In Each Other’s Care

Tami Simon: Hello friends. My name’s Tami Simon and I’m the founder of Sounds True. I want to welcome you to the Sounds True podcast: Insights at the Edge. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True’s new membership community and digital platform. It’s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original, premium, transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening, and special weekly live shows, including a video version of Insights at the Edge, with an after-show community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you’ll come join us, explore, come have fun with us and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com. 

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In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Stan Tatkin. Stan is a teacher, clinician, researcher, and developer of the psychobiological approach to couples’ therapy known as PACT. He’s beloved by colleagues, his friends at Sounds True, and clients alike. Renowned as an expert on human behavior and couple relationships, he’s known as a therapist’s therapist and has trained thousands of therapists around the world. He’s the author of six bestselling books, including Wired for Love and Wired for Dating, We Do, and a new book from Sounds True. It’s called In Each Other’s Care: A Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts and How to Work Through Them. Stan, welcome.

 

Stan Tatkin: Hey, Tami. Thank you. How are you?

 

TS: I’m great. Thanks for asking. How are you?

 

ST: I’m dandy actually. Really good.

 

TS: I’m happy to hear that and happy to be with you.

 

ST: Same here.

 

TS: One of the themes you emphasized throughout your work is this notion of cultivating secure functioning relationships.

 

ST: Yes.

 

TS: What are they? What are the characteristics of a secure functioning relationship?

 

ST: So, secure functioning is not the same as secure attachment, which is a biological matter of bonding. Secure functioning is more along the lines of social contract theory. Basically, if it’s two people, could be three, could be four, right? It doesn’t matter, but if it’s two people, it assumes that they are equals, shared power, shared authority, coming together in a symmetric relationship, unlike childhood, based on terms and conditions—deal or no deal—and also based on the idea that the relationship must always remain fair, just, and mutually sensitive, in a full collaboration/cooperation even under stress. Simple, but very hard to do. 

 

TS: Tell me why it’s so hard to do.

 

ST: Because we’re human primates and human primates are, by nature, difficult animals. We’re animals. Imagine your two-year-old with all the rights of an adult. That would be a little frightening. Two-year-olds represent the off-the-factory-line human primate, which means that we’re fundamentally, along with other wonderful things, but fundamentally selfish, self-centered, warlike, aggressive, opportunistic, moody, fickle, and xenophobic, and therefore knowing that we have to be civilized with agreements and permission to enforce laws and principles and all sorts of things that allow us to get along with each other. The same goes for a couple. That union, alliance has to be based on agreements and principles. Basically, the couple co-creating a culture from scratch, their own culture.

 

TS: Let’s make it real for people and use you as an example, and then maybe I’ll talk a little bit about me, but let’s start with you. In terms of embracing secure functioning relationships, what part has been the hardest for you to be like, “Oh yeah, I know how to do this in this situation”? What’s been your sort of growth path?

 

ST: Moving from a one-person system to a two-person psychological system for me has been a matter of growth and growing up. It’s been a matter of understanding how these systems work—not how I would like them to work, but how they do actually work—and then also learning to be disciplined by doing the right thing when the right thing is the hardest to do. And that is basically dealing with my own internal three-year-old, my need to be right, my need to have things my way, my need to be understood and cared for without having to do anything. Basically, my personhood as a single person coming out of a family where I was privileged. So, all of that with the responsibilities of being with another person in a team-like situation. And also to be a parent dealing with the raising of a child. So, all of this has challenged me, because I value my relationships to be better, to do better, which is a constant. It’s still happening today. That’s a work in progress. 

 

TS: This notion of a two-person psychological system. Aren’t I also a one-person psychological system? So, am I both at the same time? If I’m in a committed relationship, like I’m also just me. I have my needs, my things. I don’t want to think about your needs and your things, and it seems like when you describe this secure functioning two-person psychological unit, it’s all we, we, we, we all the time. What about the I?

 

ST: Yeah, what’s interesting too, because our theories and our approaches, our philosophies often track along with the greater culture, the greater society. So, there was a time when we and us became sort of an anathema in popular psychotherapy with gestalt and humanistic existentialism. Getting away from we to I, Murray Bowen, right? Differentiation—I, me, my, what I feel like—as opposed to this ego mass of fusion or merging. But today we also have gone too far with the idea of independence. Independence as opposed to interdependence, where we are not self-made, where we are not lone wolves, where we are accountable in relationships. We’re pack animals.

So, this idea of getting along and being relational is an imperative for society to continue and for relationships to be long-lived and happy. I’m concerned with both of those, happiness and longevity. The we here does not meld people into codependency or dependency. Interdependency is you and I have the same things to gain and the same things to lose. Therefore, we’re equal shareholders and we have to work together as two separate individuals.

 

TS: I want to really go a little deeper and clarify this. Because I’ve now been exposed to your approach, the PACT approach, for longer than a decade. And often, when I describe it to people—and I’ve gotten so much value out of it, and I have a further journey to make, but I’m on the journey—but when I describe it to people, they often say, “That sounds a lot like codependency, Tami, the way you’re describing it. You’re supposed to know what your partner needs and then tend to it.” 

