Love Styles

Why You Love the Way You Do (and How to Change It)

Kevin A. Thompson

Book 05 · 2025

Love Styles

Why You Love the Way You Do (and How to Change It)

You learned how to love before you could remember learning it. That lesson is still running, and it is running most of your relationships.

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2025 · 979-8-9880-7915-6

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Featured

Series The Love Styles teaching series, one attachment pathway at a time

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There is wiring underneath every relationship you have.

The idea

Attachment forms early and quietly. It decides how close you get, how you fight, how fast you pull away, and whether you come back.

Psychologists call the four pathways secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. Most people recognize themselves within a page or two — and recognize their spouse a page after that.

The pattern traces back further than childhood. In Genesis 3, fear and shame took the place of safety and connection, and we have been trying to love securely ever since. What went wrong there can be repaired here, which is the reason this book is not a diagnosis but a starting point.

Inside the book

What you will actually get

  • Four pathways

    Secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganized — how to tell which one is yours.

  • Where it shows up

    Not just marriage. Parenting, friendship, work, and how you relate to God.

  • Genesis 3

    The theological account of why connection became so hard, and what Jesus modeled instead.

  • Moving toward secure

    Attachment is learned, which means it can be relearned. Here is the work.

Find your love style in about five minutes

Free assessment

Take the free assessment, get your pathway, and start the book already knowing which chapter is about you.

Take the Love Styles assessment

Who it is for

Written with these readers in mind

Couples who keep having the same fight

The fight is rarely about the subject of the fight.

Anyone who pulls away or holds on too tightly

And has never had a name for it.

Counselors, pastors, and group leaders

A framework that holds psychology and Scripture together.

Praise

What people are saying

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Endorsement slot 3. A counselor or therapist carries particular weight on this subject.

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For churches and groups

Reading this together

Bulk orders

Buying for a class, a small group, or a whole congregation? Discounted pricing is available on orders of ten or more, with direct shipping to your church.

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Free video series

A teaching series walking through the four attachment pathways, one session at a time. Free on YouTube and built to watch together.

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Bring Kevin in

Kevin speaks to churches, businesses, and organizations on marriage, leadership, and living with intention.

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About the author

Kevin A. Thompson

Kevin is a teaching pastor at Bayside Church, where he oversees Married Life Ministries across nine locations in California. He is one of the more widely read voices in America on marriage and relationships.

A frequent guest on Focus on the Family and Family Life and featured in the New York Times, he holds a Master of Divinity from Beeson Divinity School at Samford University. He and his wife, Jenny, live in Auburn, California, with their two children.

More about Kevin

The rest of the shelf

Seven books, one conversation

Marriage, family, anxiety, and attachment — each book takes one piece of it. Pick the one that sounds like your week.

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