Words That Keep Us Together
Learn the words that help couples stay connected, repair conflict, and build a healthier relationship.
Available September 29, 2026
About The Book
Couples are always going to have differences. The problem isn’t a couple’s differences but the way their efforts to work through them escalate and become disputes.
What couples need, and often wish for, is a manual on how to succeed in talking to their partner; a guide that will help them communicate when they can’t find the words.
In Words That Keep Us Together: Practical Strategies for Building, Repairing, and Maintaining a Healthy Relationship, Dr. Richard Rein helps couples understand why conversations go wrong, how familiar patterns take hold, and what to say instead.
What You’ll Learn
Dr. Rein has spent four decades building on Gottman’s clinical research, translating those findings into practical, real-world language. Through true stories from his practice, Words That Keep Us Together shows couples why fights occur, how to prevent their usual language patterns, and what to say instead.
- 1. Having Conversations
- 2. Reshaping Conversations
- 3. Repairing Conversations
- 4. Intimate Conversations
Part 1: Having Conversations
Words are powerful. They can inspire or create pain. Learn the cues that set successful couples apart, the power of language, and how to rebound from betrayal.
Part 2: Reshaping Conversations
It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it. Learn to recognize verbal attacks, including criticism, contempt, and defensiveness, how to diminish demands, and how to ward off withdrawal.
Part 3: Repairing Conversations
It only takes two statements to escalate. Learn to prevent escalation, reverse it once it starts, and maximize your language to get a conversation back on track.
Part 4: Intimate Conversations
The best relationships are safe enough to deepen one’s vulnerability and challenge oneself. Learn to share thoughts, feelings, and dreams openly, and how to protect the time together that keeps couples close.
Who This Book Is For
Words That Keep Us Together is a practical roadmap to a thriving relationship. For those who say too much, too little, or don’t know what to say at all, learn the words on these pages and experience a quality of love you never thought possible.
This book is especially helpful if you:
- Say too much during conflict and regret the words later
- Say too little and struggle to respond when your partner needs you
- Get stuck in the same arguments without knowing how to change them
- Want to talk about difficult issues without escalating
- Have stopped sharing, spending time with each other, or being affectionate
- Want to build, repair, or maintain a healthier relationship
A Personal Note From Dr. Rein
As a licensed psychologist and certified Gottman Method couples therapist, I’ve dedicated over four decades to helping couples build successful relationships.
In that time, I’ve noticed something that happens repeatedly. While couples often have the best intentions of engaging in healthy conversation, many tend to find themselves stuck in the same argumentative patterns. A single phrase, sideways look, or off-putting tone can quickly derail a productive discussion and escalate it into discord, leaving the couple more dazed, dejected, and disconnected than before.
What these couples need, and often wish for, is a manual on how to succeed in talking to their partner. That’s why I wrote Words That Keep Us Together.
My hope is that this book gives you practical language you can use in the moments that matter, so your conversations have a better chance of bringing you closer instead of pulling you apart.
Richard Rein, PhD
Praise for Words That Keep Us Together
Full of wonderful vignettes that describe the problematic dynamics and language of everyday couples and how to improve them. You can easily find your own relationship interactions in these pages as I did. This book helps couples to better select their words carefully and artfully. Couples therapists will learn how best to counsel their patients into changing words to maintain their connection.
In good times and bad, marriage is an ongoing conversation. I am delighted to see a book so focused on how we use our words in these conversations. It's filled with subtle and practical tools for understanding how our words can misfire and how we can use them to build the kind of relationship that gives joy over a lifetime.
Words That Keep Us Together
Releases September 29, 2026
Pre-orders help support the book’s launch before it officially releases on September 29, 2026. Early orders help build momentum, support visibility before publication, and make it easier for more couples to discover Words That Keep Us Together when it becomes available.