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Intimate Partners, by Maggie Scarf
Random House, 1987, 460 pages.
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The buzz:
Compelling presentation of the theory that we
tend to recreate our childhood families in our adult relationships. Also argues
that many things we dislike in our spouses are actually coming from within ourselves.
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The author:
The author was at the time the book was published a senior
fellow at the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy at
Yale University (in Connecticut), a contributor to the New Republic
and Self magazines, and a member of the advisory board of the
American Psychiatric Press.
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Topics covered:
- Why people are attracted to each other in the first place.
- Why and how people recreate their past family experiences.
- Why people put into their spouse's mouths feelings (worthlessness,
desire for intimacy, desire for autonomy, etc.) that they do not
permit themselves to have.
- Typical family systems (such as caretaker and wounded bird; silent
husband and emotional wife).
- Why infidelity is an outgrowth of a relationship, not just one
person's decision.
- The biology and psychology of sexuality in marriage.
- How couples collude to maintain painful, but familiar (and
therefore comfortable), situations.
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Difficulty:
Difficult.
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Sidenotes:
Lots of stories from actual experience give
the theory a real texture and credibility.
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Key insight:
For a variety of reasons (fear of the unknown,
strong modeling from parents, etc.), people duplicate the
relationships they know -- even if the relationships were terrible
and people try to avoid duplicating them. Also, people develop
personal taboos as protective devices in childhood. Taboos include
showing weakness, showing attachment, showing anger, losing control.
But they seek people who can express those forbidden feelings -- then
despise those people for having those very feelings.
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Read if:
You want a fairly deep understanding of how
couples (such as yourselves) come together and the forces that can
make them split up.
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