Every woman knows that building an ideal relationship takes work, but whether you're trying to get your man to remember to put the toothpaste cap back on, take a more active role in parenting, or recognize that, unlike the oven, the house isn't self-cleaning, you are often met with stiff opposition. It's time to get smart instead of getting even.

The only thing more universal than a woman's desire to change her man is a man's resistance to it. But Michele Weiner-Davis has great news. She tells women that all man-changing techniques are not created equal; some strategies are simply more effective than others. And based on her remarkable success in helping couples make their relationships work, Weiner-Davis knows them all. In Divorce Busting, she introduced us to her method for improving troubled relationships based on Solution-Oriented Brief Therapy, a quick but lasting fix. She also introduced readers to the revolutionary concept that only one person is needed to change a relationship.

Now she's back, only this time she has asked men to leave the room so that she can teach women -- the primary caretakers of relationships -- the art of effecting change single-handedly. Her straightforward, practical, sometimes politically incorrect advice on man-changing moves women beyond their self-limiting beliefs that mencall all the shots.

Weiner-Davis tackles mainstream advice that suggests that "opening up" and "talking about feelings" will get women what they want.