Instead of saying like, “Hey, why don’t you just take care of yourself? I’ll take care of myself. You take care of yourself. We can come back together in a while.” but I don’t really always want to be independently taking care of what you need. I mean, you go so far as to say you are your partner’s whisperer. It’s your job. And I thought to myself, “Is that my job?” I thought my job was to be available, but they have a job taking care of themselves. So, here’s the core question, the difference between a system that values interdependence and codependence.

 

ST: So, you and I can agree to live independently like you talked about, just like Sartre and Bouvier did, right? There are other examples of coupledom where they lived separately and they came together when they felt like it and they were still primary partners throughout life. They were, but they didn’t really live together or they didn’t do the typical kind of dyadic pair-bonding situation. That’s fine as long as two people agree. You and I could agree to be polyamorous. We could agree to have consensual, non-monogamy in our relationship. We could do anything we want. We just have to agree. And we have to think like adults and predict, plan, and prepare for what could possibly go wrong that would be felt as unfair, unjust, too insensitive, right? That’s what we would have to do. So, again, it comes down to organization. How are we going to organize this?

We’re not children. We just don’t run into this and see what happens. There is some kind of predicting and planning that goes on, because we want to enjoy ourselves. And we can’t, if we feel threatened by each other—and the human capacity to experience threat, even if it’s not someone intending to be threatening is legendary. So here, we’re talking about the biology of the human primate, the history of the human primate, how we’re wired, what is our legacy, but also what works and doesn’t work in systems where people are wanting to stay together without getting to a place where they go to war, which is very easy for us to do.

 

TS: All right. I’m still not clear, so I’m going to ask it again.

 

ST: Sure.

 

TS: You look at a couple and you go, “Oh, that’s a really codependent couple.” And you look at a couple and you say, “Oh, that’s an interdependent couple that really wants to create a system that supports each other.” What’s the difference?

 

ST: Codependency is one direction only. So, codependency is my focus is all on you and not on me. I focus on you. So, you will focus on me. This goes back to childhood. If my parent is depressed, my parent is alcoholic, my parent is not there for me—in order for me to feel safe and secure, I have to make the relationship in my head secure. What I’m doing is I am trying to make you OK so that you can take care of me. That’s codependency. My focus is on you in hopes that you will give me what I feel I deserve and have been wanting. And when you don’t, I’m quite angry. So, it’s in one direction only. It’s not reciprocal. I don’t expect you—I want you to return the favor, but I don’t expect it and demand it. I’m too afraid of losing you to declare my own rights and privileges, and I am not acting as an equal partner here. I’m a passenger of sorts. That’s different. That’s codependency.  

 

TS: Is reciprocal or mutual codependency the same as being interdependent?

 

ST: Well, codependency would have been a better term, but it was already co-opted, and we know the time it was. I was with those in that generation of therapists with John Bradshaw, Pia Mellody, and so on. But we forget that that came out of AA. That came out of Alcoholics Anonymous of the co-alcoholic, the enabler, and then it got morphed into something else that is now used in the population as a cudgel, a way to beat somebody up or to devalue them or call them borderline or call them codependent as if it’s some kind of disease.

We are in fact dependent animals, we are from the beginning to the very end. Any other idea of that is denial. We are dependent creatures. We know this. We learn independence out of being dependent. There are a lot of people out there that call independence something that is actually an adaptation to early attachment neglect. I don’t know the difference may be between being independent and interdependent because I have an allergy to dependency, so I deny it and I don’t like you clinging. I don’t like you depending on me in any way. It would be really great if you just did your thing, I did my thing. You live downstairs. I live upstairs. Let’s not give each other gifts this Christmas. Let’s just call it even. We just don’t do it.

That is the narrative of people that we consider, in attachment research, as being in the distancing group, people who are oriented toward independence, but is not true independence. True independence developmentally comes out of being fully dependent and never being pushed into independency, but never being also pushed away from dependency. So here, we’re talking about early adaptation to a parental or a familial pattern or orientation where the self comes first over a relationship. So, here I’m talking about relationship first.

 

TS: When you say you’re your partner’s whisperer, it’s your job. What does that mean? And tell me what that means for you personally, like you’re your wife’s whisperer. What does that mean?

 

ST: Well, I’m thinking of the cat whisperer, the dog whisperer, the horse whisperer. We could call it “I am a master at Tami.” I’m an expert. I have a PhD in Tami, and I’m still learning. I know how to work with Tami in all of her states. There’s nothing Tami can do that frightens me or throws me for a loop. I don’t blame Tami for being Tami. I am responsible for influencing her, persuading her, getting her to do things that I would like to do without using a stick or a whip. That’s mastery. That’s competence, the same competence we would have with a child or a pet. Most people don’t think they should have to do that with their partner. They would like their partner to be able to do that with them however.

