Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship

FINALLY, this book gave me the tools I needed to understand the many issues and problems that weighed so heavily in my marraige. Mira Kirshenbaum provided the template I needed to lay over my decades of ambivalence. Her direct, snappy writing style was a breeze to read. Her observations cogent and concise. She makes no bones about taking a clear stand and expressing a firm opinion about whether people where happier that they stayed or left a relationship when the issues she explored were identifed as problems.

She gave me the language to articulate and define my marital problems. It became undeniably clear to me that I would be happier if I left. With tremendous relief and some real trepidation, I gave myself the freedom to leave for my 46th birthday present. Fast forward two years -- I have never been happier!

I recently reread the book and my second thorough reading reinforced my initial interpretations. I am now using Kirshenbaum's criteria to judge whether my current relationship meets my needs in the categories that are most important to me. YEAH! Success! This book has even helped me explain the complexities of relationships to my own daughters and what makes for a quality relationship with a long term chance for success.

For the first time as an adult I am living an authentic life that I am proud to model for my children. I am absolutely sure that this book saved my life! I am grateful beyond words for the clarity that this book provided. You will be too!

Gosh, how come I wasn't taught all this stuff before?!?

Too Good To Leave is not only the book you pick up when you're on the fence. It's not just the book you turn to to make sure you made the best choice under the circumstances. It's the book you refer to again and again and again to help you learn what IS a healthy relationship, what IS love. Because in showing us what ill-health can look like, Kirshenbaum also teaches those of us who just didn't get it what we can look for in the future, when our hearts decide to risk again.

This is an easy read: each chapter is structured the same way, with the issue, circumstances, diagnostic questions, couples examples from Kirshenbaum's practice (she provides therapy in the Boston area), and guidelines...are most people in this particular situation happier if they leave or if they stay? She begins with the incredibly painful (are you being beaten?) and moves through the book toward less and less clearcut circumstances.

Take Chapter 8, for example: "What Is This Thing Called Love?" The issue: is there any real love left? Kirshenbaum reviews what people know of love (not a whole lot, it develops), discusses feeling and perceptions, and hits a diagnostic question: "In spite of admirable qualities, and stepping back from any temporary anger or disappointment, do you genuinely LIKE your partner, and does your partner seem to like you?" A poser, right? So Kirshenbaum walks you through her experience with Ann (married to Dave) who has had to work through this question. Does she really like Dave? Or does she merely like what Dave likes?

Painful. Very painful. But healthy, because the guideline Ann must confront is, "If it's clear to you that basically and overall you just don't like your partner, then your love is a ghost... Quick take: In the long run -- no like, no love." (The quick takes, available with each guideline,are wonderfully useful as memorizable, immediate reminders.) Kirshenbaum continues through the chapter with different examples of couples wondering if love is present, with more guidelines and suggestions for unraveling the knots.

This is powerful healing, because it names the problem. In medicine, the terror that comes with extraordinary pain can be eased by words: "Sounds like a kidney stone." Definition removes confusion removes fear. Just so does Kirshenbaum, in defining what we know is present, ease our hearts. We're not crazy. There is something odd here. And we are not alone in our perceptions.

By showing us what is unhealthy in relationships, then, Kirshenbaum also teaches what is healthy. You've got to have like, to have love. Quick take #7: "Power people poison passion." Okay...so passion flowers where neither partner is into power. Quick take #28: "Time heals all healable wounds." But some wounds are so severe, and some partners so unwilling to act in healing ways, that the relationship is not a healing one. Okay...look not for partners who seem perfect, but for partners who are both unwilling to harm, and willing to heal.

Where was Kirshenbaum when I was 12?

I've grown so much from this book. Buy it, borrow it, somehow READ it before 2001 arrives. Bring your new learning with you into the new year.

The best thing about this book? If you can read it without failing any of its tests, then you should feel extremely confident your relationship is salvageable and worth the effort. Fail one or two tests? Then at least you can focus your thinking on those areas if you're not ready to move on.