LIFEMATES: The Love Fitness Program for a Lasting Relationship

How to achieve ""lasting passionate love"" through communication-enhancing ""exercises."" To improve listening ability, one partner spews out grievances while the other simply nods and says, ""Tell me more."" Self-disclosure fears are dissolved, it seems, when lovers reveal their ""deepest selves"" by completing 91 statements developed by the authors: ""What I feel to be crucial to world peace is. . .""; ""The way I would feel more loved by you is. . ."" Other statements divulge ""feelings"" and ""secrets."" To diffuse anger, a lover vents a complaint in a series of brief assertions: ""I feel betrayed. . ."" The partner repeats: ""You feel betrayed. . ."" There's more: writing out sexual fantasies about each other and even some erotica. Bloomfield (coauthor of Inner Joy, 1980) and Vettese developed these techniques during a rocky patch in their marriage and new employ them in their couple-counseling practice. Presumably the techniques work for their patients, and maybe they'll work for readers, too.