So, if our survival is dependent on each other, if our fates are tied together, then it makes sense. I have to be very good at you. Otherwise, we can’t create things. We can’t solve problems. We can’t calm and soothe each other. We can’t predict each other. It’s like any team. If we are a rock-and-roll band, we need to know each other, because we depend on each other. We have to play. We have to perform. If we’re a dance partnership, we have to know each other’s weaknesses and strengths because we want to win. That’s our shared purpose, shared vision. So, if we’re in the foxhole together and we have to survive against enemies, you can be sure we’re going to find out about each other, because I need to know how to handle you, manage you if you-know-what hits the fan, right? That is pure survival, selfish need.

I need to be good at you, because I don’t want to spend all my time feeling incompetent, which means I won’t like you. We don’t like that which we can’t manage. We don’t like babies we can’t calm. We don’t like computers we can’t operate. We don’t like partners we don’t know how to manage. So, that’s why it’s there.

 

TS: I noticed when I hear you talk about us “in the foxhole” together, and I’ve heard you describe relationships—

 

ST: I know. I was more like—

 

TS: No, it’s OK, but we’re two police officers who are partners in a car together and I think to myself, all of the metaphors that you use, including the human, animal, apes that we are, and our sense of threat and fear and how we have to work with that—I wonder to myself, huh? It’s interesting. Most of the time when people talk about relationships, they use a word like love. They use a lot of love talk. And Stan goes more into survival, threat, and you’re my survival partner. And where does the love part come in?

 

ST: Love in terms of courtship and attraction is nature’s way of getting us to pair bond and getting us to stick together.

 

TS: That’s very romantic, Stan, very romantic.

 

ST: Well, nature isn’t romantic. It couldn’t give a shit about romance. Nature doesn’t care about relationship. We do. Nature cares about survival of the species and the continuation of a species. So, nature does a great job of creating a biological kinship, so to speak, chemically between the two of us. That’s happening invisibly. We don’t see that. We’re not aware of it, but it’s going on all the time. Then there is the psychobiological component of recognition. So, you and I might play around and might do all sorts of things, but commit to each other is another matter. That takes a certain amount of recognition and familiarity with each other in order for us to accomplish that. If we’re too familiar, it’s boring. It’s too much like I’m with my sister or brother. If we’re too stranger-like, it’s too far away from home and then I won’t feel like I can be with you and you’re too alien.

So, there’s just the right amount, which means that we’re going to project on each other and we’re going to remember, as if we’re proxies for everybody who came before. We’re going to remember everything that bugged us or threatened us or hurt us that is unresolved, and that’s one of the reasons this relationship is the hardest. Also, love is an emotion that we confuse with a lot of different things. For instance, we confuse attachment for love. It isn’t. The attachment is the “I can’t quit you” biology and it’s there to hold us together, but it can also hold us together when our relationship is inappropriate. I shouldn’t be here because it’s abusive or it’s too unfair or it’s not a good deal. So, it cuts both ways, but it is not love. It is an existential, primal, survival issue of attachment going all the way back to infancy and it’s very powerful.

So, then what is love? Well, what I would like and what I enjoy is something called earned love. That comes from deed, actions, behaviors, agreements, cooperation, collaboration. That is something that endures. The love that most people are talking about is changeable like the weather, like all emotions. We can’t control emotion. We can’t control thoughts. They come and go. Only thing we can control is behavior, and that is what protects emotions. So, if we just go by love, which is insufficient to hold us together, we’re not going to do very well. People do a lot of bad things in the name of love. So, there’s that. We have to organize according to purpose. What is our purpose? How are we going to work together as two separate people, two different brains and nervous systems, two different histories, two different moods at any given time?

The fact that we are on the same page at any given time is a fantasy. We only approximate each other’s minds. We’re talking about something that is in itself a challenge, only the fantasy of sameness. Because “we’re in love” gives us a sense that we’re made for each other, but that’s going to last a good hot minute, because as soon as we commit and as soon as we automate each other, that’s when the fun begins. That’s when we start to realize that people are a pain in the ass and everyone is difficult and everyone’s disappointing and contradictory.

 

TS: One of my favorite teachings of the PACT approach: you’re a pain in the ass and your partner’s a pain in the ass.

 

ST: Yeah, there is no such thing as anything other than that, because we’re two different people and we have wills. We have minds that are mostly cloaked. We’re leaves in the wind. Much of the time, we think we’re conscious. We think we’re making decisions. I can prove along with other scientists that most of what we’re doing every day is automated by memory. We’re not thinking. We’re operating through a primitive system of pattern recognition, which makes our life easier, but also causes us to go to war.

 

TS: Now, I want to pick up on something, because when you were talking about how somebody can mistake attachment for love and love is different, I thought to myself, “There’s probably someone listening who’s asking the question, ‘Am I attached or is this love?’” And how would I know? In my own experience? I’m not in an abusive relation. It’s not bad. It’s not like I’m going against, but it all feels mixed in together.

