Ellen Sue Stern creates a Relationship
Workshop in a Box!
By Mordecai Specktor
When it comes to working on improving male-female relationships, women end up
doing the bulk of the heavy lifting, figuratively speaking. So, when local author
Ellen Sue Stern was approached by a publisher to create a book on improving relationships,
she cast about for an approach that would appeal to men, as well as to the women
who have been her primary target in 16 previous books.
"Up until this point, my work had been directed mostly for women," Stern
explained during a recent visit to the Jewish World offices. "It was getting
to the point where I was frustrated with only writing for women, and only speaking
to women; because women were tired of, quote: 'doing all the work in the relationship,'
and men weren’t really being given due credit for being willing to participate
in improving their relationships."
Stern suggests that any man would gain mightily in esteem from his wife or partner
if he initiated a dialogue on the state of their relationship. "So, the
question was, how to make this really speak to men?" Stern recalls. "The
way that I came up with it was that I was at Home Depot. I had never gone to
Home Depot, and I was there with a guy. I walked in and I looked around, and
I was just like, ‘Where are the shoes?’; the place was completely
foreign to me." Her friend, on the other hand, "was just thrilled to
be in there." Surrounded by hammers and saws and plumbing fixtures, Stern
hit on the concept for her book: "Let’s make it a toolbox. Let’s
make it in language that men respond to."
The result is The Relationship Tool Kit: Ellen Sue Stern?s Building Blocks to
Greater Intimacy (Running Press), packaged with a 96-page workbook, a CD with "guided
visualization exercises", a small hourglass "love timer," a "relationship
blueprint," thank-you notes and "barter cards." A box full of
everything you'll need "to forge a lifetime of love."
Couples will need some additional items, such as a candle, wine, and "sensual" fruit
(ripe strawberries, mango or banana) and chocolate, which come into play when
they get to "share some intimate information about sexual desires." (That
activity comes toward the end of what is designed as a four-hour experience.)
go to page 2...
