Intimate partner relationships appear effortless for some people. Do they have some secret recipe for success or were they just lucky enough to find their One? Around half of us believe that The One – our true love – has evaded us, and that a series of failed romances is down to being unlucky in love. The One is a myth; propagated by romantic media for time immemorial. Successful intimate relationships work because the partners involved had little expectation of each other before they met. Rather than believing that true love was a thing they had to find, they instinctively found a way of working together, with a fundamental acceptance of difference and the inevitability of change. Following eight years of cultural research the author reveals why some people achieve a lasting love, while others always seem to struggle in intimate partnerships.Readers are invited to re-work their understanding of relationships through the lens of romantic ideology.With an ultra-fresh look at attachment theory, and a clear explanation of established relationship dynamics, this book will leave the reader wondering why they were never taught this in school. Herein lies a confluent, rational approach to building your own romance.