Toads, and the Women Who Kiss Them

Book excerpt: IF YOU KISS A FROG, HE JUST MIGHT TURN INTO A PRINCE. IF YOU KISS A TOAD, HE'LL JUST PEE ON YOUR HAND. This is the book emotionally abusive partners do NOT want you to read. It sounds so simple -- get out of a harsh relationship, remove the shrapnel, and move on. But some guys don't make that possible. Sometimes you get out of the relationship, like with a narcissist, but you can't recover because he doesn't give you a chance. He won't leave you alone long enough. Alexandra Nouri knows that personality-disordered people, psychopaths, sociopaths, and their ilk, in fact make leaving as difficult as possible. Getting out of a relationship with a narcissist is excruciating, but staying out of one takes the resolve of an Army. A narcissist is constantly pushing and pulling, devaluing you and everything about you, sucking you back in and making you believe the two of you have a chance, and basically pushing some very tender buttons, all in a big fat confusing and chaotic mess. When a relationship is ending, feeling hurt and angry is normal, but if you feel like you're losing your mind, like your very survival is being threatened, then this book is written with you in mind. Those feelings mean he's messing with your head. And that's not cool. "Life," Aunt Alex says, "is uncertain, and mysterious. However, when it comes to life, you can count on three things. The sun will always rise in the East. If you hold up a cast iron frying pan and then let it go, it will not hover in the air and make a tweety sound. And if you go back to a guy with a personality disorder, he WILL hurt you again." Their breakups are all the same. Idealize, devalue, annihilate, string along, devalue, string along, annihilate, string along. The toad modus operandi gets very old and very boring, very fast. When he manipulates, deceives, and encroaches on your boundaries, that's not a power struggle. Or an argument. That's abuse. Aunt Alex's Army is the answer. The Army will brief you, train you, and give you your marching orders to a toad-free life. This is Aunt Alex's Army Manual, and here she musters the troops to lift up and empower the reader. You'll learn: * Who Toads Are * Who Kisses Them * Why Moving Forward Takes An Army * The Three Toad Truths * The Five Toad Motivators for Getting Into Relationships * What Toadspeak is, and Why It Drives People Crazy * What To Do About It * Your Psyche's Information Highway, and How to Pave New Roads to Health * The Five Army Maneuvers In Reality * Why It's Mandatory to Be All You Can Be There's nothing wrong with believing in epic love. There's just something wrong with expecting to get it from a narcissist. "You lost him because you're not good enough" is the #1 most toxic, worthless lie an ex sometimes hears from the toad, from other people, and even the gremlins inside her head. These are lies a toad wants you to believe -- that the reason you two aren't together right now in utter bliss is because you're not good enough. Not attractive enough, not interesting enough, not smart, happy, compatible, sexy, open, fun enough, doesn't matter: He wants you to believe the reason you two aren't working out is because of a serious shortcoming in YOU. Usually this is very vague, with hints and shrugging dissatisfaction. And he's really hoping this vagueness takes the focus off of the real causes of all the destruction: His absence of empathy. In the book Toads, and the Women Who Kiss Them Aunt Alex's Army Manual, Alexandra Nouri gives legions of examples of their confusing, bizarre ways, and straightens them out for you. She supports you in your new quiet disregard for BS, and helps you rise above the chaos and neurosis of his weird behavior. She translates the Toadspeak. She teaches you how to remove the shrapnel of his abuse so your broken heart can heal. A portion of the proceeds goes to the Futures Without Violence Fund. Find them at www dot futureswithoutviolence dot org.