Stan Tatkin: I Vow to Take You On as My Burden

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You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Stan Tatkin. Stan is a clinical psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, and an author who integrates neuroscience, attachment theory, and arousal regulation in a method he’s developed called PACT, a Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy. In this episode of Insights of the Edge, Stan and I spoke about his new book called, We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, True Connection, and Enduring Love.

We talked about his definition of a couple as a biological survival unit and what threatens the success of that survival unit, including something very common that he calls “the mismanagement of thirds.” We talked about how one of our marriage vows should be, “I vow to take you on as my burden,” and how important it is to accept your partner as is, completely and wholeheartedly. We talked about how couples undermine what Stan calls “secure functioning in a relationship” and the key lessons a new couple needs to learn to say, not just “I do,” but “we do.” Here’s my conversation with Stan Tatkin.

Stan, I’m really happy to have this chance to talk to you on Insights of the Edge. Every time I talk to you I learn something new about intimate relationships, so thank you for making the time for this.

Stan Tatkin: Thank you Tami.

TS: I want to profile some of the aspects of your work helping couples build deeper, more loving and intimate relationships. Some of the aspects that I think are unique. You call your approach psycho biological. It’s a Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy and that stands for PACT, P-A-C-T. I want to begin by having you talk a little bit about this biological aspect of psychobiological. What’s the biological lens that you use when you’re looking at relationships and intimacy?

ST: We’re looking at a developmental model, or actually several developmental models that include developmental psychology and the developing brain, starting with the infant and on through adulthood. We’re looking at the how the brain develops: in particular, the areas that are specialized for social emotional intelligence. We’re looking at how the brain is networked, both horizontally—that’s between left and right hemispheres—and vertically, into the body. That includes one’s physiology as well as the neuroendocrine system, this is looking at the hypothalamus and the neurotransmitters and hormones that get pumped into the body. All of this being driven by genetics, by constitution, by environment.

The environment that we in particular look at, psychologically and biologically, is the attachment system. This is a biological model of safety and security from the viewpoint of the infant, and then of course, throughout the life span, from the viewpoint of the individual. Safety and security in terms of dependency on primary figures. In the beginning of course it’s the original caregivers, and then it’s teachers and ministers and rabbis and so on, and lovers. This goes on through life in a very fluid system, but it is like building blocks. It’s built on a foundation that is a part of the first 18 months of life.

When we say psychobiology, we’re studying the brain and the body, looking at how people are able to interact with each other in a very fast, very effective way that allows them to know what they’re feeling and understand their own somatic cues, their own interoceptive cues as well as to be able to read other people—their faces, their bodies, their voice, and their meaning. At the same time be able to regulate themselves so as to get along with the largest number of people possible, and to be resilient, right?

We think of people who are securely attached from infancy they tend to get along better with people, they tend to be less aggressive, they tend to be more inventive and creative and resourceful when it comes to interactions and brokering winning situations between others. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they have a high education, but they are well equipped to deal with very difficult situations and are able to rebound very well when they’re frustrated or impeded in some manner in terms of what they’re trying to achieve.

I think, importantly, secures are much more able to achieve higher complexity, and aren’t slowed down by the vicissitudes of life and their own challenges with having to adapt to those vicissitudes. The more insecure we are, the more trauma we have, the more energy we have to put into adaptation, which causes a lot of wear and tear on the brain and the body. Also, makes life just a little bit more difficult depending on how much of a burden we have to carry.

TS: Yes. Now Stan, you’re talking about attachment styles.

ST: Yes.

TS: You’re talking about the benefits of people being in adult relationships who had secure attachment during their first 18 months.

ST: Right.

TS: But what about all the rest of us? For all of us who didn’t have secure attachment. In your work you call such people—the insecure attachment people—either avoidant or ambivalent in relationship. Quite honestly, in my adult life, within my circle of friends I know people in their forties, fifties, sixties, I don’t know that many people who would be “secure.” Most of the people I know seem to identify more as avoidant and ambivalent. So what about us?