 

ST: Yes, it is mixed in together. It is. Does a baby start to feel loved when its hunger pangs are satisfied by the breast, when its temperature is being regulated by a caregiver’s skin temp, body, and holding? Is it that the emotions are being regulated by the eyes and the prosody of the voice, that is the caregiver-infant collaboration in their talk, their chatter? All of this is felt as love. When we feel cared for, we feel loved. When somebody remembers the people in our lives and is current, we feel loved. When people show up to our celebrations, we feel loved. And when they’re there when we’re sick and in pain, we feel loved. But these are connected to behaviors, and unfortunately, many of the behaviors and the formalities that we engage in to court, we drop as soon as we automate each other and confuse each other for family.

No other relationship does this. Business relationships, other relationships. We’re going to build a church. We’re going to build a community. We’re going to start a rock-and-roll band. Whatever it is, we’re engaged in something not because of love, but because we have a shared purpose and a shared vision. I want to go where you’re going. I want that. I want to do that along with you. I like you, but that’s not the reason I’m doing it. I’m doing it because I like your purpose. I like your mission. I like the culture. I like what you’ve built. I want to join.

 

TS: But now Stan, I think most people, if they get married to somebody and they have children, that’s my family. Of course, that’s my family. My partner, we are the nuclear family. So, you’re questioning that? That’s confusing.

 

ST: Well, not really. The couple is not family. We’re not the same blood. Our children are our family. We created the family. It was a couple’s project. We created the family and we’re supposed to remain a couple, not this single entity as family. When that happens, we lose the couple, the reason for being the engine that drives everything. We lose the people who are the leaders and are in charge of this whole thing. So, we make a mistake by forgetting that we are a couple first and foremost from this point to the end point, because that is the hierarchy. That is the government. That is the two of us pleasing each other, caring for each other well, so that we have the resources to do everything else: to be good parents, to be good neighbors, to be good at our jobs, to be creative, to be healthy.

That’s a necessary condition and it’s not a mush of people. So, you and I are not family as a couple. We are strangers constantly trying to know each other through life, and the formalities that afford strangers has to be there. Otherwise, we’ll violate each other’s sense of sensibilities and so on. How many people start to do this right away? I don’t ask you whether this is a good time to talk. I just intrude. I just start talking to you. I call you from another room. I don’t say thank you when you’ve gone out of your way to apologize to me. There are a lot of things we stop doing because we become entitled to this like family, and that’s a big mistake. We are strangers with shared power—two generals, two alphas, two bosses. We have to work together as two powerful people and that takes collaboration, cooperation, and respect.

 

TS: You’ve said a couple times there’s a purpose between us, as this collaborative two-person psychological survival unit, and that we need to know our purpose and declare our purpose. What’s your purpose in your unit? What’s the purpose?

 

ST: We care for each other. We have each other’s backs. We are time travelers. We’re the center of the universe. Our relationship comes first in all things. We take care of each other before we take care of other people. We are the leaders. Everyone’s coming to our party, Tracy and mine. Everything we do has to be fair and just, and we have to pay attention to the balance of that field. Otherwise, the system gets bogged down in litigation and we will be unfriendly and we will be unhappy and that’s a loop that some people never get out of. So, we know what’s important and I got to tell you, it sounds very dry, but I am more in love with Tracy today than I’ve ever been. Our relationship deepens every day. We earn love and respect because we do things that we decide we must do ahead of time even if we don’t feel like it.

And that’s when unions, relationships, become awesome. You and I plan to set the bar higher than we ordinarily would in anything, because we want a good life. There’s a purpose to that. We don’t do it because we’re going to want to at every moment. We’re doing it because we want that thing. It must happen regardless of if we like each other or not, whether we’re angry with each other or not, it must happen. So now, we’re talking about something higher than the self, the union. This, again, shared mythology, this made-up thing that we co-created that preserves us, the individuals, and also protects us from each other.

It’s hard, because we’re people—moody and all sorts of other things that we do to step on each other’s toes. So, having this shared idea, this shared set of purpose, the shared vision reminds us why we’re doing this and what we’re getting out of it and that every time we practice, we get more and more out of it, again, because it’s a character issue. We’re shooting for the moon. We’re deciding what is good in life and what is best. We agree we’re going to do it.

 

TS: Let’s say someone’s listening and says, “We put our family first. We put our children first. This is our young new infant. Of course, we’re going to put our infant first. We’re not putting our coupledom first. It’s the child.” What would you say to that?

 

ST: If that is your highest priority and you’ve agreed to that, that’s fine, but don’t come into my office complaining that you’re not having sex because the purpose isn’t the relationship. The purpose is to be parents. So, be parents, be the best parents you can be, but don’t complain about your coupledom. That is not the gig. If you’re coming together because your self, your self-development—and that’s valid. All of this is valid. You get to choose whatever is important to you. I’m talking about if you’re going to join with someone, you better agree or you’ll be pointing in different directions and that’s a prime area for fighting. I don’t care what you pick, but I will ask you if your kids come first and your relationship sucks, how is that benefiting your kids?

Aren’t your kids looking at the two of you as the theater, the exemplars for how to do relationship, how to deal with fairness, how to be humble, how to repair misdeeds, how to effectively be in conflict, how to deal with a difficult personality, how to make decisions? If you can’t do it, then thank you very much, mom, dad. I’m going to do the same thing as you did. I’m going to pick the same kind of relationship and I’m going to have just as an unsuccessful union as you did, and my kids are going to complain just like I am. So, you’ve got to think it through. If the couple is not in good shape, is anyone better off, including the couple? I would say no. Nobody is.

