Love’s Labour

The bestselling debut from psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life, was about learning to live; his much-anticipated new book is about learning to love. Grosz reveals how to navigate the obstacles – the jealousies, grievances, boredom and betrayals – which can get in the way of two people falling, and staying, in love.

From the woman who can’t post her wedding invitations and then, decades later, can’t decide whether to get divorced, to the man who struggles with feelings of guilt after his partner’s death, to the couple who dread date night after thirty years of marriage: here are candid and surprising conversations from the consulting room.

To love is to be vulnerable and be forever under threat from our desires. It is Grosz’s unerring ability, as an analyst and a writer, to locate what hides behind the pain of heartsickness, and to help his patients and his readers reach new understandings of their own predicaments. The great task of life, and the great labour of love, is to see our self and others clearly – we have the capacity to be frustrating as well as generous, cruel as well as loving. But in surrendering to one we hope to love, we find we are not defeated, but more truly ourselves.