ST: Well, it does seem sometimes when we talk about secures, that they’re unicorns, that they don’t really exist. But in truth, the idea of secure doesn’t mean that we don’t have qualities that are insecure, that we don’t have qualities that are like the distancing group or the people who tend to cling a lot. In other words, people who are afraid of abandonment or people who are afraid of engulfment. Being secure, it doesn’t mean we’re free of all of that completely, it just means that we’re not overly encumbered by either those fears or concerns when it comes to depending on others.

One might think that they’re insecure avoidant or insecure ambivalent but they’re actually secure and they’re ishy on one side or the other or they’re pushed dynamically into one side or other depending on the relationship they’re in. They could be with somebody who is very distancing and that could bring up the clinging in that person, or someone who’s very clingy and that could bring out the distancing in that person. It doesn’t mean that their internal working model, as John Bowlby would say, is fixed like a structure and that they’re one trick ponies. That has to be established.

We’re identifying with very common reactions that all people have towards intimacy, dependency, interdependency and so that’s why we all identify with them. That doesn’t mean we are that, right? For the rest of us, we’re adaptive creatures if nothing else. We always adapt to the environment we’re born into and we’re continually adapting and changing and all of our relationships are modifying these ideas, implicit and explicit ideas that we have about dependency. We’re hurt by people, we’re healed by people so the game isn’t over, not nearly. We’re constantly moving and shifting from security to insecurity and vice versa depending on our situation, our development, our age.

Every period of development has different challenges and as we do get brain upgrades, those notably early in life, brain upgrades. Every time we do we’re stressed and depressed and anxious because we see more and understand more and wish we could go back. We may revert to insecure patterns and that just I think is part of the game as we move through life and relationships.

TS: OK, so understanding our attachment style and the attachment style, even though it’s changing, understanding what’s happening in a context is part of the PACT approach. But some of what I think is really unusual in PACT is I think of this is kind of a biological perspective, is that you call a couple a survival unit. Me and my partner, we’re a survival unit so that we can thrive and survive in the world. I guess I think of that as biological because there’s this biological drive to survive. And as I was telling my wife we’re a survival unit, she said, “Do you mean we’re trying to survive each other?” I was like, “That’s a good joke, no, we’re surviving all the threats out there in the world.” Talk to me a bit about what make a couple a good and successful survival unit.

ST: I think it’s understanding that together you’re better off if you both see it the same way, if you’re both working towards the same vision than you would be on your own. This is very mammalian in that sense that we pair bond not only to protect offspring, but to protect each other from the predators that are out there, and the constant onslaught of unpredictable happenings that we have to endure throughout life. That together we’re stronger.

We provide each other cover in the sense of, this sounds like a very war-like example. There are other examples people could come up with very easily but being in the foxhole together you have each other’s backs, you know each other very very well, you move together… Switching metaphors now, to one of those potato sack races, in a picnic you know, or a three-legged race. You’re so well coordinated and you work so cooperatively and collaboratively that you can move together and be very nimble as opposed to people who don’t and they can’t go anywhere. They will fall because one person wants to go this direction and one person wants to go that direction or wants to go faster than the other person. That doesn’t work.

We’re talking about a system that is based, again, on safety and security. That foundationally, you and I regardless of things that change through time, our parents, our interests, our peccadilloes, all these things that change through time. One thing that doesn’t change is our agreement to support each other, to move together. And that creates a sense, hopefully, of absolute safety and security so that you and I feel like what true home is, that it’s not a place, it’s our relationship, it’s our orbit. Everywhere we go we feel protected, we feel safe and secure. If one of us feels hurt, injured, the other licks our wounds right? If one person feels that their confidence is dropping, the other person lifts them up.

The two work together not as isolates, because that would be a Folie à Deux, but work together within that orbit and then have concentric circles of social support, single friends, couple friends, family, and so on that’s around them that there’s a two-way influence. The couple influences the larger group, the larger group also influences the couple. But hopefully we have a healthy system here, that thinks in terms of secure functioning. And that means that people are operating according to principles of fairness, justice and mutual sensitivity.

