ABSTRACT
In one sense most adults have been or currently are in partnerships and may therefore be tempted to believe that they ‘know about’ the nature of such partnerships. This is similar to the point that most of us grow up in families and therefore believe we know about families. Our own individual knowledge is almost certainly limited and partial and is likely to be biased. In the wider scientific sense, it is remarkable how little we know about what goes on inside intimate partnerships. On the one hand, there is popular wisdom about love and harmony but, on the other hand, equally popular wisdom about disputes, abuse and the breakdown of relationships. There are rather few detailed systematic studies of the ordinary interiors of intimate partnerships. Whilst there are some accounts of the inside of marriages, there are few accounts of the kinds of processes involved in divorce and, beyond public statements about the reasons for seeking divorce, remarkably few theories about why intimate partnerships break up. In view of our ignorance, there is an urgent need to extend and develop our knowledge of intimate partnering and do all we can to prepare individuals for these partnerships.
