Intimate Partners

January 1, 1987
In this probing, widely researched and literate study on the nature of intimacy, Scarf (Unfinished Business, etc.) explores the reasons for the selection of mates and for the success or failure of contemporary marriages. She stresses the importance of family and other past influences, which she traces by means of a genogram, a kind of "emotional family tree.'' She identifies phases of marriage from idealization and disenchantment through those dominated by career-building and child-rearing to the rediscovery of each other in mature years. These phases require adaptive change on the part of both partners, however most pairs, Scarf maintains, are not aware of the nature of the power struggle for emotional dominance in the fields of sex, career, finances, child-rearing, etc., and the intimacy/autonomy conflict over which many relationships founder. The author's clear-headed, constructive advice about marital problems, including guidance on sexual adjustments, should be of help to couples at all stages. 75,000 first printing; major ad/promo; first serial to Atlantic Monthly; BOMC alternate; author tour.