Our Love Is Too Good to Feel So Bad: Ten Prescriptions To Heal Your Relationship

What turns a happy, healthy relationship into a pairing full of boredom or even anger and hostility? Couples therapist Kirshenbaum, author of the bestselling Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, has identified 10 "love killers" that cause people to lose the good feelings that brought them together in the first place. "Think of a love killer as the equivalent of a ... condition like pneumonia," she writes. "If properly treated, it can easily and reliably be cured." Among the most common diseases threatening romantic happiness: letting your relationship slide as life pressures sap your time and energy, excessive criticism, not opening up emotionally, or the feeling by one or both partners that the other isn't meeting his or her needs. Because relationship problems often aren't what they seem, the book provides questionnaires for determining where the trouble is coming from, as well as a variety of prescriptions for working things out. Don't be fooled by the overly cute chapter headings, each of which is taken from a popular song title--this is an informative, very usable book that is sure to save more than a few relationships from slipping away without either person knowing just what went wrong. --Ben Kallen, Personal Growth editor