Contented Couples

What is the secret of a long and contented marriage? In Contented Couples, Anne Power interviews eighteen couples in the USA and the UK to discuss how they found each other and what made it work. A wide range of couples are featured - non-binary, homosexual, heterosexual - some brought together by family for arranged marriage, others by pure chance, and those set up by friends or by using dating agencies or the internet. Power is trained in emotionally focused couple therapy (EFT) and she takes a rounded, constructive look at the different traditions couples form and live by. Power uses questions she puts to new couples in therapy: What does an argument look like? How has sex been across the years? Who has grown up the most over your time together? What has stopped you from becoming a divorce statistic? Throughout the book, she weaves expert, jargon-free explanations of how couples form a bond, how they fight, and how they repair. Each chapter ends with questions which invite us to reflect on our own relationships and to benefit personally from this chance to eavesdrop on contented couples. This empowers us to think about what constitutes the essence of a contented couple. An ideal book for psychotherapists working with individuals, couples, and families, as well as the general reader looking for greater insight into what makes a successful, long-term relationship.

Anne Power has an MA in History and was a nurse before studying attachment theory at The Bowlby Centre. After qualifying in couples work with Relate she trained in emotionally focused couple therapy (EFT). She has published papers on attachment and one book Forced Endings: Attachment and Loss in Retirement. She has contributed to oral history projects and sees her interviewing and story-collecting as borrowing from that tradition. After working for twenty-five years with clients in difficulty, she wanted to hear from contented couples.