When you have a secure functioning relationship, there’s an ease, a breathing, I feel comfortable, I can relax with you. I feel safe with you no matter where we go. I trust you with my life. You trust me with your life. We understand we’re perfectly imperfect. We understand we’re different people with different minds and different motives and interests that at any given time moods, different histories.

But we agree on working together. The benefits of that are tremendous, because we don’t live in a world where we have a constant. Our parents, perhaps, but then they get old, maybe they’re weren’t ever that or they’ve passed away. Our children aren’t supposed to be used for that, they have their own life. But the couple can be, the partners can be a constant for each other. And that’s a kind of experience and a kind of love that is very very different from the infatuation and the romantic love that we feel when we first start out.

I will see people from all walks of life, and I think the best examples are people on the street. Couples that live on the street that some are, many are, mentally ill, but they are a survival unit. I’ve watched them in action and they do in fact cover each other, they do protect each other. And it’s quite something to see, that this is a natural thing that people will do when they’re in an environment that is hostile. Most of us are not in that environment so we’re not aware of the dangers around us and the pressures around us for us to have solidarity right? But people who are in dangerous situations, like police officers, people in the military, people in other countries where the world is very dangerous there is a fealty, a radical loyalty that you can see that is there and very much they’re survival units.

That’s what is meant. A long way to explain this. But that’s what is meant by survival couple. Is that at the very basis, all we really have is the ability to trust each other completely and that we’re going to make each other feel absolutely safe and secure within this couple bubble.

TS: Yes. Now, obviously there are some actions that are very glaring, that would disturb a sense of safety and security for a survival unit. The glaring instances of having an affair or outright lying to your partner, it’s hard to feel trusting, safe and secure. But what are some of the more subtle things that can disrupt safety and security in a couple?

ST: Well, an example might be not protecting each other in public. One partner exposes the other partner without their permission in public and humiliates them, embarrasses them. This is a kind of betrayal. It’s something we call “a mismanagement of thirds.” In the dyadic world there are thirds, other people, things, activities, habituation and so on that will draw one person’s preoccupation, attention, and so on at the cost of the relationship. That could be a child, it could be a job, a boss, it could be an ex, it could be a parent. The problem with that is that if this is to be seen as a primary attachment system it doesn’t suffer very well other things coming in, and relegating the other partner to third wheel or demotion or taking resources away from them.

These are errors that in the area of mismanagement of thirds where people can misstep by throwing the other person under the bus. This would be embarrassing the person in public, or leaking information that the partner didn’t want known, or taking someone from the outside their side over the partner, aligning with a child against the partner. Any number of situations where there’s a breach in that primary attachment system and a misunderstanding of the primary unit.

Now, this seems to be the case even in polyamorous societies, cultures, and polygamist societies—that there is always a primary, even in that group, between one person and another. That person, even from childhood, is the person that we tend to run to when we’re in most distress, or the person we first contact when we want to celebrate something. That’s usually the primary. Even in, say, Africa, where we’ve traveled and most of the tribes are still polygamists, there’s only one that has changed. When you look at the huts you see that the primaries have the largest huts and then the other women have smaller huts. I would say the most misunderstood and sort of silent killer of relationships is the mismanagement of thirds as a betrayal that people will do without thinking about it.

TS: Stan, let’s get into that a little deeper because I think it’s really important. Let’s say somebody feels a great loyalty to their own mother or father and now they’re in a relationship and the new partner says, “I don’t want to go visit your mother or father,” or “I can’t stand your mother or father,” you know, basic in-law issue. The person says “Look, I feel loyal to my own parent here. Of course I need to put them first.” What would be the PACT way to strengthen the safety and security of my relationship, but I also honor this bond I have with my parent?

ST: I think the important idea here when we think of putting our couple relationship first, let me just zoom out for a moment if I may, and take a long view. The important idea here of putting the couple relationship first, is not to say that all other relationships are less important, isn’t to say that all other relationships will then have to suffer the consequences. All it means is that when we decide to put our relationship first, it gives us a hierarchy from which to govern, and not just each other but everybody else. If two people really understand that they’re working together in a fair and just way that’s mutually sensitive, cooperative, and collaborative, then the partner who has an ailing parent or a parent who needs them simply invokes to their partner, “Remember this is what we do. We support each other. I support you when you have somebody or something that’s very important and I am there for you as you are there for me.” This is what we do. We don’t ask each other to give up things that would make us unhappy the rest of our lives. That undermines the whole idea of this union.

