Navigating Love: A Roadmap for Building Healthy Relationships

Given the importance of love and relationships, it is no surprise that we put so much energy into learning how to improve them. We are exposed to a vast number of ideas, formally through books, seminars, and therapists, and informally through movies, music, advice from friends, truisms, and clichés. These ideas are seductive because at an intuitive level they make sense. Unfortunately, many of them cannot be fully implemented given the way many relationships actually work. The goal of this book is to take this into account and help couples improve relationships by offering healthy alternatives to the behaviors that destroy them. What makes this book unique: First, many books focus on only a subset of the problem. This results in books that are concise, but incomplete. For example, a book that deals with communication without also addressing human nature will be almost useless in real relationships. Second, many books fail to address the messy parts of real relationships: the petty battles and the bag of tricks people publicly denounce, but privately employ to win arguments such as name calling, guilt tripping, and picture painting. The high minded tactics presented in many books are no match for the 'street fighting' used in real relationships. Finally, I've actively designed and tested these alternatives personally, over four years of my own relationships.