cover image Couple Fits: How to Live with the Person You Love

Couple Fits: How to Live with the Person You Love

Evelyn S. Cohen. Perigee Books, $13.95 (268pp) ISBN 978-0-399-52573-5

The key to easing conflict within a love relationship, contend therapists Cohen and Rogovin, is to understand one's attachment style. Drawing on examples from film and television to illustrate psychologist Mary Ainsworth's attachment theory, they describe the three basic styles--secure, ""avoidant"" or ambivalent--that develop as a result of interaction between mother and infant. In adult relationships, they explain, one's attachment style shows in how one negotiates emotional comfort. Secure adults are responsive to their own and others' feelings, and are confident in love, while avoidant adults are the opposite. Ambivalent adults are ""fools for love"" who quickly fall in and out of relationships because they passionately desire comfort and support but cannot accept it. After identifying their attachment style at the outset, readers can then confirm their ""couple fit"" from among the six possible combinations by consulting the corresponding chapter, which presents anecdotal examples from the authors' therapy practice and concludes with suggestions for managing the communication breakdowns typical of each pairing. For example, a Secure person with an Avoidant mate is advised to ""drag your partner in on the `small stuff,'"" while a Secure person with an Ambivalent mate is advised to ""save your grandstand plays for the big issues."" Although the authors have stronger advice for some fits than others, and don't always balance their examples according to gender, their approach to the puzzle of improving communication between intimate partners is basically solid. (Jan.)