Love creates bonds so strong that they often chain people to relationships that can become destructive. These links have been represented by different symbols depending on the era: yokes, chains, united hearts or padlocks attached to the railings of the bridges. They all allude to the illusion of an eternal and indissoluble love. However, love invariably evolves over time and sometimes in opposite directions. These can be that of a mature and gratifying consolidation or that of a progressive and destabilizing deterioration, within which affective dependence and abuse are gestated. And these relationships are not limited to the sphere of the couple. They can also appear in any kind of affective bond, especially in the fields of family and friendship. In this book, Manuel Villegas locates the roots of affective dependence and abuse in the vicissitudes of the couple and parental, filial and fraternal relationships, which he specifically and systematically analyzes in numerous clinical cases.