RICHARD LAMPARD is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK. He is co-author (with Christopher Pole) of Practical Social Investigation: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Social Research. KAY PEGGS is Principal Lecturer in Sociology and a Member of the Centre for European and International Social Research at the University of Portsmouth, UK. She is the author of papers and articles associated with risk and choice, women and pensions and discourses of ageing.

'Their volume manifests a sharp concern for the actual context of contemporary Britain in which people live. This context can be charaterized as a cultural vacuum: these scarcely are clear-cut and well-established societal guidelines for appropriate behaviour; together with the declining salience of traditional ideas and expectations regarding the life course, and their lack of fit with formerly partnered people's lives, repartnering people have many difficulties to give sense to their lives and to work out concrete practical lifestyles to survive in intimacy.' - The Journal of the Study of Marriage

• List of Tables Acknowledgements Introduction Methods and Methodology Theorizing Contemporary Intimate Couple Relationships and Relationship Histories The Formerly Married and Former Co-habitees: Their Lives, Characteristics and Repartnering Behaviour Past, Present and Future - Orientations Towards Repartnering 'Risk', Emotions and Choice in the Lives of Formerly Partnered Men and Women Identity and Intimacy in the Lives of Formerly Partnered Men and Women The Formerly Partnered and Repartnering in Contemporary Britain Notes References Index