Full Description

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ex*

The sex education you never got: what to do when the sex is over—and you're left with an Ex

In 1969, David Reuben, MD, published his groundbreaking book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*. Forty years later, we know plenty about sex. The thing we're so confused about, however, is what to do when the sex is over, and you're left with an Ex.

In the age of Google, Facebook, and Twitter, it's almost impossible to leave the past behind. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ex* is the answer for any woman whose former relationship is keeping her from finding true love. Written by two family therapists, this book helps readers learn:

• Who holds the power in your Ex relationships
• The best way to deal with an unavoidable Ex
• Solutions to everyday Ex issues (including kids)
• How to handle your boyfriend's or husband's Exes
• How to get resolution with any Ex
• How to learn from your Exes so as to make a better choice the next time

This sassy, take-charge manual is a must-read for any woman who has an Ex.

Praise for Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ex*

"No matter how codependent or crazy your relationship with your Ex has been, this book will show you how to live and love again."
Melody Beattie | bestselling author, The New Codependency and Codependent No More

"An insightful, entertaining and essential guide to surviving the turmoil and trauma of breakups and divorce. Read this book and you'll learn to survive and thrive in the aftermath of an unhappy relationship."
Ben Sherwood | bestselling author, The Survivor's Club

"If you have an Ex and kids, this book is a must read (unless you want your kids to spend their college savings on therapy)!"
Romi Lassally | author, True Mom Confessions: Real Moms Get Real | founder of truuconfessions.com

"I thought I knew everything there was to know about my Ex. But I never would have guessed she'd be able to turn some of our most shameful follies into such valuable advice. Now our Ex life couldn't be better!"
Michelle's Ex

"When I first became an Ex it was like a brick to the head or, perhaps in better moments, a knee to the groin. But this book adds the one metaphor I was missing—a breath of fresh air. Heather worked hard to become a 'good' Ex, where drama takes a backseat to what's important—our kids and our futures. This book can show everyone that the path from Ex to next can be filled with hope and happiness."
Heather's Ex

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Excerpt

Excerpt

Reviews

Reviews

Library Journal
Psychotherapists Bell and Fiordaliso guide readers toward making the most out of failed relationships with friends and lovers, i.e., view them as opportunities to gain personal insight. Through anecdotes and stories, they discuss such issues as how to recover power from a toxic ex, how to deal with unavoidable exes, and how to handle one’s spouse’s exes. The lists, inventories, dos/don’ts, and examples make for an entertaining and enlightening read. Adult women will especially embrace this positive twist on the ex genre.

Basil and Spice James Holland
Once the Sizzle in sex ends, all that is usually left is the “Ex.” “So what’s an Ex? The definition of an Ex is simple. It’s a former husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, fling, one stand, affair—all of them! An Ex is anyone with whom you’ve been sexually or romantically involved.” The name of this book is obviously a play on the title of the classic Everything You Always Wanted to Know abut Sex by Dr. David Reuben. While this reviewer’s memory may be playing tricks on him, I believe even the cover design of this book is a play on the earlier Reuben book cover?

Not so long ago, when a marriage, affair or promising romance ended that was indeed the end except for alimony payments and children’s visiting rights. One member of the couple usually stayed put usually in the family home and the other took off for the parts unknown, maybe to never be seen or heard from again. If that was always the case, it certainly isn’t that way anymore. People generally stay in the same neighborhood and at the same jobs often in the same company. Both parties of the split often see each other everyday and sometimes they also see and work with the third parties who may have created the split. When kids are present, there is often continuing relationships and sharing of custody. That arrangement is often best for the children of the union. This book helps explain why separated couples often remain or become good friends, confidants, advisors or even share "booty calls" or provide “Ex-Sex.” In other words, it’s a whole new world—relationship-wise.

As the authors write, “The prospect of living without Exes can seem boring, lonely, and scary. Yet the prospect of living with difficult Exes can seem harrowing, depressing and overwhelming…This book will help you take advantage of what Exes offer: an opportunity to gain personal insight and stop getting stuck in the past. It will teach you how to manage these relationships better. We want to help you erase the negative effect of Exes and move forward with your life.”

Some of the topics examined in this fascinating self-help guide include “How to make a better choice next time,” “What your Exes reveal about you,” “The best way to deal with an unavoidable Ex,” and “How to handle your boyfriend’s or husband’s Exes.”

“Through anecdotes and stories from clients, friends, and any strangers we could find, you’ll see why Exes can be the hook holding your back.” The two women authors do a pretty decent job of fulfilling these rather lofty goals. Pandora’s box contained “greed, vanity, slander, lying, envy, and pining. Oddly, these are all the same traits associated with unresolved Ex issues…by unleashing them from your heart, you can be like Pandora and close the box with only one thing remaining inside: hope.”

The two psychotherapist authors know about what they write and recommend. They also know how to communicate that knowledge. While every couple’s Ex is different, the chances are excellent that the reader will discover some excellent advice for getting through their personal split and living a happy life after that split. This book is important because breakups have never been as simple and clear-cut as society claims. This book is as necessary as Dr. Reuben’s book about sex was. After sex always comes reality whether it is a child, desertion, unfaithfulness, money problems or gold-digging mistresses. Relationships are so much more complicated than they used to be, or the rules were more clear-cut in the past. Mistakenly, “Thinking Men Speak the Same Language” is an important fact of life examined by this tome. “Women Think They Have to Tell Men How to Behave” is also explained rather succinctly (bluntly). As a typical male, I very much enjoyed this book. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too wordy for my taste. It was not filled with endless chick-chat that caused my eyes to glaze over and my mind to escape into some sexual or sports fantasy. The book includes lots of pithy quotes from other sources that the reader might wish to examine further by examining the other sources in detail.

