Robin Norwood

Robin Norwood spent fifteen years treating addiction, much of it in families where one partner drank, and Women Who Love Too Much came out of those case notes. Published in 1985 by a licensed marriage and family therapist born on 27 July 1945, the book argues that some women repeat one fixed pattern: they are drawn to men who are unavailable or unwell, mistake anxiety for love, and stay in order to fix someone. Norwood borrowed the twelve-step framework from recovery groups and treated the pattern as something to be worked on rather than reasoned away, and readers formed their own groups around the text. It topped the American advice bestseller list in 1987, has over three million copies in print, and appears in more than thirty languages. She followed it with Letters from Women Who Love Too Much and Daily Meditations for Women Who Love Too Much, illustrated by Richard Torregrossa, then Why Me? Why This? Why Now? She lives on a ranch on the central coast of California.