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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-64375-646-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-64375-647-9 (ebook)

First Edition

E3-20241216-JV-NF-ORI

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

1 Dominant Culture’s Scripts Are Still Shaping Our Relationships

Feeling Bad While Things Are Bad

Breaking Ties with Tired Cultural Scripts

Central Lies of the Romance Myth

How Does the Romance Myth Mess Up Our Relationships?

The Truth About Love

Marriage Isn’t Love or Liberation

Scarcity Mentality

Disposability Culture

“What Else Is True?”: Getting Perspective When We’re Grabbed by Cultural Scripts and Autopilot Reactions

Why Bother Doing Emotional Work? What Will This Get Me?

Can People Really Change?

You Are What You Practice

2 Stuck on Autopilot: Swinging between Numbness and Temporary Highs

Numbing to Get By in a Painful World

Mostly Numb, but Chasing Fantasies

Building Awareness of Nuance and Subtlety

Tools for Building Emotional Awareness

Costs of a Limited Emotional Range

Numbness and Emotional Labor

Numbness and Respectability Politics

Numbness and Microaggressions

Accountability: Not Minimizing, Not Punishing

Chasing Cultural Fantasies about Sex and Romance

Getting High

Where All This Chasing Leads

Waking Up to Reality, or “Being Present”

3 Falling in Love and Losing Your Mind: The Romance Cycle

Childhood Shaping

Falling in Love

Denying Parts of Ourselves and Performing False Selves

Leaving the Honeymoon Phase

Entering the Conflict Phase

Urgent Demands, Agitated Emotions, and Accusations in the Conflict Phase

The Romance Cycle Shows Up in Nonromantic Relationships, Too

Navigating the Conflict Phase

Breaking Up

Should We Break Up?

When We Do Break Up

4 Encountering Fear, and the Courage to Say Yes and No

Fears of Abandonment and Engulfment

Staying Connected, Even When We’re Afraid

Attachment Styles, Core Fears, and Conflict

Boundaries

Boundary-Making Can Be a Way to Re-Parent Ourselves

Fear, Distorted Motivations, and Loss of Boundaries in Romance

Real Talk About Relationships

Yes? No? Maybe?

Respecting Others’ Yes, No, and Maybe

5 What Are We Fighting About?: Communication and Repair

We All Have Sore Spots

When Your Sore Spot Gets Rubbed

Listening

Apologizing

Forgiveness

Maintaining Connection

Acknowledging When It Works

Attachment to Others and Feeling Ourselves

6 Revolutionary Promiscuity—Getting Free Together

Allowing, Accepting, or Even Liking Our Differences

Generating Our Own Safety and Security

Not All Relationships Are for Everything—Being Here for What’s Here

Being Intentional About Levels of Connection

Jealousy

What We Can Ask of Others When We Are Jealous

Accepting Change

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Discover More

About the Author

Also by Dean Spade

Advance Praise for "Love in a F*cked-Up World"

Notes

Cover

Table of Contents

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