By Susan Campbell, PhD & John Grey, PhD
296 Pages
Published by New World Library
Available in Print or as an e-Book
Some couples seem blessed with lasting happiness. Then there are the rest of us, who run into problems and difficulties that may eventually derail our relationships. What do couples who stay happy in love know that we don’t?
In a word, they know how to repair. They have the tool kit that the rest of us obviously don’t have. But, the good news is that repair is a learnable skill. And we can rapidly gain it if we are ready and motivated to learn.
Successful relationships are not problem-free. They are problem-saavy. There is no way around this basic fact of life and love. People in thriving, long term, happy partnerships know how to repair rifts and upsets skillfully and quickly.
All couples will inevitably encounter challenges. The road to happily ever after always has bumps in it, both small and large. Challenges arise in any relationship. The sole difference between couples who thrive and those whose loving feelings fade is in how they work with each bump in the road.
Long-term satisfaction in an intimate partnership depends on a couple’s ability to repair. And to do so quickly.
Neuroscience proves that relationship upsets need to be mended quickly, or they accumulate over time in our memory system and cause a more primitive, survival alarm in our brain to get activated. This will increase our reactive communication, create upset feelings, and drain our ability to feel in love and happy together.
When you have the right tools, good repair takes five minutes or less! And if you don’t have the right tools, not only are you taking too long… you are actually making things worse! Countless couples with the intention to repair their rifts end up communicating in ways that backfire. They are using the wrong tools. And only deepening their mutual distress.
If you have a slight mar on your beautiful table top, a rusty chisel is not the right tool for the job. It will only make things worse. And then, as your distress increases, you will only dig in deeper. Until your most cherished table top is full of gouges and splinters. Eventually you will not even like your table any more.
True repair is a lot simpler than you could imagine. Which is probably why you are not immediately doing it. The fact is, we have overcomplicated the process of communication and only gotten it wrong in the process. The evidence is that what we are doing does not work! And if what you are doing does not work, it is time to learn to do something different. Doing things in the same way and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
This book offers practical tools and suggested scripts for resolving problems and getting your true needs met. You will learn the simple secrets of quick repair. Following its guidance, you can turn difficulties into opportunities to foster love, trust, and thriving intimacy.
Understand the real cause of relationship problems and how to repair damage before it takes on a life of its own. Know how to defuse upsets and maximize shared happiness.
Using the tools you will get in Five-Minute Relationship Repair tools, you’ll learn to:
• Stop emotional reactivity and drama
• Calm overactivated nervous systems
• Take down walls and reconnect
• Stop recurring reactive cycles
• Create and initiate a repair process
• Express anger safely
• Discover the power of vulnerability
• Heal emotional wounds and insecurities
Take action now and gain the best relationship tools available today. That’s not just our opinion. Here’s what leading relationship experts and couples therapists say in reviewing this book:
“Five-Minute Relationship Repair should be of help to anyone wishing to repair an ailing relationship. Using the case of a typical couple in trouble as their starting point, John Grey and Susan Campbell walk you through a sequential set of techniques based on neuroscience and attachment theory. With decades of experience behind them, Grey and Campbell are highly intelligent, creative forces in the field of science and relationships. Their work here is inventive and inspiring and well worth the read.”
— Stan Tatkin, PsyD, Wired for Love
“Susan Campbell and John Grey have brought together important understandings and highly useful methods for opening up couple communication and transforming conflicts into greater connectedness. Highly recommended.”
— John Welwood, PhD, Journey of the Heart, Love and Awakening
“This book, written for both singles and couples, shows us how to approach differences with open-hearted listening and vulnerable truth-telling. It presents a step-by-step process for using any relationship conflict as a doorway to deeper intimacy and expanded awareness. It is readable and entertaining as well as being extremely practical. Readers are given worksheets that teach them exactly what to say and do when someone gets emotionally triggered or reactive. If you read and work with the practices offered here, you have everything you need to create a secure, lasting bond with your partner.”
— Jack Canfield, The Success Principles and Chicken Soup for the Couples Soul
“Campbell and Grey have created a terrific guide for therapists as well as for couples working on their own. So many couples suffer unnecessarily with conflict, and here is an excellent resource for going straight to the vulnerable truth, rather than staying in old reactive patterns. I am recommending it to the couples in my counseling practice.”
— Linda Bloom, LCSW, 101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married
“This wise and practical book brilliantly addresses the core issues that need attention in order for couples and individuals to create deeply fulfilling relationships. Through vivid examples, incisive commentary, and helpful exercises, the authors take us on journey that leads toward a richer understanding of ourselves and others. Incorporating attachment theory and the latest discoveries in neuroscience, this book offers an astonishingly clear path toward the love and intimacy we long for.”
— John Amodeo, PhD, Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships
“These highly experienced authors have joined forces to help readers understand the real causes of problems in relationships and to show couples how to repair the damage before it takes on a life of its own. They thoroughly and knowledgeably discuss the difference between core feelings and reactive feelings, how to diffuse triggered responses before they cause damage, dealing with fears before they create hypersensitivity and distorted perception, dealing with avoidant partners, using body sensations as warning signals, identifying reactive cycles, creating and initiating a repair process, expressing anger safely, and finding out what you really need from your partner. An added bonus is that the well-thought-out exercises from the book are available for free as a downloadable digital book. This one is too good to pass up.”
— Anna Jedrziewski, Retailing Insight Magazine
We highly recommend getting the physical book, and purchasing it at bookshop.org as they share profits with local bookstores. There are e-books at apple books, amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com. (Note: We disavow the audiobook, an embarrassing narration produced without our knowledge that utterly fails to convey the tone of the book).