The couple is the star, the sun around other people orbiting, and you and I are orbiting around each other. We have a duty to resource each other so we can be the best at everything. Otherwise, we’re draining resources and we’re getting each other sicker, because an insecure functioning relationship is high in interpersonal stress and threat, which means there’s high allostatic load, meaning a lot of wear and tear daily on all systems, the brain and the body, metabolic inflammation, autoimmune, cardiovascular. We’re going to be dead sooner because we don’t get along, because we operate in a way that makes us deeply unhappy. So, again, this is not a luxury, this is a necessity. If we want a good life and we want good relationships, it starts at the top, and that’s with you and me.

 

TS: I have to say I love talking to you, Stan. I feel like we’re playing ping-pong, which is one of my favorite sports.

 

ST: I love ping-pong.

 

TS: You’re so fast, man. You’re so fast. In In Each Other’s Care, you introduce a technique you call sherlocking, and that we can pay such attention to our beloved’s face and different parts of the face. Tell us how do I become good at sherlocking? What is it?

 

ST: I introduced sherlocking with Wired for Dating because of the idea that, “Oh, my God, it’s so boring to go out with all these people that are losers and it’s a waste of my time.” And it actually isn’t. Dating is a training ground for understanding people, for being able to read people, to be able to tell who’s appropriate for me, not by giving them the second degree or whatever, putting them under a spotlight, but by being skillful. It’s learning how to study people without believing what they say, right? Narratives lie. People lie, not because they’re liars, but because there’s actually a disconnect between how we really feel and think and what we say that has to do with real time being too fast and that we’re basically operating daily through recognition systems that are lightning fast, not thinking.

So, sherlocking is me watching you lift your cup. By the way you lifted your cup, subcortically, you made the decision to do that before you even were aware that you were going to lift your cup. Just saying. OK, that’s how much control we have over our unconscious or our subcortical regions that are driving the show. So, I’m going to be paying attention to you. I am fascinated. I’m watching every detail in your face, your eyebrows. Are they rounded? Are they triangular? Are they flat? Your color of your eyes, your symmetry, your lips, your earrings, what you’re wearing, your hair color, where it’s parted, what you’re wearing around your neck. I’m going to absorb myself with every detail I can find on you because doing that, first of all, helps me fall in love with you.

Whenever we pay really strong attention to details in the face, we tend to fall in love, because we’re showing interest. We are interested and we’re noticing detail as opposed to what we do later, as we’re not present. We don’t pay attention and I start to lose interest. So, paying attention to detail, listening to what you say, how you say it, listening, watching to how you treat other people, noticing how you react to certain things, understanding where your areas of vulnerability are, your kryptonite areas, your Achilles’ heel. All of that endears me to you, helps me find the baby in you and helps me actually understand you without you telling me how to understand you.

I’m actually watching you as I would a baby or a pet. My dog doesn’t talk. I have to read my dog, my horse, my baby, right? Humans unfortunately talk and make a lot of noise. That is sometimes means something. Most of the time means nothing, and we get caught up in that and we stop observing, watching, and paying attention. So, my sherlocking allows me to find tells, things that you leak, that you do, that give me more information about you and my impact on you and how you are actually feeling in the moment perhaps. And that’s further knowledge that benefits you and me, right?

I need to know how you work. I need your owner’s manual. Otherwise, I won’t like you eventually. I have to feel competent with you. But people are interesting. We know that when people pay very close attention to faces and bodies in motion that their empathy scores go up when they take a certain instrument that measures empathy. When they stop doing it, their empathy scores go down. So, there is something, the way we are wired, we’re visual animals, and we especially—our brains love faces, and close up. That is not only a way to fall in love, it’s a way to show interest.

It’s a way to deal. Actually, if you have social anxiety and you’re self-conscious, one way to get out of that is to study people’s faces as you’re talking to them. They feel that you’re attentive, which you are, and now you have a task to study every movement, every detail in their face. You don’t have time to think about yourself and how you’re doing. So, it’s all good to do this and unfortunately people don’t do this enough.

 

TS: One of the things you also offer for people to try is if you’re having some kind of distressful situation, you’re suffering, your partner’s suffering, maintain eye contact—that something very powerful happens when you maintain eye contact in a situation of distress. What’s happening then? And of course, we don’t want to maintain eye contact, especially if my argument is with you. The last thing I want to do is look at you. I want to scream at you from the other room. 

 

ST: Everything that I talk about is tactical, is practical and tactical, according to what research tells us about us and what my understanding of the brain and nervous system is. All of that comes from this. It’s not about politeness. Why should I keep my eyes on you and why should I be dead ahead, straight on, and not to the side? If I’m to the side, the amygdala, which is a fear center, that’s the first thing that picks up any kind of threat and then sets an alarm. That fires more frequently if you are at my side or I see your face only at a glance. So, I’m primed more for threat if I am in that position.

