Contented Couples: Magic, logic or luck

Anne Power, 1979

What is the secret of a long and contented relationship? Does it matter whether two partners met online, by chance, were set up, or had their marriage arranged by family?

The author is a couple counsellor and asked eighteen contented long-term couples in the US and the UK how they found each other and what made it work.

• Rows, sex, money, parenting – we hear how these successful couples survived when their coping styles collided.

• The three types of courtship can work equally well but couples matched by families expect it to be a steep learning curve. Those matched by romance have to weather the shock when the love chemicals fade.

• Being relationship-ready yourself is more important than searching diligently for the ‘right’ person.

The book uses a mix of interview extracts, comment and relevant attachment theory to lay out the ingredients of a contented relationship. The diverse couples interviewed included gay and straight pairs and couples from various ethnic groups.

Background to the book: My work in the consulting room with unhappy couples made me doubt the effectiveness of romance as a method of mate selection and so I began to look more closely at the other broad categories of courtship: arranged marriages and self-arranged relationships. I became aware that the similarities between these different ways of starting were, in the long run, greater than the differences and this focussed my research onto the basic question of 'What makes couple relationships work?' I recruited couples from each tradition who were willing to share their stories and from them I heard reflections which have helped deepen and strengthen my existing understanding of relationships.

ISBN: 978-1913494469