ABSTRACT
The couple system goes through a life cycle just like any other living organism. Forming flows into Norming as the couple gradually comes to realize that, for the time being at any rate, they are not going to split up. Strange though it seems, in the early years of the couple’s cohabiting, they have to get to really know one another. This couple came to therapy after Heather had hit Hal several times. Among the people at Lavinia and Edward’s cocktail party is the “Unidentified Guest”, who delivers a spot of timely couple therapy, resulting in a dawning of self-knowledge in the pair. In the end, Lillie and Leo’s rather naïve mutual adoration was transformed through many episodes of hatred into a more mature, more respectful love. First, though, both needed to understand the part their separate histories had played in their marriage; how and why their respective complementary distances had been set up.
