Relationship Rights (and Wrongs): A Guide to the Best Possible Relationships and a Reality Check When It Isn't

By Beth Sampson

Author Beth Bauer has written an indispensable guide to finding the best possible relationship. Why settle for satisfactory when spectacular could describe your partnership? Learn how to improve a current relationship or become better equipped to make great choices in your next relationship. Whatever your status, you will find hundreds of ideas, tips and secrets within these pages.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0972235205
• ISBN13: 9780972235204
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Champion Press (WI)
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent resource for singles, couples, and married people

Relationship Rights (and Wrongs) is a solid guide to assessing healthy and unhealthy relationship behaviors, in oneself and others, and determining where one's current relationship stands. Using traffic light colors as a metaphor - green for personal rights and qualities that apply whether or not one is in a relationship, yellow for the benefits to gain from a relationship (with a warning against relationships that do not supply these benefits), and red one's rights to physical and emotional safety (it's time to stop the relationship if hurtful behaviors persist). Relationship Rights (and Wrongs) helps define and elucidate difficult emotional concepts and the building blocks of what is needed to point a relationship toward lifelong commitment. An excellent resource for singles, couples, and married people, Relationship Rights (and Wrongs) above all stresses the need for partners in a relationship to recognize one another as individual human beings and cherish their bond borne of mutual respect. Highly recommended.

Guide for knowing your personal rights in a relationship

This book is divided into three distinct sections. In the first one the authors discuss the common elements in most healthy and mutually supportive relationships. The second part examines where you are in your relationship and provides a reality check for that relationship. The final part provides additional information for getting help, and selecting an appropriate therapist if you want to take that direction. The book begins with a partners' agreement that states "Both partners in a relationship are individual human beings and deserve to be treated that way". This is part of the ground rules for a relationship and the mutual respect that is absolutely required for a healthy relationship. After this they provide a quiz that can be used to help determine where you are in your relationship. It starts with determining what rights you should have and should not have in a relationship. After all, "if you don't know what is right they how do you know when something is wrong?" So they establish a baseline for the things that should exist. The relationship rights are divided into three categories using the metaphor of a traffic light. Green rights are ones that you should have in your relationship. They are part of what makes you unique and part of who you are and represent rights that should be protected. Yellow rights are benefits from the relationship that you should be receiving. If you are not receiving enough of them then it is an area that needs to be examined. Red rights are ones that are related to safety and you should have them to protect yourself. If they do not exist in the relationship then there is a major problem. This is arguably one of the most important parts of this book. It provides guidance about what you should expect in your relationship and a valuable checklist to determine where things may be wrong. Relationship Rights (and wrongs): A Guide to the Best Possible Relationship and a Reality Check When it Isn't is a recommended read. It may not be the best on determining what to do to fix a relationship but it is very good in helping to pinpoint what is wrong.

The Dimensions of a Fully Shared, Rewarding Relationship

Before people marry, they are usually smitten with passion for one another and everything about the other person. After they marry, the passion cools and usually much of what the other person does isn't so pleasing. During both periods, those in the relationship have probably never considered what their relationship should be for the rest of their lives and how to achieve and maintain that state. Relationship Rights (and Wrongs) can be a powerful tool for setting a sounder foundation for a relationship by helping you articulate what you want from your relationship. If your idea of a good relationship is simply to keep the peace, this book probably isn't for you. Instead, Relationship Rights (and Wrongs) upholds an ideal of a relationship providing benefits greater than being alone from being in the relationship while allowing enough freedom for personal growth and expansion. This concept is developed in the context of a traffic signal as a metaphor. Green light represents rights you were born with as a human being . . . and you retain whether or not you are in a relationship. These rights include dignity, friends, opinions, tastes, and spirituality. Yellow light represents rights you gain as a result of being in a relationship including acceptance, acknowledgment, caring, and companionship. Red light signifies your rights to be safe in a relationship . . . to be free from accusation, blame, complaining, avoidance, threats, humiliation and hurt. The book gives you a list to help you assess how you are doing in each of these areas, as well as a list to help you test how well you are providing for your partner. At the end of the book, there are suggestions for how to use the book to help your relationship and how to work with professionals such as marriage counselors. The book also has referral resources listed to help get you started, a bibliography of related books and a survey to help the authors find out how well the book worked for you. The genuine interest of the authors in creating better relationships is evident in every aspect of the book. Both share their experiences of having failed relationships that ended in divorce . . . and wondering after the fact what went wrong. This book represents their gift to those who are still writing the story of their existing relationships. I found the book to be very helpful in making me more sensitive to how my feelings, opinions and actions might be harmful to my wife and family and came away with many good ideas for improving. I'm sure if I reread this book from time to time, I will get new benefits. Please realize that this book isn't about trying to "fix" your relationship. It's more about helping you understand what you and your partner want in a relationship, understanding the relationship you have now and seeing if you need to make changes. If you want to "fix" your relationship, I strongly recommend that you also read Relationship Rescue and do the exercises in the Rel