---
product_id: 1608348
title: "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"
price: "B/.36"
currency: PAB
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.com.pa/products/1608348-too-good-to-leave-too-bad-to-stay-a-step
store_origin: PA
region: Panama
---

# 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

**Price:** B/.36
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## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** 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
- **How much does it cost?** B/.36 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.pa](https://www.desertcart.com.pa/products/1608348-too-good-to-leave-too-bad-to-stay-a-step)

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## Why This Product

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## Description

There are many books that promise to help you fix a bad relationship. This groundbreaking bestseller is the first one to help you choose whether you should even try—or if you need to go. Psychotherapist Mira Kirshenbaum draws on years of research and her work with real-life couples to help you make the right decision. She shows you how to diagnose your unique situation with self-analysis and questions like these, which get to the very heart of your problems: • What sins are forgivable and which ones are unpardonable? • Is your partner questioning your opinions to the point where you doubt yourself? • What is your sex life really like, and how important is it? • Is there real love left between you, and how does it stack up against all that you find unlovable? Mira Kirshenbaum provides expert guidelines that are the key to making all your choices, concrete steps that you can implement right now, and the ultimate way to determine your personal bottom line—what you need to be happy. This remarkably insightful and probing guide offers advice that lets you see the truth about your relationship—and with wisdom and compassion, it helps you act with the confidence of knowing that whether you decide to go or stay, you are doing the very best thing.

Review: An invaluable, comprehensible, and thorough diagnostic tool - I thought I should wait a bit before writing this review. I was in that horrible twisted conflicted place of feeling sure I needed to leave my marriage, but not sure and dragged down by emotional exhaustion, inertia, and fear. This book asks important diagnostic questions, gives case study examples, and then sums up the conclusions you could draw in a guideline. If you really go chapter by chapter, answering the questions honestly for yourself, and do the recommended listing exercise, I feel sure anyone can parse through their feelings of love/despair/ambivalence/trappedness/uncertainty and come out on the other side. MIra Kirshenbaum doesn't presume to know anyone's truth or tolerances or what is too much to live with or too little to keep their marriage going - that's why it's so perfect as a tool. If this one thing is bad enough, that's reason enough even if all the other things are "fine." She uses this analogy (p. 60): "Suppose you were trying to decide whether to stay in your house or move. An incredible view or an ideal layout might make your house too good to leave and might outweigh a lot of negatives. But they don't counteract your house being sandwiched between a slaughterhouse and a cement factory. They don't counteract your house's foundation having been completely eaten away by termites. They don't counteract your living in a flood plane. It's a kind of rule in life. A lot of good stuff might make us willing to put up with some bad stuff. But any really terrible stuff has veto power over a ton of good stuff." Kirshenbaum leaves it up to you to put the good and bad on the scales and determine which direction they tip, but the chapters help you isolate separate issues which are too easily conflated or combined in the heat of resentment, anger, or fear. She says on page 165: "In a sense this is a book about happiness. And for you taking care of your happiness means envisioning a lifetime with your partner not changing or changing only slightly. Then be honest with yourself about whether what you see is just an annoyance or disappointment or if it's something you simply don't want to spend the rest of your life living with." A commenter on an advice blog I also turn to asked this question which I have never forgotten: If things stayed exactly like they are now, would you stay: Another month? Another 6 months? Another year? Another 5 years? How long? This book helps you tease out what your relationship is like right now, and helps you answer those questions. If even just reading "six months" makes you shake the bars of your cage, this book is for you. It got me out of my unhappy marriage, and I would recommend it to anyone feeling that churning awfulness in your chest, that cognitive dissonance between what you think you "should" do and what your gut is telling you that you need to do. Take notes, mark passages, talk to your friends, your therapist, but buy this book if you're stuck.
Review: A masterpiece - Everyone should read this book, no matter whether they're inside a relationship or outside of it. It teaches you very powerful and important wisdom, and will help you learn how to be happier. The book is sincere, honest and sensible. Everything she says comes with a good explanation and examples. It is easy and very interesting to read. I recommend this book to every person who enjoys personal growth, knowledge and wisdom, but especially to those who are in a relationship with someone they love but doesn't make them happy. Another reviewer (who hasn't even read the book) has tried to analyze the "statistics" of the reviews, but I'm afraid her approach lacked intelligence, so let me analyze it in a smarter way for you: 1. Most people giving positive reviews left their relationships, but some stayed. (This means nothing, just that people who are happy in their relationships simply don't read this book because they don't need to) 2. EVERYONE who gave negative reviews stayed in their relationships. This means that NOBODY who left their relationships has given a negative review. This means everyone who heeded the book's advice, when it pointed towards leaving, chose correctly and hasn't regretted leaving. Some people have said this book's purpose is giving you reasons to leave a relationship without feeling guilty. It is not. This book is a quality test for your relationship. The result can be both "pass" or "fail". The only reason why there are more reviews written by people who left their relationship, is simply because those people are the ones who seek advice from this kind of books. People who are happy inside their relationship don't read these books, hence the disparity. If you are not strong or smart enough to seize control of your own happiness, forget about this book and try to read any of those rubbish-books that try to fix relationships at all costs, and will never acknowledge that sometimes things simply don't work because they can't work. Not only does this book help you discover whether your relationship works or not, but it also explains to you WHY it can't work, reason for which it is so valuable and worth reading.

