When Love Dies

Karen Kayser, M.S.W., Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at Boston College. She has many years of experience as a marital and family therapist and is coauthor of The Love Exchange and Marriage and the Family: Studying Close Relationships.

Had this compact volume merely described the experiential circumstances of husbands and wives in the throes of losing their love for their partners, it would have been stunning research monograph. But it is much more. When Love Dies is chock full of ideas about how, when and why basic interpersonal processes occur at various stages of falling in love. When do equity concerns kick in? Why is there a pattern of change in attributing blame for problems in a marriage? What does having or not having a mutual relationship mean? How do subtle power dynamics get enacted in husband-wife everyday interaction?These and other questions emerge in two ways. First, in systematic but accessible quantitative analyses of 50 highly disaffected spouses; and secondly, in the many excerpts from these spouses' own words, which bring to dramatic life the sad stories of marital commitment coming apart. To top it off, Professor Kayser offers sensible and provocative suggestions for both remedial and preventative interventions. Not often in the study of close relationships do we encounter a volume such as this, rich in insight and detail for the researcher, the practitioner, and the informed reader puzzled by why so many husbands and wives find that their love for their partner has withered. --Joseph Veroff, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Research Scientist, Survey Research Center, The University of MichiganThanks for the chance to see Kayser's book in advance of publication. I enjoyed reading it and I see it as a much needed and timely balancing of the sickly sweet positive views of relationships that are found too often in the literature and elsewhere. The first thing that struck me about the book was its breadth of coverage of research from several different disciplines as well as its amusing selection of proverbs and popular literature about marriage. It is also a very thorough book. The author offers a sensitive account of the disintegration of marriages and incorporates some telling accounts from people who have been through the experience. The book should be read by students of marriage, researchers, and members of the helping professions as well as politicians and lay persons who seek to learn what can go wrong with marriage. --Steve Duck, The University of Iowa....Suitable for both students and professionals, as well as the more sophisticated lay reader....The book finishes with a quite useful review of the techniques that might be used by therapists to try to restore love in a disaffected marriage....It is well written and easy to read and contains useful summaries in both table and prose format. In addition, the formats for both the interview and the questionnaire study are included in the Appendix, making replication or clinical use of the measure possible. --Patricia Noller in Contemporary Psychology- Family therapists, marriage counselors, and researchers will find this book illuminating and interesting. --The Psychotherapy Letter, 10/31/1993ƒƒ ....Suitable for both students and professionals, as well as the more sophisticated lay reader....The book finishes with a quite useful review of the techniques that might be used by therapists to try to restore love in a disaffected marriage....It is well written and easy to read and contains useful summaries in both table and prose format. In addition, the formats for both the interview and the questionnaire study are included in the Appendix, making replication or clinical use of the measure possible. --Contemporary Psychology, 10/31/1993ƒƒ Kayser, a clinician and social work educator, has made a significant contribution to the professional literature. --Religion in the Social Services, 10/31/1993

• 1. Love in Contemporary Marriage2. Beginning Disappointments3. Between Disappointment and Disaffection4. Reaching Disaffection5. What Causes Love to Die?6. A Comparison of Disaffected and Nondisaffected Spouses7. Restoring Love in a Disaffected MarriageAppendicesReferences