We’re here to go out of our way as burdens, because people are burdensome, we go out of our way to do these things for each other because that is our agreement. That’s the quid pro quo, I do that for you, you do that for me. There is a constant back and forth and bargaining, persuading, negotiating, not compromising, negotiating, in a way that is good for me and good for you. The other person has a responsibility of accommodating their partner because they’re going to have a turn also where they’re going to want or need to take care of something or someone else and that other partner is going to be there to support them, right? This is a misunderstanding, I think.

Now again, there is a reasonable thing here. That maybe you as the partner doesn’t like my mother and doesn’t want to go. That could be fine as long as we come up with some agreement that works out for both of us. Both of us are OK with it, and that may take some bargaining. But also, I could creatively come up with a way to get you to come. I could say, “OK, well you know what? I understand you don’t want to do this and you don’t like my mother, I struggle with her too. But how if we do this, how about if I make it worth your while in some way to do this?” I offer you something that makes it possible for you to join me without looking back and being resentful. Because in secure functioning we always want to move in real time together and not accrue debt. We don’t want to constantly do something that’s that we’re going to have pay for later. We do this together and we try to find a win-win situation.

When two people know that they have to do something like this, they get very creative. The problem is that we live in a culture where we don’t think we should do that. So we’ll take the easy way out. And the easy way out is either I bully you into doing this, I guilt you, I shame you into doing this, I threaten you, which is always a bad idea. Instead of find a way to attract you. Or we decide to just go our own way, “All right you know, you don’t want to go to this? You do this, I’ll do this.” Then if we, I think this is a sort of a lazy way out. It’s still fine, but it could also be a lazy way out. We could get accustomed to this solution and then we start to drift. We start to do a lot of things that are our own thing and we start to lead parallel lives.

I think the realistic thing here is that when you’re with another person you accept the fact that they’re a pain in the ass and that they’re a burden, as you are as well, and that you have to work together in order to make things right. This goes back to insecure models. If we come from an insecure model in a family where we had to pay in a way that was unfair, constantly unfair, constantly unjust or insensitive, we kind of go through life thinking the same thing. I shy away from anything where there’s dependency, because I know I will get taken advantage of. I will be co-opted, exploited, used, I will be abandoned, I’ll be rejected, punished. Because of this, I’m not going in with an idea of bargaining, of collaborating. I’m going with the idea of having to protect my interests. Because I remember what that’s like and it won’t occur to me to broker win-win situations. It will occur to me only to protect my interests. Then, of course, that’ll force my partner to do the same.

A lot of this has to do with attitude and a kind of complexity of understanding how two-person psychological systems operate. We either know that from the beginning, because you were raised that way, or you have to learn it the hard way, or you are in a system that enforces you and makes you do it regardless of whether you want to or not.

TS: Now Stan, you talked about how people are burdensome and it’s not just other people but …

ST: Everybody.

TS: We’re burdensome too, you and me.

ST: Everybody is.

TS: Yes. Your new book with Sounds True is called, We Do and here a couple is thinking of getting married, we do. I’ve heard you talk about how one of our vows could be, “I vow to accept you as my burden.” I think, well that’s not really how most people go into it when they look at getting married. I’ve never heard anybody actually say that in a marriage ceremony. What would it mean, to right from the beginning accept that your partner is going to be your burden and you’re going to be theirs?

ST: I think what it means is that we’re going to see each other realistically, not idealistically, as perfectly imperfect human primates. Let’s just take personality out of this. Let’s take the individual out of this. The human primate, by nature, is war-like. It leans more towards negativism than positivism, is xenophobic by nature, is selfish and self-centered by nature, is always aware of what is missing and what it does not have by nature, is moody and impulsive at times by nature, and is really easily influenced by a group, by nature. That in itself makes us difficult creatures.

