Should I Stay Or Go?: How Controlled Separation (CS) Can Save Your Marriage (FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS)

Fast delivery. Great condition. Exactly what my family needed.A very good book. Highly recommended for someone having marital difficulties.thanks again.

not much help in my case

Great book.

This book was informative and got just the right length of information that I could use in conjunction with councilling.

This is a very helpful book about divorce. It really takes the emotional part of divorce and let’s you set it aside to help make rational smart decision. I would highly recommend reading this before you see an attorney.

All the books in the world can't save a marriage!

Every few years a set of insights so simple and brilliant comes along that people are left to ask, "Where has this been?" Lee Raffel's insights on the necessity to plan a life event as momentous and confounding as a marital separation are surely among those.As an attorney and family mediator, I've often been struck by how quickly and automatically many professionals (especially attorneys) have assumed that spouses who breathe the word "divorce" must immediately be ushered through the legal steps of divorce. Not knowing any differently nor what they could do to see the true range of their options, these poor spouses (many of them parents responsible for fragile children) end up spending less time planning their separation than planning a Super Bowl party. In some cases, they are even lured into thinking they can sue each other on their way to a good outcome.Among other things, Ms. Raffel has shown that whether or not a troubled couple ultimately divorces, we professionals owe it to them to show that they have the chance to make their separation as constructive as possible. And she goes a long way in giving simple but brilliant guidance on the issues a husband and wife can consider to succeed--again, whether they ultimately reconcile or begin a respectful divorce.My experience is that couples who separate without the kind of planning recommended by Ms. Raffel (and sadly that's most separating couples) are unknowingly embarking on a perilous course without a map, a compass, or even a sense of partnership among the crew. They are virtually predestined to misunderstand and disappoint each other. No wonder so many spouses who separate out of hurt, frustration, or depression end up divorced--even when they didn't need or want a divorce when they separated. And no wonder so many of them end up not just divorced, but angry, adversarial, and even impaired in their parenting.I hope more spouses thinking them condemned to divorce will take advantage of this remarkable book and resources like [...]. And I desperately hope more family attorneys and counselors will acquaint themselves with Ms. Raffel's gentle, respectful, and long-overdue insights.

This book was exactly what I needed when I knew the actual legal separation wouldn't address the problems in my marriage to a positive solution. My husband and I love each other but we are in a difficult situation with an drug addicted son/step-son and our own personal boundaries. This book helped us walk through how to separate with love and a joined purpose to work this through to the right conclusion, whatever it might be. It was very helpful and stood alone the positive use of separation as a means to a long and healthy marriage.

This book is excellent

Not what I was expecting. The title of the book does not describe the content at all.It's more a detailed instruction book of how to temporarily separate, and how to plan the logistics of the separation. It would probably be good to use along with a therapist if you are a couple trying to plan the details of your separation.It will not help you address the question of whether or not you should stay in your relationship/ marriage.

I really like the contract that is in this book. My husband and I used it for our separation and it set the boundaries that we needed.

Excellent book and innovative concept. Very good case studies; one or two that will likely apply to the reader's own situation. The title misleads just a bit in that I thought the book was going to help me then-and-there as to whether I should stay or go. It deals more with the task of separating and the rules that go along with it, so that you CAN decide whether to stay or go. I found that this book was excellent as a second-read, behind "Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay." Would absolutely recommend both books for that delicate situation of being in a shaky, unresolved marriage.

Helped us figure out a path through a difficult point in our marriage that worked for us.

This book offers an alternative to radical action that could help save many marriages and preserve the friendship in cases where the marriage is over. It was nice to know there are ways to soften the transition if it is determined that one or both of you do not wish to remain in the marriage. It is also good to hear that in many cases, the author's suggestions helped rock the boat enough that the couple was spurred to actions that resulted in not only saving the marriage, but restoring the relationship to health.

I really liked the book. It was easy to read and had a lot of useful information. I liked the different relationship examples. Although not one of them were exactly us...there were a few similarities in many of the relationships we could relate to. We did use the contract format, made our own revisions and agreements (although we decided we didn't need a formal signed agreement, we at least covered the points we needed and included a small blurb about the finances as well).A great way to help make decisions in a rational way!

I bought this book based on the recommendation of another author. I was looking for guidelines about how to navigate the controlled separation. My husband has been diagnosed with ADHD recently and we wanted to separate temporarily while we work on changing behaviors. The book did not explain the contract in a detailed manner and more than half the book is stories about couples who are in crisis because of adultery. I wanted information about how controlled separation works and a step by step guide to doing it. I found the website really had all the information I needed.

Thoughtful information.

I bought this book as if looking for permission to do what I thought I wanted to do. I ate it up, because it gives such clear directions--with thorough explanations of every term or idea with case studies & every-day real-life examples. It is so fair to both parties in a relationship that my husband--who had fought this trongly--was willing to accept it, discuss it (!!!), and even plan a date that was more financially feasible for this to work!Meanwhile I have a therapist who against all ethical rules of her profession, keeps interjecting her opinion & retracting it (one week she TELLS me to leave the guy, the next week she's ok that I didn't, adding to my confusion!), making my stuckness even worse. I'm stuck still, after reading this book, because my husband took me seriously when he saw this book on the coffee table every night, obviously well read, ear marked, highlighted, etc. LOLNOW he's listening, NOW he's paying attention & changing the harmful behaviors I could not live with. This book still sits there on the coffee table, the contract still sits on my computer hard drive where I saved "our" version & it is all ready to use at a moment's notice. This makes it easier to take one last look at the possibility of staying together.The sample contract is in the front of the book--the rest of the book explains how the contract works. Each couple can customize the contract specifically for their own issues--but the reason the rating is a 4 instead of a flat out 5 is that it does NOT include sample contracts for different situations, nor examples of how to fill out the contract specifically. Still, it gives enough information that couples could choose to do this easily without a therapist's guidance if desired, and in case that worked better for him & I to do this on our own (without my therapist making it worse with her own issues projected into ours).We're both discovering our dysfunctional family roots & the damage caused in our childhood from abuse, neglect, being forced to create false selves because our real one's weren't acceptable to our mentally sick parents. This journey is bringing us together in a healing way to change our self-defeating behaviors. I chose him because of a sick part of myself just as he chose me for his own sick reasons. Now we're rooting out those issues & have hope. It ALL started with THIS book, as we both knew if we split there would be no coming back.Good luck on your journey & if you too are stuck & can't decide because one day your SO is being great but most days suck, this book gives you the clear directions you need to get UN-stuck, however that may work out for YOU. And if a separation IS in the picture, this is the fairest version going to keep you (or create) advocates instead of adversaries.

The book was in very good condition.