These days many of us enjoy unrivalled freedom & equality when it comes to choosing & building a relationship. Yet new myths about how to live & love compromise that happiness. Kate Figes argues that whether married or cohabiting gay or straight remarried or a couple living apart the quality of our intimate relationship is fundamental to our long-term health & happiness because our need for commitment & love hasnt changed. This is not a handbook. There are no easy Mars & Venus universal recipes for success because relationships are far too complicated individual & important for easy answers. But learning how others sustain lifelong love & what really goes on in other peoples lives can help us to understand our own partnerships & take responsibility for making them work. Couples is an incisive & important look at how we can learn to make love endure.