Rough Patch, The: Midlife And The Art Of Living Together

Description: 'Anyone in any relationship at any stage of life could stand to learn from the wisdom in these pages.' Andrew Solomon The years of midlife can be a struggle. Children grow up, jobs change and the things that used to make us happy don't necessarily work anymore. Long-term relationships, in particular, can lose their shine. In The Rough Patch Daphne de Marneffe shows us a way through these potentially difficult years to a life lived with integrity, vitality and love. She offers us seasoned wisdom on the psychological, emotional and relational capacities we need in order to overcome our problems as individuals and as couples. Every reader will find himself or herself in these pages. Blending research, interviews and clinical experience, de Marneffe covers the key problems that challenge us in midlife with wit and warmth. The Rough Patch, for all its pain and bewilderment, presents an opportunity - to know ourselves, to expand our scope, to grow, and to grow up.'

Review: "In this beautifully reasoned, highly personal, and very generous book of advice and analysis, Daphne de Marneffe proposes that the rough patch that occurs in most midlife relationships should be cherished. For those who can endure it, it can generate a new reciprocity, deepening the very intimacies it threatened to break. De Marneffe writes with poetry, wit, and compassion about the necessity of struggle in the quest for true love. Anyone in any relationship at any stage of life could stand to learn from the wisdom in these pages." -- Andrew Solomon "Bravo for this personable, wise, radical and optimistic approach to the often seismic stresses of marriage and midlife, by a leading clinical psychologist who uses fascinating case studies to illuminate her advice about how to deal with the significant challenges which often arise in relationships once we're in our forties and fifties." * Bookseller *

Author Biography: Daphne de Marneffe is a psychologist and the author of Maternal Desire: On Children, Love, and the Inner Life. In her clinical practice, she offers psychotherapy to couples and individuals. She teaches and lectures widely on marriage, couple therapy, adult development and parenthood. She and her husband have three children and live in the San Francisco Bay Area.