## Features

- Too Good to Leave Too Bad to Stay By Kirshenbaum Mira

## Images

![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 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61syEE8yVrL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An invaluable, comprehensible, and thorough diagnostic tool
*by K***Y on May 4, 2021*

I thought I should wait a bit before writing this review. I was in that horrible twisted conflicted place of feeling sure I needed to leave my marriage, but not sure and dragged down by emotional exhaustion, inertia, and fear. This book asks important diagnostic questions, gives case study examples, and then sums up the conclusions you could draw in a guideline. If you really go chapter by chapter, answering the questions honestly for yourself, and do the recommended listing exercise, I feel sure anyone can parse through their feelings of love/despair/ambivalence/trappedness/uncertainty and come out on the other side. MIra Kirshenbaum doesn't presume to know anyone's truth or tolerances or what is too much to live with or too little to keep their marriage going - that's why it's so perfect as a tool. If this one thing is bad enough, that's reason enough even if all the other things are "fine." She uses this analogy (p. 60): "Suppose you were trying to decide whether to stay in your house or move. An incredible view or an ideal layout might make your house too good to leave and might outweigh a lot of negatives. But they don't counteract your house being sandwiched between a slaughterhouse and a cement factory. They don't counteract your house's foundation having been completely eaten away by termites. They don't counteract your living in a flood plane. It's a kind of rule in life. A lot of good stuff might make us willing to put up with some bad stuff. But any really terrible stuff has veto power over a ton of good stuff." Kirshenbaum leaves it up to you to put the good and bad on the scales and determine which direction they tip, but the chapters help you isolate separate issues which are too easily conflated or combined in the heat of resentment, anger, or fear. She says on page 165: "In a sense this is a book about happiness. And for you taking care of your happiness means envisioning a lifetime with your partner not changing or changing only slightly. Then be honest with yourself about whether what you see is just an annoyance or disappointment or if it's something you simply don't want to spend the rest of your life living with." A commenter on an advice blog I also turn to asked this question which I have never forgotten: If things stayed exactly like they are now, would you stay: Another month? Another 6 months? Another year? Another 5 years? How long? This book helps you tease out what your relationship is like right now, and helps you answer those questions. If even just reading "six months" makes you shake the bars of your cage, this book is for you. It got me out of my unhappy marriage, and I would recommend it to anyone feeling that churning awfulness in your chest, that cognitive dissonance between what you think you "should" do and what your gut is telling you that you need to do. Take notes, mark passages, talk to your friends, your therapist, but buy this book if you're stuck.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A masterpiece
*by D***Z on January 22, 2013*

