Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship

by Stan Tatkin

When we recite our relationship vows, perhaps we should say, “I take you as my pain in the rear, with all your history and baggage, and I take responsibility for all prior injustices you endured at the hands of those I never knew, because you now are in my care.” Hmm. How many people would be willing to say those vows? And yet, in my practice and research, that is exactly what I see couples in secure relationships doing. It is a conscious choice they make. They agree to take each other on “as is,” and take responsibility for one another’s care. As experts who understand their partner, they do what’s necessary to relieve the other’s distress or to amplify his or her elation. To many partners who find themselves at the mercy of each other’s moods, this kind of expertise may indeed seem like a secret superpower they’d do almost anything to obtain. The role of primary partner is a big one: it entails taking good care of another human pain in the rear. And the only way for this to work is for it to be fully mutual. Both partners need to become experts on one another. With this kind of arrangement, nobody really loses and everybody truly wins. You can think of it as a kind of pay-to-play version of romance, and it is, make no mistake, an investment in your future.