I’m legally blind on the side. So, are you. Therefore, the only thing I can see with high definition is dead ahead through a very, very small aperture called the fovea, part of the macula. Since we’re visual animals and we err correct mistakes in our sensory inputs, especially through sound, we err correct through the visual field. We can still make errors. We make less. I want to keep my eyes on the ball and make sure I make the least amount of errors when we are under stress or in distress. It’s in my best interest to do that.

Plus this is a very fast-moving game that we’re playing. I have to watch you as I talk and see my effect on you because if you fall over, I fall over. If I drive you into a threat state, game over. I’ve lost my audience. You can no longer be influenced. I did that because I did not talk for you. I talked just for me. So, collaborative speech means I am talking for the audience I have. That means you, how you perceive things, how you hear things. I’m not just talking for me. So, the eyes have to be on you because if your face goes south at any point and I don’t stop and check, then why am I talking? Who am I really talking to? Mostly me, right? I want to get something out. I want to feel good as opposed to doing good. So, this is a team sport is what I’m saying, not a solo sport.

 

TS: Well, and even you’ve mentioned this idea of earning. We earn our secure functioning relationships. This is a big moment to earn, to be very upset with your partner and to say, “Let’s look in each other’s eyes and talk about this,” versus slamming the door.

 

ST: I’m not going to tell you to look in my eyes when you’re feeling threatened. You’re going to punch me. I’m just going to do it because I put myself in jeopardy if I don’t keep my eyes on you as I’m talking and you’re talking. If I go internally, I step out of real time and I’ll miss a tune with you. I will miss a tune. That adds fuel to the fire. So, if I know it’s good for me, I’m going to stay present and attentive because I want to get out of this thing so that we’re both relieved as quickly as possible, get out of dodge, and do something different. I don’t want to stay in this with you, but I need to fix this and remedy this because whatever happens to you is going to happen to me. Can I give you an example?

 

TS: Yeah, please, please.

 

ST: Because you mentioned about a two-person system. If I were in some universe allowed to bind you and your partner’s inner legs together for a month without going to jail or being sued, if I could do that for a month, you would understand what a two-person psychological system of interdependence means. You are in fact two separate people, which is why it’s going to be difficult to go to the bathroom. You’re going to have to intuit each other. You’re going to have to move together. If you move faster than your partner, you both fall. If you pull apart, it’s going to hurt, right? You’re going to have to work together to accomplish anything. Now, being partnered doesn’t mean you’re shackled together. So, that’s the wrong image, but I’m saying that it gives you an idea that you have to think differently.

You have to consider your partner simultaneously, as you’re considering yourself. Otherwise, there’s going to be trouble. So, secure functioning is basically a formula. I have to consistently think about your interests at the same time I’m thinking about my interests, or you will confuse me as someone who is an adversary. That’s a fact. As soon as I talk about my interests only and I do not mention yours or talk about yours, you then become compelled to care for your interests only as well. We’re going to congeal, and we’re going to be adversaries. It’ll happen every time. I don’t care who you are, everywhere on the planet. If you’re a human being, that’s going to happen. So, it’s a different kind of thinking. It’s a higher level of moral development. I have to think of you and me at the same time or I will get nothing. I’ll get nothing. I can’t influence you. I can’t do any of that because you’re going to see me as someone who doesn’t give a shit about you or your interests or your fears, and that’s reasonable.

So, it’s a simple formula, and it’s just hard to do because of the nature of human beings. I can be a three-year-old, selfish. I can be narcissistic, entitled. I want what I want. If I can get away with something, I’ll get away with it. That’s the opportunism. If I can settle a score that I feel is unjust, I’ll do it even though I’m causing another injustice. I’ve got to be right. A lot of times, I don’t want to apologize if I feel I have nothing to apologize for, and if I’m angry with Tracy, I don’t want to hold to our principle of… We can go to bed angry, but we at least have to touch toes. I’ll do it because I believe in it and I have agreed, and that’s a character issue, but is it hard to do? Yes. 

 

TS: Well, that’s interesting that you brought that up about touching toes, because I know you emphasize, in your work, this notion of quick repair when there’s an argument. And that can work sometimes, but I’ve also wondered, I wonder what Stan would do when you’re like, “Look, I’m just not in the place right now. I can’t do it today. I can’t do it today. Maybe tomorrow, but not today. I don’t want to talk to anybody today, but I could…” You and your wife have this thing where you at least touch toes and then you go sleep on the couch or whatever the heck it is.

 

ST: Yeah, well, her toes aren’t on the couch. I don’t have a need to go to the couch if we’re touching toes because everything drops. As soon as we do that, touch is an unequivocal signal of friendliness. So, it just prolongs my health. Here’s the real reason for the repair. The repair has to do with memory. If I hold you in suspension for too long and you’re hurt, upset with me, you’re producing adrenaline and adrenal components that will drive the experience into long-term memory, where now I have to deal with that for a long, long, long time. I did that because I allowed you to stay in distress for too long and now it goes into long-term memory.

