Free Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin

will not be able to create a couple bubble. It will be difficult if not impossible for them to keep their love alive. However, if Leia’s and Franklin’s orbitofrontal cortices can operate properly, they will rein in their amygdalas and hypothalami at critical moments. Their smart vagi will remain engaged, and their right and left brains will act out of friendliness.
    One solution to the problem of an offline orbitofrontal cortex is for partners to wait until they have calmed down enough to be able to make even the slightest gesture to help one another. Learning to remember to summon the help of the smart vagus and take a few deep breaths can help. Then, for instance, with even a modicum of calm, Franklin could have led with a sign of friendliness by saying something like “Honey, I love you and I understand where you’re coming from. You’re worried I’ll never ask you to marry me. I understand, and I don’t blame you for worrying.” Such an act of friendliness and love disarms the primitives enough to enable the ambassadors to begin to come back online. As soon as Franklin senses their return, he can follow up with an appeal to Leia’s ambassadors.
    Most if not all of the recommendations in this book rest on the principle that you, as partners, need one another to keep love and avoid war. Initially, it can take time and some false starts. But eventually both of you must learn how to do this in a snap, without too much thought or talk. And that’s easier, as we will see in the next chapter, if you have an owner’s manual that includes instructions on what to do, and when, with your partner.
Exercise: Primitives, Meet Your Ambassadors
You can practice this exercise with your partner.
Allow your primitives and ambassadors to hold a dialogue. Do this in the spirit of a parlor game, rather than as a means to solve a pressing relationship problem. The point is to become better acquainted with your primitives and ambassadors, to learn to recognize their respective voices. Of course, if important issues come up in the process, that’s fine too.
Try any or all of the following combinations:
     
Have your primitives talk to your partner’s primitives.
Have your primitives talk to your partner’s ambassadors.
Have your ambassadors talk to your partner’s primitives.
Have your ambassadors talk to your partner’s ambassadors.
You might also try having your right brain interact with your partner’s right brain. Then have your left brain interact with your partner’s left brain. And then switch it up.
Examples of situations you might use include selecting from a menu at a restaurant (table 2.3), taking the dog for a walk, hanging a picture in the living room.
    Table 2.3 Sample Dialogues: What’s on the Menu?

What differences do you notice between the various interactions? As you become more familiar with the voices of your own and your partner’s primitives and ambassadors, you can try this exercise with more significant topics.
    Second Guiding Principle
    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