Couple Relationships in the 21st Century (Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life)

"[This book] offers a unique window on the intimate world of contemporary couple relationships. The nuanced descriptions of couple interactions [ ] reveal the everyday gestures and small acts of kindness which enable partners to sustain their relationship through thick and thin. By extending our understanding of the personalised meanings and conceptions of love and the seemingly mundane nature of relationship practices - what couples do - within the home, this book will be invaluable to all those working with couples to enhance or repair a fragile relationship." - Janet Walker OBE, Newcastle University, UK

"This important, accessible and engagingly written study takes the mystery out of "love" by showing how people experience and perform it in their everyday, relatable lives. The book's wisdom is that love consists very much in what people do in their interactions with each other, rather than something found only 'in the stars"; the authors convey this through the touching and often gripping voices of the people in their study, and guide us through these with their informed, scholarly insights. For academics their pioneering yet simple methodology paves the way toward further research. For a clinician there are indicators for ways to help couples who wish to become more loving in their relationships." - Professor Janet Reibstein, University of Exeter, UK

Who and how we love may be changing but our desire to be in a relationship endures. This book presents an incisive account of how couples experience, understand and sustain long-term relationships, exploring the emotional, practical and biographical resources that couples draw on, across the life course.