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

The second principle of this book is that partners can make love and avoid war when their primitives are put at ease. In this chapter, we have taken a journey through the brain, so to speak, to familiarize you with those aspects that are wired for war and those wired for love. Getting a sense of how these aspects work in your relationship is the first step in keeping love alive. In the meantime, here are some supporting principles to guide you: Identifying your primitives in action helps to hold them in check. Now that you know who your primitives are and how they operate, see if you can catch them in the act. When a red alert is going off, for example, can you recognize it for what it is? I’m not suggesting you will automatically know how to instantly turn it off. First simply recognize that your amygdalae are sounding an alarm. This alarm may take the form of your heart racing, palms sweating, face burning, or muscles tightening, or you may notice yourself suddenly becoming weak, slouched, nauseous, faint, numb, or shut down. In later chapters, I will discuss more specific techniques you and your partner can use when your primitives are running the show. Of course, identifying your primitives can be accomplished only by none other than…your ambassadors; specifically, your hippocampus. By definition, if you are able to notice your primitives in action, they can’t have gained the upper hand. If they have, it’s too late; better luck next time. And you can be assured that th...