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

Your marriage is not about you. Your marriage is about itself; it is a third reality to which and for which you are responsible, and only by honoring that responsibility will you get your childhood and current needs met. When you make your relationship primary and your needs secondary, you produce the paradoxical effect of getting your needs met in ways they can never be met if you make them primary. What happens is not so much the healing of childhood wounds, which may in fact not be healable, but the creation of a relationship in which two persons are reliably and sustainably present to each other empathically. This new emotional environment develops new neural pathways flowered with loving presence that replace the old toxic pathways that are filled with the debris of the sufferings of childhood.

For example, if you have a clear sense of your partner’s relationship style based on the latest research, it will be easier for the two of you to work together and fix any problems that may arise. In essence, this book can serve as an owner’s manual for understanding yourself, your partner, and your relationship.

Theories from this stance sound more like the following: “We have problems sticking to our agreements,” or “We do things that hurt one another.” To make this shift, partners must be willing to throw out their old theories and consider new ones. They must be willing to rewire.

We can say their model is one of mutuality. It is based on sharing and mutual respect. Neither expects the other to be different from who he or she is, and both use this shared knowledge as a way to protect one another in private as well as public settings. For example, Greta anticipates Bram’s discomfort and addresses it in a way that protects his dignity. She acts as if she needs him, though she knows he is the needier one in this situation. Neither Bram nor Greta is poised to throw the other under the bus. It is as if they maintain a protective bubble around themselves. The couple bubble is a term I like to use to describe the mutually constructed membrane, cocoon, or womb that holds a couple together and protects each partner from outside elements. A couple bubble is an intimate environment that the partners create and sustain together and that implicitly guarantees such things as: “I will never leave you.” “I will never frighten you purposely.” “When you are in distress, I will relieve you, even if I’m the one who is causing the distress.” “Our relationship is more important than my need to be right, your performance, your appearance, what other people think or want, or any other competing value.” “You will be the first to hear about anything and not the second, third, or fourth person I tell.”