsing into the affair. At last he was talking of moving out and really taking up with the lover. Once I took the advice of the book, that very first week my spouse went into a tailspin and I felt much more centered and stronger. It was a week from hell for my spouse and a week where various people told me how great I looked! I have discovered that you really have to act in the opposite way that your feelings are telling you to act in this kind of a crisis. Be calm and firm in expressing your boundaries (you are free to leave or stay as you like but if you stay you cannot be in contact with the lover). Open the cage door and have backbone. You have to be willing to back it up. My process in not finished but things are looking up for the first time in a year. It has been almost a month since I took the advice and my spouse is still at home, appologised for all he has put me through and says he thinks he can resist the tempation to be in contact with the lover while he lives under the same roof with me. I read this book together with the book "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass which helped me to understand extramarital affairs very clearly. I strongly recommend reading both. I am not a practicing Christian and this orientation in the book is not a problem - the advice is very sound from a psychological standpoint.
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