Add to that an imperfect brain that is basically built ad hoc, as most things are in terms of evolution. There are all these errors that we make socially, emotionally, mostly because of different systems operating at all times. Particularly troublesome is the very fast recognition system, subcortical system that is always operating by memory and memory alone. Then you have people moving about and doing things automatically reflexively without thinking that could cause a great deal of trouble in all relationships, but in particular in long relationships.

Then we have histories. We’re mammals that remember things in ways that other mammals don’t. We imagine things in ways that other mammals don’t. We create mythologies that other mammals don’t. We see things and imagine things that aren’t there, in a way that other mammals don’t. We’re difficult creatures, let’s just put it that way. We don’t get along well unless we have shared mythologies, unless we have to cooperate together in order to survive—usually against some outside threat, right? Let’s just start with that.

Then you have personalities, and people from different cultures and expectations ,and trauma histories, and beliefs and so on. Yes, I’m taking you on as a burden. Which includes your history. That means that if you have bad experiences that you are still healing from, or wounds, scars from childhood and from adulthood, I am responsible for that in the sense that I’m the only person here to mollify, soothe, heal, protect. There is nobody else but me. That’s the same with you. That’s where I’ve written about being experts on each other. I’m a “Tami whisperer.” It adds to that sense of safety and security. We’re more resilient, in that we’re good caregivers of each other, we’re good managers of each other, we’re good parents of each other before we even think of parenting a child.

That just makes us more robust, that makes us more powerful. Yes, starting off with the idea that we’re going to be each other’s burdens, and the payoff of that is going to be great. I’m going to put all my money on you, you’re going to put all your money on me. We’re investments for each other. This, I think, puts everything in perspective. Because we do get so disappointed when we find out our person is difficult, right? The younger we are, the more idealistic we are, the dumber we are, and less prepared we are for people being messy creatures. And like I said, impulsive, selfish, self-centered and getting to do whatever we want if we can get away with it.

It’s a worthwhile project and, my gosh, I mean we only have to deal with each other. It’s not like we’re trying to arrange a group or a society or a country. This is the smallest unit of a society, is just two people. Master that and then you can start to build a community, then you can start to build a family. But we don’t think that way. We don’t have an education system that teaches us how to be in a relationship. There you go. I mean, it’s not a negative thing, I take you as my burden. It’s wow, it’s you and I, Tami, are going to do things for each other that nobody, nobody wants to do unless they get paid a lot of money. This is an extensive unit.

TS: Now Stan, this idea of “I take you as my burden” and “I kind of hope you’ll grow and change in these ways.” That’s kind of what’s going on inside me and I pulled this quote from your book, We Do, “If you don’t or can’t accept your partner as they are right now, without cherry picking the parts you like, you’re in trouble already. Marriage and commitment can only work if we accept each other wholeheartedly.” I thought to myself, I don’t know, I think that’s a little mythic. Don’t we all harbor these ideas that “Yes, I accept you and I really hope this is going to change about you.” Come on.

ST: Yes, that’s a real good way to be very disappointed and angry. You know Tracy, my love, does some really annoying things. I mean some things that would just make me just crazy, and I know I do the same thing with her. When I was younger that might have been a deal breaker, that might have been something that I would just eventually just say, “You know what? No, I can’t deal with that.” Then break up with her and then find somebody else and go through the same thing in some other way. The idea that I’m going to change my partner is naïve. People don’t change, people don’t really change. If you’ve ever been to your high school reunion, you kind of know that. We change little things. We grow and develop like everybody grows and develops. And so in that sense, yes, we do change with the times and with our brain development. But our core self, what we do to soothe ourself, doesn’t really change a lot through time.

But if it does change, if it will change, it will change under the umbrella of secure functioning. Because if I am forcing you, or if I am still complaining about certain things about you that I’m talking about them as if they’re deal breakers, if I can’t deal with them then you become underresourced, we become under-resourced. All our resources are now being used because of this distress and this infatuation with getting you to stop drinking or to get you to stop doing this or that, there is no development. That is actually how development stalls in childhood. Development stalls in childhood when a child is low-resourced. That means that the environment is too stressful for the child to actually develop normally, and therefore resources are being poured into other areas of adaptation that slow or stall development.

