Happily Ever After?and 39 Other Myths About Love ― Breaking Through to the Relationship of Your Dreams

All you need is love” and Marriage is a 50-50 proposition” are ideas many of us have absorbed. The advice we’ve gotten from friends, family, and clergy and the stories in movies, music, and fiction feed these notions. (See the blockbuster book and movieLove Story for Myth 7: Love Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry.) Ideas about love banishing loneliness or making life perfect are also, undeniably, appealing. Renowned, and married, therapists Linda and Charlie Bloom aren’t here to rain on parades or lower expectations. As they deconstruct misconceptions using true couple stories they replace them with the often-uplifting truth. Freed from the notions that don’t apply to most actual human beings, readers can use the realistic, practical, and truly loving practices the Blooms offer. Bite-size chapters that are as entertaining as they are instructive make this the kind of guide that allows real relationship dreams to come true.

Charlie Bloom, MSW, and Linda Bloom, LCSW, regularly teach at Esalen Institute and the Kripalu Center, and have been adjunct faculty at institutes of higher learning including UC Berkeley Extension, and California Institute for Integral Studies. They live in Santa Cruz, CA.