Relationships are fun, and at the same time desperate, crazy, and frustrating, especially when it looks like it is going towards a dead-end. Most of us tend not to spend time analysing why we feel bliss in a relationship; rather we seek out deeper understanding only when something hurts. Sounds familiar? If you are on the verge of a breakup, here is a selection of 6 books to help you make a better decision before deciding whether or not it’s truly time to cut it off.
The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships by John M. Gottman, Joan DeClaire
These psychology experts offer 5-step follow-through advise to transform your troubled relationships into positive relationships and fostering understanding of emotions in yourself and others. Apart from elements leading to successful relationships, the authors also explain what makes relationships fail. Here is a tip for you when you are in conflict: It helps to find out what the greater goal each other really wants and come up with a solution that will work for both.
Reading Duration: 4hrs 45mins
Get The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships from Amazon at $11.99
I Love You, But I Don’t Trust You: The Complete Guide to Restoring Trust in Your Relationship by Mira Kirshenbaum
Is my relationship worth saving? Will the trust ever come back? How can things be good between us again? Couples therapist Mira Kirshenbaum helps you understand the stages of trust and how to strengthen trust with her therapy experience providing useful tools. The book is also filled with stories of couples who stomped across obstacles to complete trust with each other, take examples from these previous stories and deal with yours.
Reading Duration: 4hrs 18mins
Get I Love You, But I Don’t Trust You: The Complete Guide to Restoring Trust in Your Relationship from Amazon at $11.99
Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions by John S. Hammond, Howard Raiffa, Ralph L. Keeney
Smart Choices offers user-friendly guide leading readers to find the deep-seated objectives, to create a comprehensive set of alternatives, determine likely consequences, make tradeoffs, and grapple with uncertainty. The book offers techniques for making the smartest decisions, it might not be the traditional read for relationship advice, but it is certainly the rational guide towards an emotional problem.
Reading Duration: 3hrs 37mins
Get Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions from Amazon at $19.24
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 by Mira Kirshenbaum
Written by Mira Kirshenbaum, base on years of therapist counselling experience to lead readers through relationship ambivalence. The book contains 36 questions and self-analysis techniques to help readers get to the root problems of relationship and marriage. Do not expect quick fixes or fast advice from Kirshenbaum, in her perspective as a therapist, we should find out the answers, assess these problems and find ways out by ourselves. Even if you still feel confused after reading, you will at least feel normal about your situation and understand problems occur in every relationship.
Reading Duration: 4hrs 18mins
Get 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 from Amazon at $12.16
Deal Breakers: When to Work on a Relationship and When to Walk Away by Bethany Marshall
This book is for all the fellow ladies. It is about men, not all men, just emotionally unhealthy men. We often have questions in a relationship, “Am I making a big deal out of this?” or “Is it me that is overreacting?”. Deal Breakers is a book to help reader getting out of the “relationship purgatory” – where the present is unfulfilling and the only thing to do is to hope for the future. Future has not magic, if you do not solve the problem now, the problem will continue to exist in the future.
Reading Duration: 3hrs 10mins
Get Deal Breakers: When to Work on a Relationship and When to Walk Away from Amazon at $10.78
Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Mark Goulston
Paul Tillich once said “The first duty of love is to listen”, listening is easier said than done. Everyone wants to feel “felt”, and understood, so we should stop trying to be interesting, and be interested instead. This book is not just for the ones on the edge of breaking up, but also people who are dealing with a harried colleague and a stressed-out client, basically anyone who needs comfort.
Reading Duration: 3hrs 37mins
Get Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone from Amazon at $7.96