Intimacy Anorexia

by Douglas Weiss

Feeling lonely, disconnected, or unloved in your marriage because your partner has stopped being intimate with you? Has your dream of a sacred union turned out to be married and alone? Intimacy Anorexia, the active withholding of emotional, spiritual and sexual intimacy, maybe the underlying pattern in your marriage. However, you can have hope again. Once Intimacy Anorexia is identified, it can be treated. You and your husband or wife will This book contains excerpts from other couples struggling with Intimacy Anorexia. Their stories help to communicate hope and healing for Intimacy Anorexics and their spouses. Part of the Intimacy Anorexia Book Set along with the Intimacy Anorexia Workbook and the Intimacy Anorexia Steps Guide, this book includes up-to-date information on sexual, emotional and spiritual anorexia and provides new insights for couples to reignite intimacy. Be openhearted, in love, sexually fulfilled, and even "in like" with your spouse again. Intimacy Anorexia is real and painful, but it does not have to last forever! Start the journey of recovery today.

Genres: Relationships, Self Help, Marriage, Addiction, Counselling

232 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Meredith DeVoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of insight and written at an understandable level, while avoiding pop-psych speak. The author's passion and compassion on the topic come through in the writing. The perspective is fresh and clear. However, as the Spouse of an intimacy anorexic, I was disappointed in how little there was for me going forward. It does, however, give a lot of insight and understanding and I really appreciated the copious quotes from both anorexics and spouses. Sometimes just seeing how I feel put into words is medicine.... It is a worthy read, but if you are the partner of an anorexic looking for what YOU can do, you will have to look elsewhere.

[Robert Bogue · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s been years since I read Intimacy Anorexia. It fell into my standard note taking pattern but I suppressed the process of writing the book review on it because it was too close and too personal. I wasn’t able to be objective about the content because I was too close to it. However, with the passage of time it’s become easier – and possible to share some of the insights that the book contained.

Click here to read the full review

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Douglas Weiss's "Intimacy Anorexia" is for those whose sexual addiction has caused damage in their relationships and long to break the "cycles of pain, silence, withholding, and angry outbursts..." Weiss believes that many who have sexual addictions are also intimacy anorexics: those who are numb toward deep emotional connection. Weiss defines intimacy anorexia as "The active withholding of emotional, spiritual, and sexual intimacy from the spouse."

Weiss believes that the reality of the intimacy anorexic is sobering: if they do not take active and dramatic action, they will be doomed to live in self-destructive cycles for the rest of their lives. Weiss points to indicators of intimacy anorexia: busyness, blame, withholding love, withholding praise, withholding sex, withholding spirituality, frequent criticism, controlling money, and living as roommates.

Perhaps the most helpful chapter is Weiss's chapter on the causes of intimacy anorexia. He points to sexual trauma, attachment issues with their parent of the opposite gender, sexual addiction, and role modeling neglect.

Weiss says that part of what compounds intimacy anorexics lives is that they still want sex, but they want sex disconnected from relationship. Sex is merely for self-pleasure, not to increase intimacy. Porn is the most frequent place to run for the intimacy anorexic.

Weiss points to places the intimacy anorexic runs in relationship. They run toward victimhood, fantasy, safety, busyness, entitlement, control, independence, and selfishness.

Weiss's book is as much for spouses of intimacy anorexics as it is for intimacy anorexics. He offers strategies for the spouses and suggests what the road to recovery for the intimacy anorexic looks like. One of the exercises that I think is most helpful is his feeling list, which he suggests couples should use on a daily basis to identify emotions in current situations and situations in their childhood.

Doug Weiss's "Intimacy Anorexia" is a helpful book for counselors, spouses, and those struggling with intimacy anorexia. As a counselor, I've already found the book helpful with two clients. That said, there are a few things I wish would have been addressed in the book. First, I've dealt with a number of clients who I don't believe are intimacy anorexics, but are, I think emotional anorexics, numb from emotion and unable to identify emotion when they have it. I would love to see Weiss deal with this broader category whose challenges are as narrowly sexual in focus. Also, throughout the book Weiss provides quotes from those he has diagnosed as intimacy anorexics and their spouses. I think the quotes would have been more effective if they would have been woven into the text as opposed to listed in block fashion.

For more reviews see www.thebeehive.live.

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

An “aha” Moment

Reading this helped me understand that I had two addictions, not one. Intimacy Anorexia preceded and continued throughout the later addiction.

[Kristen West · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I appreciate the work done to define the characteristics and establish strategies to recovery, I find the book hard to read due to poor editing.