If I were to fix it right away, you’d not remember this. I wouldn’t remember it. We could have disagreements and little tiffs throughout the day, and if we were skillful, we would never remember anything other than we had a good day. That’s how memory works. That’s one. Two, when there’s a breach in our relationship, in a primary attachment relationship, there is a biological matter and that is an existential threat, an internal part of us, an infant part of us that wonders if our relationship will exist tomorrow. Everyone will have this. So, you and I had a big blowout. We go to work. We’re not talking. We are suffering, because on some level we don’t know whether we will exist, and that is an existential crisis. That’s why you and I don’t have to solve world peace. We don’t have to resolve anything right now or ever. All we have to do is signal to us, at least at the minimum, and right now, I hate you. I don’t want to talk to you, but we’re OK.

It’s the you and I are OK is the basic need in order to shut off the neuroendocrine stress system that is causing wear and tear, that is making the relationship more threatening, that is doing all these really not-so-good things to our brain and body and our spirit with no upside whatsoever. So, I think we can eke out given our ability to override, if it is in our best interest to at least signal, I could pass you by and say, “We’re OK,” but I can do that. I can express anger and also affirm and reassure you. At the same time, I can express love and anger at the same time. The two aren’t supposed to be bifurcated.

This is, again, an area of just what is good for me and for you. To hold out and not do some kind of rapprochement is. It just is. There’s no way that I can hurt you without getting hurt myself. Our fates are tied. This is different kind of relationship. Whatever happens to you is going to happen to me. Good things and bad things. Therefore, self-care is also caring for you. I stand up for myself, but I also protect your interests. Otherwise, we cannot get along and we cannot do business, because we’re going to suspect each other, not trust each other, and that is going to get in the way of anything we try to do.

All of this goes to safety and security, trust, which is essential, and also ease. We want the relationship to be as easy and fluid as possible, because nothing else will be. Life is, as we know, is filled with unknowns. A lot of it’s dangerous. A lot of it’s sad with loss. A lot of it is good, but the fact that we don’t know and that it’s not all going to be good should give us a heads-up that you and I have to be good, otherwise we’ll fall apart when things get rough.

 

TS: Stan, your new book In Each Other’s Care, first of all, I just want to say it’s a gorgeous title. The title itself is a teaching. It’s just beautiful, but it’s a repair manual, if you will, where you’re looking at many of the common complaints and challenges that people have and the questions people have. What about when this? What about…? You address, of course, lots of issues, including what you call the Big Five: sex, money, kids, time, and mess. And I thought, really? Mess made the list way up at the top?

 

ST: Oh, yeah.

 

TS: I was curious about that. Sex, money, kids. I always hear about them as the big three and then time and mess.

 

ST: Messiness is differences in what clean is, what clutter is, hoarding. Creating messes also in relationships. I create messes. So, messiness is a subjective experience that you are disorderly. I find you disorderly. For my tastes visually, I can’t stand the disorder. Sound-wise, I can’t stand the disorder. I can’t stand the tumult that you create. I can’t stand the lack of cleaning up after yourself. This is a common, common complaint, and some people actually will divorce over this, especially hoarding, which is a pernicious actual disorder. So, messiness does rank there. 

Timeliness, you’re late. You don’t show up. You don’t remember things. You don’t remember when my birthdate is, right? You don’t say things when it’s appropriate. Timeliness, this is not the right time to do that. So, that’s why that’s there. 

Of course, there’s religion. There’s thirds. Thirds are anything that isn’t you and me that would interfere with our primacy. Anything that takes away what I feel is mine will cultivate jealousy and threat. So, we have to be careful how we handle third things, third people, and that we do it in such a way that’s transparent and collaborative. Otherwise, that’s another thing that will break us up.

 

TS: You had an interesting sentence in the book that if there’s a problem in terms of jealousy, that inherently means that the person who’s, “I’m jealous because my wife’s doing whatever. My wife’s not doing a good enough job to take care of me in that situation.” Isn’t it my problem that I’m jealous?

 

ST: If you think as a one-person system, yeah. Yeah. If you have the gestalt prayer, you do your thing, I do my thing, and we should meet in the middle somehow. Yay, hurrah. Otherwise, screw up.

 

TS: But what is she supposed to do about my jealousy? Why is the onus on her? What is she supposed to do? I have a jealous nature, you know?

 

ST: Yeah, jealousy.

 

TS: I’m using as an example. I mean, it’s not actually… Well, it might be somewhat true, but it’s not. I’m just using it as an example.

 

ST: There are people who come to the table paranoid, because of memory and injuries, trauma from previous relationships where jealousy is on their mind and they’re primed. They come preloaded with it. So, that does exist, but in my experience, most jealousy with adults, not kids, most jealousy is due to someone in the dyad mismanaging a third thing or person in a way that gives rise to a sense of something of mine is being threatened. That’s jealousy. Jealousy is triadic, right? Developmentally, it’s triadic. A third thing threatens me to take what I believe is mine by virtue of a tacit if not explicit agreement that we’re primary attachment partners unless we decide otherwise.

