Love Cycles: The Five Essential Stages of Lasting Love

Linda Carroll's book is saturated with practical insight and wisdom. It should be required reading for all seniors in high school and certainly for anyone who aspires to making a love relationship a living breathing work of collaborative art. Thank goodness, it is not just another "how to" book but more a "what happens and why" book. It certainly points in the direction of growth without belittling the reader with simplistic advice. The case histories are brief, well told and right on point. The Five "seasons" of love are very clearly defined to make them easy to remember and contemplate. Above all, I appreciated the core emphasis drawn from Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving, that Love "isn't a feeling, it's a practice." This is perhaps the single most important truth for people to be introduced to at a young age. The natural high of the initial period of merging with our partner is bound to end and should end...for we have given ourselves over to someone we really don't know...yet. It is in the daily practice of loving behavior, the stretching of the self into service of the partner's soul, that we grow, heal and become conscious human beings capable of embracing both the beauty and the limitations of couplehood.

There's so much wisdom and truth in this beautifully written book. Linda Carrol manages to inspire, distill, normalize, de-shame and hone in on all that matters most in creating sustainable romantic relationships. As a therapist, I've come to deeply appreciate rare books like this one that are both a pleasure to read and true teaching tools. I'll be recommending it to my clients and referring back to it when I need guidance and inspiration in my own relationship.

I am in a new relationship and had long term relationships before. It is interesting to see how I may have skipped some cycles myself but now can identify them and see what comes next. We all are on a journey and become better partners in the next cycle with the same or new partner.

A refreshingly practical, applicable and freeing text. It frees minds from the cultural and media myths of what love is and what love should look and feel like. Linda Carroll ingeniously analyzes the unrealistic expectations of love as the ultimate "fix" for all of a person's problems and clearly defines the cycles that all marriage go through. She delineates the issues that all couples must grabble with to maintain a marriage relationship and defines the steps couples must take to grow both as individuals and as a couple. A must read for anyone struggling in a marriage or individuals contemplating marriage. As a therapist, I have recommended this book to many friends and clients. Christine Pahl, MS, LPC

Great book about love

I read a lot of relationship books. I really enjoyed this book because it talks about love cycles in a format that is understandable. It does not exclude different scenarios, or run off one opinion, it really covers the bases on a lot of things. It speaks a lot of truth/fact. *As it shows in the photos, I have lugged this book around a lot, it's become a little dirty.

This in an interesting, insightful read! I was able to review my own romantic past, including that of my own marriage, and understand it all better. Additionally, it helped make sense of some over-the-top romantic liaisons that I have observed, and which appeared to be cases of mutual craziness (they were!). I am so happy to have arrived at the final stage of Whole-Hearted Love myself, and am reassured that back-sliding from time to time is so normal.

Useful and interesting for the genral public

Long winded but insightful. Five stages a challenge. It is a life's work to conquer the five stages. Love always wins in the end.

Wonderful book describing how love grows and lives in phases with your partner. Highly recommended.

We go to school and college to get knowledge about so many subjects. When it comes to love we are expected to know everything without any lessons. I learnt so much from this book, and I understand better why we go through these cycles. I wish I knew about these cycles sooner!

I am a couples therapist and have read and studied widely about relationships and I found this book both inspiring and nourishing! It is clear and easy to read, holds attention with the use of example stories of couples and provides so much wisdom to help couples understand their relationship journey, and navigate their way through troubled waters towards safety, real love and full aliveness.

Great book and resource has really helped me