Partial profile · Step-by-step Guide — full narrative profile planned
How to Be an Adult in Relationships
A psychotherapist on a Buddhist path shows how mature love is built by giving and receiving the five A's of love—attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing—through the combined practice of psychological work and mindful, heartful spiritual practice.
This is a step-by-step procedural book — we're building it into Stepcode, with a profile to follow.
What it’s about
How to Be an Adult in Relationships is a maintenance manual for love, arguing that all the love in the world will not make a relationship work without skill—and that skill is attainable. David Richo synthesizes Western psychology and Eastern/Western spiritual practice to show that the same five components of love (the five A's) that we needed as children are precisely what we need for adult intimacy and for compassionate service to the world. He maps the heroic journey of relationship through its phases—investigation, romance, conflict, and commitment—showing how our childhood wounds resurface in adult bonds, how to work conflicts out by addressing, processing, and resolving them, and how to let go of the arrogant and impoverished ego through mindfulness and loving-kindness. Practical, tender, and rich with practices, the book teaches readers to grieve the past, honor boundaries, transcend fear, and love unconditionally while committing conditionally, so that intimate love becomes a path to both personal wholeness and universal compassion.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- An adult who longs to love and be loved and to build a lasting, intimate relationship that truly fulfills their deepest needs.
- The problem
- Their relationships keep faltering through conflict, fear, betrayal, or endings, and love alone isn't making things work. They feel needy, scared, unlovable, or trapped—haunted by old wounds and unsure they are even cut out for intimacy.
- The plan
- Recognize the five A's of love and learn to give and receive them mindfully.
- Grieve and let go of the childhood past so it no longer sabotages the present.
- Investigate a partner wisely and choose based on your deepest needs, values, and wishes.
- Work conflicts out by addressing, processing, and resolving them.
- Let go of the ego's fear, attachment, control, and entitlement through mindfulness and loving-kindness.
- The payoff
- Relating mindfully without blind possessiveness or crippling fear of closeness. · Giving and receiving the five A's, working problems out, and keeping agreements. · Loving unconditionally while committing conditionally, free of neediness.
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