Envy is you have something I want. It’s dyadic, right? Dyadic, like envy, because you’re doing something or having something I wish I’d have. That’s mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? I might kill you for that, or I just want to be like you. That’s good, but jealousy is triadic and it usually refers to, I am putting something else before you, and it’s taking my time and resources away from you, and it’s being cloaked perhaps in a way you can’t see, which makes you fill in the blank. And since our brains have a negativity bias, what you fill in is always going to be the worst possible thing according to your personal narrative in history. So I’m doing that. The third thing— kid, ex-wife, mother, boss—is not the problem. They’re relatively innocent. Actually, it’s my partner that’s allowing that to happen and it’s not remaining infidelity to a basic, usual, biological entitlement expectation, and that we are primary attachment partners like in infancy. And when you treat me as secondary or tertiary or throw me under the bus or leave me out of important things, I feel violated and I feel betrayed. 

This is universal. In Utah, when illegal polygamous groups are broken up by the state, the men always pick their primary attachment partner. There’s always a primary, the one that we go to when we’re in the most distress, the one that we want to celebrate with first. We don’t go to a group. We go to a person, and that’s usually the primary. In Africa, where it’s primarily a polygamous society, only one tribe isn’t. All the huts. If you go there, all the huts are in descending order in size, no matter where you go. There’s the big hut, obviously, the dude because it’s still male-centric, and then the primary female, which is the second-biggest hut and all the other huts are smaller. That says something about our general nature to pair bond in dyads with a tight orbit of primacy, going all the way back to childhood, because it’s a tendency for us to do that again and again and again. And it comes with a lot of expectations and entitlements that if you don’t do that, I’m going to be very upset with you.

 

TS: But just to get really practical. So, let’s say my partner’s jealous about something. What should I be doing? Should I be reassuring them? I should say, “Come on.” I go to touch them. I say, “No, you’re my number one.” I take that on as mine to do. Is that what you’re pointing to?

 

ST: You reassure first your partner on—this should be a daily thing. You are my person, right? In order for me to be able to turn my attention elsewhere, you have to be secure, and I have to make sure you’re secure. You have to make sure I’m secure. That’s what we do. That’s why we get paid the big bucks. So, I am reinforcing that you are my person. You are my one and only if that’s our arrangement, if that’s our arrangement, right? And that security provides me the freedom to be and do other things, because you’re not threatened, because I show you, again and again, you are my person. As opposed to someone who is not that good at it and doesn’t do it, they have a partner who is greedy, a partner who is paranoid, a partner who is not forgiving, doesn’t give a lot of leeway, because they’re fundamentally insecure.

This partner will be accused of looking at other people, not paying attention, and that is a fault of that partner, not shoring up the security system. I don’t think I should, because after all, you should just be secure. That is a misunderstanding of how human beings are actually built. That’s a denial of how human beings actually work.

 

TS: Stan, in this Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts and How to Work Through Them, you take this model, the PACT model, the secure functioning model, and you apply it to really all the problems that people have. I was going to ask you about when one partner wants to have sex a whole lot more than the other partner. I mean, you’re giving this image of our legs are tied together for 30 days. One partner wants to have a whole lot of sex. The other person doesn’t. How are we going to work through it? Well, we’re going to leave people on the cliffhanger on that, all the challenges we have, and you go through them all and you apply the model. What do you hope people will get out of In Each Other’s Care

 

ST: That the two most important things that are repeated that are going to ensure longevity and happiness is that you two actually have a hands-on approach of co-creating the architecture of this relationship. What it means, why it exists, what the boundaries are, what the culture is, what we do based on the book, We Do. What are we going to do? What do we do and what don’t we do? So, say us both. We create this culture. It’s our country. We decide what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good and what’s bad. Nobody else that you take an active collaborative stance on shaping this unmolded clay into something delightful for both of you, not one of you, and that you continue to operate by agreement and permission to enforce as you go. That’s one. 

Two, that you start to understand and learn about the manner in which you both interact when one or both of you are under stress. That is the main problem. It’s not the topic. It’s not the subject matter. The subject matter is the stressor. The problem is always going to lie in the manner in which we interact. Every time one or both of us is under stress, if we don’t do that well, that is what’s going to erode our safety and security in the relationship. That’s the other biggest problem. That’s what the book is trying to—over and over again—reinforce: that it matters how we talk, our facial expressions, how we behave, how we respond. And if we do make mistakes, which we’re going to, that we have the character to fall on our own swords, not because we’re wrong, but because the relationship is more important than being right. The relationship is our holy grail. It is what is going to preserve us and make us happy throughout life together. So, that’s the second thing that’s repeated again and again.

 

TS: You’ve been listening to Stan Takin. What an original thinker, brilliant person, developer of PACT, a psychobiological approach to couples’ therapy, and the author of the new Sounds True book, In Each Other’s Care: A Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts and How to Work Through Them

If you’d like to watch Insights at the Edge on video and participate in after the show Q&A conversations with featured presenters and have the chance to ask your questions, come join us on Sounds True One, A new membership community that features premium shows, live classes and community events. Let’s learn and grow together. Come join us at join.soundstrue.com. Sounds True: Waking Up the World.

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