This book won’t put the “S” back in “sex,” but it will help handle and resolve some of the damage caused by “failed love affairs” and let Exes move on with the rest of their lives without having to overcome hopeless, debilitating clinical depression.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ex* (SourceBooks/ Sept 2009) by Michelle Fiordaliso, MSW and Heather Belle, MFC

Sacramento Book Review
Who knew that once you said goodbye, you’d spend so much time getting over it? Songs have been written about it, moms promise personal vendettas over it, and, most likely in some form, you are wounded and badged because of it. Breaking up is hard to do, but the real challenge comes in the redefinement, in the work. Being one part of the all-encompassing couple can leave one feeling “exed” out of life as they knew it when the relationship ceases to exist. Heather Belle and Michelle Fiordaliso have teamed up to create a realistically informative and positive guide on letting go of the past, drawing boundaries, and inviting hope into your present circumstances in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ex*. This portable and hilarious narrative (so real it’s like talking with two best girlfriends on the sofa in your sweats) offers advice and stories from the trenches, including personal accounts from the authors’ own experiences. There is something for everyone, from dealing with the exes that you “have to keep” to dividing things accumulated in the relationship (including ugly coffee tables, friends, and hangout spots) to taking the quotes off of “just friends.” Much like an ex, minus the regrets, this is a great book to read, love, learn from, and pass on.

The Frisky
Think you know everything there is to know about that ex you’ve obsessed over? Well, authors Heather Belle and Michelle Fiordaliso want you to know that there is so, so much more. (Curses!) The two psychotherapists have both “professional and personal experience with exes.” Some of us could use some pro insight on factors like how to be friends with an ex, whether you should get back together, why you really shouldn’t and, say, moving on. Their new book Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Ex tackles all of this. Anything that helps us step away from the dramz is probably a good thing, right? Read it when you’re contemplating a drunk dial.

The Independent
For those who have loved and lost, you may think you wrote the book about exes, but Heather Belle and Michelle Fiordaliso have literally written the book, which tells you everything you need to know about how to deal with those who once shared your bed and now you wish dead or those you wish were still there sharing pillow talk. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ex combines their personal and professional experiences as counselors to give you practical guidelines to negotiate the emotional minefield or should I say mindfield of ex spouses, lovers, flings, or "friends" so you have energy to manifest a positive new relationship. And best yet, the authors are laugh out loud funny.

The authors point out that in today’s culture with delays in marriage and a high divorce rate, there are more exes than ever, and the ties that bind are not necessarily clean cut when you say good-bye to romantic attachment. They asked a woman next to them if she was in a relationship, and she said, "No, but I do have a very serious Ex." Instead of an ardent single-minded search for Mr. or Ms. Right, many people are compartmentalizing and hanging onto old relationships from Mr. or Ms. Okay For The Moment. One woman went back to one ex for sex, one ex for technical support, and another for a shoulder to cry on in a time of need. The problem, as the authors point out is, "By snacking on all these men, she never gets hungry enough to look for a real meal."

In the olden days you could break up and curse your ex’s ancestors and burn his love letters on the hearth and get back to milking the cow. Now you’re having "textual intercourse" or stalking her on Facebook before you go out to the bar where you hope you’ll "just bump into her," for a late night booty call.

Heather and Michelle put a compassionate but brutal mirror up to the reader to ask the questions which lead to a true answer whether you and your ex are really "just friends" or if you are still pining away or in a toxic relationship. To quote them, "Think about what a friend is: a friend is a supporter, an ally, someone who’s on your team. Does that describe your ex?"

If you have a boomerang ex, the one who keeps coming back in, they give you the tools to evaluate the relationship advising that you maintain clear boundaries, forgive yourself for wasted time and energy, and move on. They also give very valuable tools to evaluate whether your new partner’s ex is trouble or not. Does he have clandestine contact with her? Does he turn to her when he’s feeling disconnected from you? Does he use her as a couples counselor? It is fine to process emotions and miss someone and grieve, but it doesn’t mean you have to act on that impulse to reach out to or respond to your ex’s efforts to reach out to you. Emily Post will not descend from heaven and bonk you on the head if you don’t respond to his text message.

We hate to admit it but many of us use our ex for drama or as they call it ex-citement. Focusing on an ex can distract you from painful feelings and fear of taking a risk on the future. The authors admit that when they stopped talking about their exes, and focused on the future, that’s when they created the time and space to write this book.

Our psychologies are complex things and Michelle and Heather help the reader look at the deeper issues surrounding exes and our fears. They suggest by giving something a realistic name it becomes more manageable. "I’ll always be alone," becomes "I’m lonely."

Most of all, the authors give us great hope. "There’s a reason why the windshield is so big and the rear view mirror is so small: it’s because where you’re going is more important than where you’ve been." Bravo, ladies!

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Specs / Support

Trade Paper Specfications

• Length: 7.00 in
• Width: 5.25 in
• Height: 0.00 in
• Weight: 10.00 oz
• Page Count: 288 pages