The Secrets of Enduring Love: How to Make Relationships Last

The Secrets of Enduring Love focuses on what couples actually do to maintain, nurture and nourish their relationships. The reader will be taken on a journey through different ways of doing relationships, focusing on the key themes which came out of the research: everyday acts of kindness and appreciation; the importance of home; communication and conflict management; sex and intimacy; incorporating others into the relationship (children, pets, friends, hobbies); and telling your own love story.

One of the key messages from the research is that different things work for different people, and at different times in the relationship. For this reason the book focuses on the differnt practices that we might bring into our own relationships, helping us to recognise the small things which we may be already doing but which ordinarily go by unnoticed, and offering a helping hand to find out what works best for us.

Dr Meg John Barker is a public engagement academic at the Open University and a sex and relationship therapist. Meg John has been studying relationships for over a decade and has published numerous academic books and papers on the subject, as well as writing their own relationship self-help books and blogs. Meg John also regularly speaks on these topics in the media, including a popular TEDtalk and being featured in the Independent on Sunday Rainbow List.

Professor Jacqui Gabb is Chair of Sociology and Intimacy and Associate Dean for Research at The Open University. She has worked as an academic for over 20 years and has published extensively over this time. Her research centres on intimacy and family life, with particular emphasis on the contemporary dynamics of policy, professional practice and personal relationships. Her recent research on couple relationships has received widespread critical acclaim and she is recognized as an expert in the field, regularly contributing to national television, radio and international press. She is co-author with Janet Fink of Couple Relationships in the 21st Century (Palgrave, 2015). Her current work explores ideas of enduring coupledom across different national, situational and biographical contexts.