The Conscious Bride: Women Unveil Their True Feelings about Getting Hitched (Women Talk About)

by Sheryl Paul and Sheryl Nissinen

Book Overview

While family and future in-laws squabble over the menu and the table decorations, brides are supposed to sit, smile, and bask in the prospect of their happiness, even though that prospect is guaranteed to include the post-wedding depression that hits some 90 percent of women during their first year of marriage. This is a must-have book for any woman who has found the partner she wants to be with for the rest of her life and has made up her mind...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1572242132
• ISBN13: 9781572242135
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book for -anyone- who is engaged

Upon hearing of my engagement (about a month ago), a friend of mine who was six months into her planning immediately wrote back to me and said, "I'm sending you this book!" I must admit, I still haven't finished it because I find parts of it ringing so true with things I wasn't even aware that I was feeling. I end up crying and needing time just to sit and think through what I've read. In recognizing that sad, angry, and upsetting feelings can (and perhaps even should) accompany engagements in addition to the socially-accepted pleasant ones, this book gives the reader permission to feel a whole range of emotions, all of which must be experienced to make the "transformation" from single to married complete.In working life, I'm a Ph.D. clinical psychologist, and sadly have never encountered anything like this book in all of my training or experience- I have been praising it to friends and colleagues alike. This book addresses a very specific but very important issue, and I would highly recommend it to anyone - male or female, of any age - who is engaged and wants to better understand the often unrecognized emotional turmoil that can accompany getting married.

More important than to-do lists, cake and wedding gowns ...

After my engagement high ended and the realities of planning a wedding and entering into a marrage settled in, I experienced true panic, anxiety and distress. At first I feared I was having doubts about my relationship. I even went into therapy -- 20 weeks of which did absolutely nothing to help. Then, fortuitously, I found this book. And suddenly, all the emotions became clear to me. I'm going to send a copy to my former therapist so she knows how to deal with "strange" women like me who don't experience total unabashed joy from their engagement to wedding day. (Those people are deluded.)Entering into a marriage is really about finding a new identity, like it or not. And I loved being single and free. The thought of leaving it behind is quite an emotional good-bye for me, even as I simultaneously looked forward to being married. It's a real conflict.More than that, I also had a bucketload of parental and family baggage that marriage forced me to confront. Moving on to a next phase of life really forces you to look at the phase you're leaving closely, especially as you start deciding which relatives to invite to your big day. It's no wonder I was so emotional.I devoured this book, and I am sure I will enter into a much saner wedding, and marriage, as a result of it.I agree with one of the other reviewers, too. This is a much more meaningful engagement or wedding present than kitchenware or negligees.

The only wedding task that really matters - read this book!

I was married recently at age 31 and while I was planning the wedding I was disappointed that so much planning time goes into the dress, and resgistry, and flowers, and, and, and... I enjoyed it but felt something was "missing". Luckily 3 weeks before our big day my girlfriend gave me this wonderful book. It refocused me on what matters. I read it practically cover to cover in one sitting. It describes all the EMOTIONAL adjustments you make -- and aren't really given an outlet for in the frenzy of wedding planning. I feel like I appreciated my wedding day so much more because I read this book. A great engagement (or post-wedding) gift to yourself and your fiance, or to a friend who is getting married. My now-husband found it very interesting too in order to better understand what was going on in my head.

A must-read before the big day.

I am an older first time bride (26), and a mother, and cannot imagine what the past three weeks would have been like without this book. I was lucky enough to find it the first night of my engagement, after a bewildering crying jag in the bookstore parking lot. This book set off light bulbs left and right. It helped me draw connections between my own confusing emotions and the universal experience of brides through the ages. It fills a void in the current discussion of marriage experience. Sheryl weaves so many threads from mythology into her discussion of modern commitment, and it adds an element of timelessness that is very reassuring. The gifts I take from this book are that I am not alone, and my sometimes ambivalent feelings do not invalidate my love for and commitment to my fiance. I can't tell you how much this book has changed the quality of my life during my engagement. Buy it and give it to every bride you know instead of that darn tupperware. Even if she doesn't know she's confused, she'll thank you.

This book fills a cavernous niche for brides and newlyweds

I went to a bookstore yesterday looking for relief in a book about my post wedding angst. Viola! I'm in my second month of marriage and my husband and I are discovering why they say the first year is the most difficult. We're both definitely going through our own personal growing pains. Sometimes it doesn't feel like the "us" I've known at all. So, upon rapidly purchasing Sheryl's book and reading as much as I could squeeze in last night, I'm at least feeling more assured that these feelings are quite normal. The word "therapy" has continually popped into my head since he proposed last December 30th. Fortunately, since I've gone through my share of self exploration, I felt I was equipped with enough tools to deal with my new emotions. And I do feel I gave them their due credence. I was told I was the calmest bride many of my guests had ever seen. And I did feel calm, serene even. However, immediately after the wedding was over, I missed it. I felt it had slipped through time as quickly as Cinderella's carriage turned into a pumpkin. Once the wedding was over, I was off my "pedestal". What a crash. Princess syndrome aside, the post wedding reality of the "forever" commitment had propelled me into the depressed and freaked out state that lead me to the bookstore last night. "The Conscious Bride" book is just the affirmation I needed that I'm on the right track in realizing this is quite an adjustment both my husband and myself have taken on. I purchased two copies - my sister-in-law is engaged to be married in May. I'm sure she will be pleased to read it during her engagement.