“The greatest relationship book ever” – published today in audio-book format
by Mira and Charles on February 9th, 2010We did not set out to write “the greatest relationship book ever.” Yes, we’re proud of Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay. Yes, we’re proud of the way it has helped countless people either accept just how good their marriage really is or find the understanding they need to leave a bad marriage. Still, we’d be too modest to call anything we wrote the best anything. But they say “It ain’t bragging if it’s true,” and it’s a fact that an awful lot of people have called Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay “the greatest relationship book ever.” We get emails saying that all the time, and you can read reviews saying that on Amazon.
And now, starting today, Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay is available in audio-book format. Now you can listen to it on your iPod or in the privacy of your car. And that kind of privacy is important to a lot of people. Order it today. The least expensive version (MP3 only) is already temporarily sold out (but don’t worry: plenty more will be available very soon). But other versions like this one (CD plus MP3) and this one (CD only) are for now still available right now. Here’s where to go if you want to hear a sample.
But if you’ve never heard of Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay you might be wondering what makes this book so special.
We wrote it to address a huge unmet need: there were and still are millions of people who find themselves stuck in relationship ambivalence. And this is a painful and destructive place to be in.
Here’s how it works. At some point in your relationship, maybe even from the beginning, you find yourself wondering if you’re happy, if this is the right relationship for you, if maybe you should leave. It’s not just that you and your partner have gone through a rough patch or a dry spell. It’s that the difficulties put a question mark for you over the relationship’s future.
Now of course it’s fine to question things, but here’s what happens with relationship ambivalence. As you start wondering whether to stay or leave, it’s as if you start looking at your relationship from a distance. You step back to gain perspective. But you also withdraw energy from your relationship. You have to. You can’t be in your relationship and look at it from a distance at the same time. No one can.
But this energy withdrawal is harmful. Our relationships need all of our best energy. And so just being in the state of wondering whether to stay or leave makes the relationship worse. And this is particularly so since, as we learned, people spend years stuck in relationship ambivalence. That means they spend years not being able to give fully to their relationship.
Very destructive.
So when we started seeing all this going on, we decided to try to find a solution. And we noticed that people stuck in relationship ambivalence all did the same thing. They kept trying to add up all the plusses and minuses in their relationship. As if figuring out what to do was some kind of math problem.
And we saw that that approach never worked. It just kept people confused.
So clearly a completely different approach was needed. So why not, we thought, do what doctors do: figure out a way to diagnose relationships. To discover the crucial questions and answers that clearly and unambiguously point to staying or leaving.
And that’s what makes Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay special. It’s not just that there are clear, simple questions each one of which can show you just what will be best for you to do. It’s also that reading these questions — plus our showing you what your answers me, plus all the discussion surrounding this, all the stories, all the insights — gives what many feel is the best, most useful, most thorough look at how relationships work you can find.
Bottom line: we hope Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay helps you the way it has millions of others.
And if you’ve been waiting for it to come out in an audio-book, the time has come!
