Uncoupling: Turning Points in Intimate Relationships

Drawing from extensive research and in-depth interviews, an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to understand—or prevent—the collapse of a relationship.

How do relationships end? Why does one partner suddenly become discontented with the other—and why is the onset of that discontentment not so sudden after all? What signals do partners send each other to indicate their doubts? Why do those signals so often go unnoticed? And how do people who saw themselves as part of a couple come to terms not just with absence and abandonment, but with a new, single identity? This groundbreaking book reveals a process that begins in secret but gradually becomes public, implicating not only partners but their social milieu. Enlightening, accessible, and deeply affecting, Uncoupling offers a startling vision of what really happens behind the surface when relationships come apart.

DIANE VAUGHAN is professor of sociology and international and public affairs at Columbia University. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the author of Controlling Unlawful Organizational Behavior: Social Structure and Corporate Misconduct, Uncoupling: Turning Points in Intimate Relationships, and The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, as well as numerous articles in a variety of academic publications.