Passionate Marriage: Love, Sex, and Intimacy in Emotionally Committed Relationships Book

This is a book I needed to read when I was a teenager. My review of five stars is not based on how well the author writes or communicates, but rather how important I think this information is. We grow up with a distorted sense of what love and intimacy are all about. That is to say we think it is all about us and our needs. We seek to fulfill ourselves through our relationships and get our needs met and our very selves validated by other people. The Passionate Marriage approach (although I think it applies across all relationships and not just marriage) is that we must first validate and develop ourselves and only then can we truly experience the intimacy that we desire. Any intimacy that is based on fear and neediness can never truly fulfill you. Intimacy based on self-fulfillment and personal strength means that you are choosing your partner for who they are and NOT who you need them to be for you. I've read other books that contain these same ideas (Harriet Lerner's "Dance of" books for example) but for some reason Passionate Marriage was the one that really connected with me at a visceral level.