Let's Learn Together - A Fine Romance by Sills

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	Full Title:	A Fine Romance The Passage of Courtship from Meeting to Marriage
	Author(s):	Judith Sills, Ph.D.
	Publishing / Edition:	Ballantine Books, 1987

Click here for the Table of Contents of the book

xiii

xvii

Chapter 1.

Of Course You're Nervous
The Right Person Theory
Your Elegant Circle of Blame
It's Nothing Personal
The Internal Drama of Courtship
The Social Drama of Courtship

Chapter 2.

Ambivalence: Courtship's Emotional Tug of War
What's Love Got to Do with It?
The Motivations of Courtship
Readiness: The Essential Ingredient

Chapter 3.

The Stages of Courtship
Operating Principles
Love and Fear: The Intimacy Problem
Psychological Stuckpoints
The Timing of Love

Chapter 4.

The Street Smarts of Love
Cracking the Code
Simultaneous Translation
Recognizing Your Deaf Spots
Honesty Games
The Language of Love at First Sight

Chapter 5.

The Consumer Mentality
The Magic of Chemistry
Where Do I Go to Meet Someone?
The Selection Sequence
Fear of Rejection
Rx: Make It Safe to Take a Risk

Chapter 6.

115

Classic Pursuit
Falling in Love

Chapter 7.

122

The First Four Dates
The Sexual Watershed
Sexual Anxiety
Rx: Turning On to Sex
Seduction Tactics
Playing Hard to Get
Accommodation
Love Tests
Ask Someone to Do Something for You
The Shoulds
Seduction's Fatal Mistake

Chapter 8.

150

Hooked
Retreat or Stalemate?
Fear of Entrapment
Coping with Your Own Fear
Handling Your Partner's Switch
Your Best Response to a Switch
What Makes It So Hard to Back Off?

Chapter 9.

175

The Spirit and the Structure
Happily Ever After: The Plateau

Chapter 10.

186

Falling in Love with Fantasy
The Sea Change of Intimacy
Overcoming the Anger Taboo
A Guide to Negotiation
Arenas of Conflict
Money
Sex
Accountability
Expectations
The "Personal Flaw"
Family and Friends
How Much Is Too Much?

Chapter 11.

121

Realities of the Decision
The Watershed Moment
Getting Married Versus Being Married
Not Sure, Not Ready, Not Interested: The Fear of Committment
Coping with a Partner's Fear of Commitment
Don't Take No for an Answer
Convince, Don't Insist
The Ultimatum
Coping with Your Own Fear of Committment
Marriage without Commitment
Committment without Marriage
On Being Engaged

Chapter 12.

259

The Myth of the Right Person
The Myth of Romantic Love
The Myth of Knowing
Marriage as an Endpoint
The Payoff of Work
Someone to Love

271

277

Content Review

The author presents a model which describes the stages of courtship leading up to marriage. From the back of the book we find that she identifies these stages in the following way:

1. SELECTION - When you actively or passively choose a partner
2. SEDUCTION - The dating days when you and your partner decide if the relationship is romantic, platonic, or dead
3. SWITCH - That uncomfortable period when the pursuer backs off just as the partner responds.
4. NEGOTIATION - When you both acknowledge your differences and try to find a decent way to fight about them
5. COMMITMENT - The negotiation to marriage

Related Resources

• Borrow the eBook from Internet Archive ○

• There are a couple of other books here that share a similar premise:

Minirth, Frank, et al. Passages of Marriage. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991.

Rock, Maxine. The Marriage Map. Dell Publishing, 1986.