W.B. Johnson’s and K. Murray’s Crazy Love: dealing with your partner’s problem personality is a grim treatise.
The volume majors in realism, not hope. More often than not, the authors’ counsel is that you will not survive the partner to whom you have tied your soul, life, checkbook, and destiny. It may be best to get out while there is some gettin’ to be had.
More than a fascinating front-to-back read, Crazy Love is a survival manual for the badly mated. Sixteen chapters start off by touching upon introductory matters (‘1. Crazy Love: the weird partner detection and survival guide’; ‘2. Personality disorders 101: understanding weird partners’; ‘3. How Could I be Attracted to PDPs? let me count the (top nine) ways!’. Then we are led into three ‘clusters’ of personality disorder: ‘Cluster A: Odd, Eccentric, and Weird Partners’; ‘Cluster B: Dramatic, Erratic, and Dangerous Partners’; and ‘Cluster C: Anxious, Withdrawn, and Needy Partners’.
‘Some Final Thoughts’ (‘What if I’m married to a personality-disordered partner?’) provides an exit strategy and, alternatively, a glum plan for those who choose to stay.
Those who bring a moral framework to matters of relationship will not be met along that road by Johnson and Murray. Their approach is pragmatic in a straight-forward way. ‘Does it make more sense to stay or to bail?’ is the dominant question in the work’s subtext.
The authors competently introduce their reader to life’s menu of dysfunctional partners by description and story. At the end of each chapter, it is possible to have acquired a functional grasp of the particular problem partner under discussion and his or her underlying (and more often than not, persistent) oddity.
This is a book for those who face a Sophie’s choice. It is grim, glum, realistic and—therefore—helpful.
Buyer beware: you will probably decide to leave.
Love, sometimes, promises and then fails to deliver.
What then?: Johnson and Murray may help you to decide.
Canter Bridge 
Leave a comment