Everyone should read this book, no matter whether they're inside a relationship or outside of it. It teaches you very powerful and important wisdom, and will help you learn how to be happier. The book is sincere, honest and sensible. Everything she says comes with a good explanation and examples. It is easy and very interesting to read. I recommend this book to every person who enjoys personal growth, knowledge and wisdom, but especially to those who are in a relationship with someone they love but doesn't make them happy. Another reviewer (who hasn't even read the book) has tried to analyze the "statistics" of the reviews, but I'm afraid her approach lacked intelligence, so let me analyze it in a smarter way for you: 1. Most people giving positive reviews left their relationships, but some stayed. (This means nothing, just that people who are happy in their relationships simply don't read this book because they don't need to) 2. EVERYONE who gave negative reviews stayed in their relationships. This means that NOBODY who left their relationships has given a negative review. This means everyone who heeded the book's advice, when it pointed towards leaving, chose correctly and hasn't regretted leaving. Some people have said this book's purpose is giving you reasons to leave a relationship without feeling guilty. It is not. This book is a quality test for your relationship. The result can be both "pass" or "fail". The only reason why there are more reviews written by people who left their relationship, is simply because those people are the ones who seek advice from this kind of books. People who are happy inside their relationship don't read these books, hence the disparity. If you are not strong or smart enough to seize control of your own happiness, forget about this book and try to read any of those rubbish-books that try to fix relationships at all costs, and will never acknowledge that sometimes things simply don't work because they can't work. Not only does this book help you discover whether your relationship works or not, but it also explains to you WHY it can't work, reason for which it is so valuable and worth reading.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Helped give me closure
*by R***S on August 15, 2012*

I actually picked this book up after a relationship had already ended. It was one of those relationships with immense emotional highs and then huge emotional lows. After I ended it, I was miserable for almost a year. I got some closure through time and talking with friends and professionals, but this book definitely helped a lot. It showed me that my ex was never going to change. I mean, I knew that when I broke up with her (she actually said, "I don't think we should do things differently" and "I didn't think I'd have to adjust my life [for our relationship]"), but this book just helped me see that some people are truly like that. I'm one of those people that thinks all issues can be solved, some deep and honest conversations can solve anything, that some compromise can go a long way, and so it drove me crazy that the relationship had failed. I exhausted myself with trying so hard to understand her and make it work. I'd never really been around somebody so stubborn and uncompromising, and so I kept thinking I needed to try harder to see her side, that I was the one being too demanding (i.e., we would go weeks at a time without seeing each other or really talking and I wanted her to make more of an effort into us seeing each other -- we were dating for a few months by this point and lived 5 minutes away from each other). She convinced me that I was crazy, when really, I had needs and she consistently showed me and told me that my needs almost always ranked lower than her wants. It reminded me of arguing with Bill O'Reilly or Keith Olbermann. If you tell someone, "Hey, this is bothering me. Can we work on it?" And they say, "It doesn't really bother me, though. Let me tell you my feelings on it. There, don't you feel better now?", then it's not all that healthy (at least for me -- and that's key, since I'm one half the relationship). If someone tells you, hey, this thing you do makes me feel bad, if you truly like or love them, then you accommodate them (sure, tell your side of the story if you want, but there must also be some sort of significant, proactive compromise on your part). And so, this book helped me see that there truly are people that no matter how much you try to change yourself, they will not even meet you halfway. I'm sure there is someone much more compatible for her. And I know without a doubt, there is someone far better for me. For a long time, I regretted that it ended, but then I read this book, and it confirmed so many things. It made me proud to have stood up for my own needs, to have set my own boundaries and enforced them. Now, I'm thankful that she is gone and out of my life. I am much happier and healthier with her as my past instead of my present or future. This book is not a silver bullet. It's just a good way to think through certain issues and get some clarity. One final thing, I actually read this book during another relationship and it didn't clarify things as much as I had hoped because the relationship was much more on the Too Good to leave side than the Too Bad to Stay side. So, I think it may actually be more helpful at clarifying when a relationship is bad, than when it is good. Really, I do agree to some extent with people that think its slanted with a break-up bias. I mean, one of the first questions is : was the relationship all that good when it was at its best? For one, memories are notoriously unreliable. Secondly, what does good mean, exactly? Just the opposite of bad? Or transcendent? Or comfortable? So really, I think the book's good for helping you get out of a bad relationship that you don't have the courage or strength to end, but not so good at telling you what to do about an okay relationship. Hence, the four stars.

## Frequently Bought Together

- 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
- I Love You But I Don't Trust You: The Complete Guide to Restoring Trust in Your Relationship
- The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert

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*Product available on Desertcart Panama*
*Store origin: PA*
*Last updated: 2026-11-03*