This was one of the best relationship books I have ever laid my ears on. For a long time I avoided relationship advice, in hindsight I have no idea why but the second I picked up this book I could not stop listening. It genuinely felt that the author was talking about me and I would highly recommend this title to anyone who may suffer from anxiety or deals with someone on the anxiety-spectrum.
If you are still reading this review, stop I can not say enough good things about author Dr. Phelps and what an amazing job she does describing what life if like for the anxious in love and how important a book it has been for me in understanding this type of person. It is frustrating that I am just now am hearing of the field of attachment types and feel dumb for not looking into this area before (when my sister suggested it to help with marital problems). The basic idea of the attachment theory is that much like personality dimensions, there are 2 (or 4, I am not sure) attachment types. The two types of attachment are anxious and avoidant. The first half of the book goes through how to identify which type you and your partner are and if you are anything like me, will quickly and strongly identify as one or the other. Later Leslie discusses the question of what you can to do if you are in a relationship that struggles with the tension between anxiousness and avoidance personalty types and unfortunately the answer is not much.
Changing core personalty traits is difficult to impossible for many and like others, Dr. Phelps recommends the only tried and true method of essentially repeating aphorisms and forcing positivity until it click, or, fake-it-till-you-make-it.
Although I finished the book feeling there was still no clear path forward for the anxious-in-love out there I did feel great about the fact the people like the author have taken the time to understand the (seemingly) growing epidemic of anxiety and loneliness that follows.
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