Free Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin Page B

hear new parents say, “I will never do what my parents did to me,” and yet despite their most ardent wishes not to repeat their parents’ mistakes, in periods of distress they do exactly that. I don’t say this with judgment; it’s just a matter of human nature and biology.
    Most partners audition for relationships fully unaware of who they are and how they are wired to relate in a committed couple universe. As in all auditions, they endeavor to put themselves forward in the best light. It wouldn’t make sense for someone on the first date to say, “I spent a lot of time alone as a kid and I still do. I don’t like my alone time to be intruded upon. I’ll come to you when I’m ready. And don’t bother coming to me, because then I’ll think you’re demanding something of me, and I don’t like that.” An equally quick way to send a date running for the hills would be to say, “I tend to be clingy, and to get angry when I feel abandoned. I hate silences and being ignored. I never seem to get enough from people, yet I don’t take compliments well because I don’t believe people are being sincere, so I tend to reject anything nice.” During the initial phase of a relationship, partners may give clues about their basic predilections with regard to physical proximity, emotional intimacy, and concerns regarding safety and security. But it is only when the relationship becomes permanent in either or both partners’ mind that these predilections really come to life.
    Much of what we do, we do automatically and without thinking. This is largely the work of our primitives. In relationships, one of the things partners typically are unaware of is how they physically move toward and away from each other. Our brain’s reaction to physical proximity and duration of proximity is wired from early childhood, and influences such things as where we choose to stand or sit in relation to one another, how we adjust distance between us, how we embrace, how we make love, and just about everything we do that involves physical movement and static physical space. Because we operate largely on automatic pilot, we remain oblivious to this entire dimension of our interactions. Moreover, we handle physical proximity differently during courtship than in more committed phases of relationship. For example, many couples touch constantly while they’re dating, but the frequency with which they touch drops off dramatically after they make a commitment. This can be very confusing, and can lead partners to wonder, “Do I even know who you are anymore?”
    “Who Are You?”
    No one likes to be classified, yet we tend to classify the people and things around us because we have brains that, by nature, organize, sort, and compare information and experience. In fact, people have been defining the human condition for centuries, and they continue to form new ways of doing so today. We are liberals or conservatives, geeks or Goths, atheists or religious fanatics, Scorpios or Capricorns, either from Mars or from Venus. As long as we don’t use these categories to debase or dehumanize anyone, they can help us understand one another.
    A key premise of this book is that partners can benefit from having an owner’s manual for one another and for their relationship. An important function of this manual is that it allows you to define, describe, and ultimately label your partner’s predilections and relationship style. If you can recognize and understand each other’s styles, it is much easier to work together and to resolve issues as they arise. Having the sense that “I know who you are” makes it easier to be forgiving and to be sincerely supportive.
    The styles I present here are neither new nor entirely my own. They are drawn from research findings, first made popular by John Bowlby (1969) and Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues (Ainsworth, Bell, and Stayton 1971) almost half a century ago, explaining how infants form attachments. Over the years, I