It is probably late where you are. People rarely read a book like this at the kitchen table on a Saturday morning. They read it in the bath, on a flight, in the blue light of a phone at two in the morning while someone they love sleeps next to them. If that is you, this book was written for you.
the book
Paperback and Kindle. Included in Kindle Unlimited.
Almost every couple who finds me says some version of that sentence. They have been together a long time, often decades. Many have children. Many grew up in families, cultures or faiths where this subject does not exist, where there is no vocabulary for it at all, only a heavy silence.
They are doctors and teachers and engineers and stay-at-home parents. You pass them at the school gates. You sit beside them in Monday morning meetings. They are wrong that they are alone. The people who do what you are considering mostly do it quietly. That is the first useful thing this book has to tell you
I don't know anyone else like us who has done this
WHO THIS IS FOR
Almost every couple who finds me says some version of that sentence. They have been together a long time, often decades. Many have children. Many grew up in families, cultures or faiths where this subject does not exist, where there is no vocabulary for it at all, only a heavy silence.
They are doctors and teachers and engineers and stay-at-home parents. You pass them at the school gates. You sit beside them in Monday morning meetings. They are wrong that they are alone. The people who do what you are considering mostly do it quietly. That is the first useful thing this book has to tell you
What readers say
BOOK REVIEWS
- Ana,
Shoreline Counselling & Psychotherapy
"Victoria never pushes couples toward a particular outcome; she helps them slow down, think clearly, communicate honestly, and make choices that genuinely belong to them."
- Couples therapist, Amazon review
"Warm without being naïve, practical without becoming a rulebook. It does not romanticise opening a relationship, but neither does it pathologise the desire to explore one. There is a great deal of humanity in these pages."
No. The book holds no position on what shape your relationship should take. Some of the couples I work with explore opening up for months and decide to keep their marriage exactly as it is. What changes is that the monogamy they keep stops being a rule they inherited and becomes a decision they made.
Is it trying to persuade us to open our relationship?
Roughly the second half is for you: jealousy, the phone that lights up, agreements that stop working or get broken, money, children, meeting the other person, and the question of whether you both actually said yes.
We're already open and something is wobbling.
A "no" is not the end of the book. There is a chapter on what a no can mean, what it costs to stay, and how to stay without keeping score.
My partner said "no".
There is a chapter that is yours: for the person who was asked, what the fear is doing, what you are allowed to need, and how to stay in the room while the first rush of feeling passes.
My partner is the one who asked. I'm reading this with my stomach in a knot.
There is a chapter for the first conversation, with actual sentences written the way people talk, hesitations left in. And a chapter before it on what you need to be clear about first, so the conversation is a question and not an announcement.
My partner doesn't know yet. How do I even start?
Then you are exactly who it was written for. Most of the book happens before anything is said out loud: where the question comes from, what it might be asking of you, and how to find out what you think before anyone else finds out you are thinking it. Reading it commits you to nothing.
I've only had the thought. I haven't said anything to anyone.
INSIDE THE BOOK
It's a book about people. Each chapter starts with a couple you might recognise, drawn from seven years of sessions and disguised beyond recognition, and ends with one question to carry around. There are things you can say and things you can try, but nothing in it tells you what to decide.
Is it a manual?
Both, on Amazon. It's also in Kindle Unlimited. Russian, German and Dutch editions are coming soon.