You don’t want to do that in your adult life. You know you want to be you and in an environment that allows you to grow, not because you have to at the end of a point of a gun, but because you have the ability now to do it, you’re resourced, you’re free, you’re supported. Now I know that sounds idealistic, but it’s actually achievable. This notion of, “I’m going to take you and I’m going to change you,” is folly. It has never ever worked, ever. It will never work. When people get better they’re in a secure environment, secure bubble, right? That is when people move towards complexity. We know that complexity stops when there is trauma, when there is loss, when there is too much stress, chronic stress. We stop moving towards complexity. We retreat towards simplicity and what we know. We avoid novelty. That’s not a growth situation.

When I say you have to accept a person as-is as a fundamental tenant of secure
functioning what that means is that if you have picked this person as being good enough, and this is important, in this world good enough is perfect. You’re good enough. Then that allows us to do things from that point forward instead of my still hesitating one foot in, one foot out which puts a lot of threat into the system. It’s very pernicious. I can be sure that that thing that I want changed is going to amplify. Two years down the line, Tami, you and I, and I still won’t commit to you because of this one thing that I don’t like. And if that one thing changes then I’ll think about it. I’ll go all in. But not until then. That will never happen.

And not only that, my stalling and getting you to continue to audition for the gig is going to inadvertently amplify that negative trait that I say that I want you to change. It’s stupid. It cannot work. We do have to accept the other person as-is, put all the money on them. Or look elsewhere. That’s all I’m saying. If by the end of a year or a year and a half, which is what usually is required to really get to know somebody enough to make a decision, then move right along. Go to somebody else.

TS: OK, so what if I say, “You know, I’m kind of pretending to accept the other person as is? I’ll tolerate it, but I really actually just don’t like it, but I’ll tolerate the other person as-is.” Is that good enough?

ST: Well, it’s going to cause some suffering for the person who’s tolerating it and hiding this, and it’s going to come out in a number of ways that are going to be unpredictable in the other person. The other person is going to behave badly because of this. Here we’re talking about an attitude change inside. Let’s go away from attachment to an object relations model, which I think is apropos here. The self, my sense of self and my sense of other are always operating in tandem. All the time. How I feel about you reflects on how I feel about me. You are obnoxious. Every time we go out you are obnoxious, you say jokes that embarrass me, I really hate it, no matter how much I tell you, that’s you. That’s Tami, goes out and makes obnoxious jokes that are obnoxious to me.

If I continue to (and I’ve decided to be with you) if I continue to get upset about that and that is who you are, the question is whether I am accepting of me because I chose you, see? I chose you and you are my partner. My inability to love you, even though you’re different from me, even though you’re doing something I wouldn’t do. I’m not talking about betrayal, I’m not talking about throwing me under the bus, I’m not talking about mismanagement of thirds. I’m talking about some aspect of your personality or things that you do that really bother me. If I can’t say, “That’s my Tami, you know? I love her to death, I want to punch her face.” If I can’t embrace that, there is some also aspect of me that is not fully developed, that has not grown up, that has not become more compassionate, more of a human being.

We’re talking about the challenge here that’s not really about you, it’s really about me. It’s about, “Can I accept this different person, this different animal who’s doing these things that rub me the wrong way?” Not everything because then the question is, why did I choose you? But there’s some things. Then there’s something about my own development here that I have to look at that I cannot embrace someone who’s different, someone who’s not me and recognize that I do love this person and that I can accept fully. Perhaps that will influence my ability to be obnoxious, right?

A lot of this has to do with the self. It’s not so much the other person. We focus on the other person because they’ll reflect certain things about ourselves and other people that we have a hard time accepting. Again, another growth opportunity to grow up and to be wiser and more accepting and to accept imperfections. I think this is the other part of the challenge for both partners as a team that is moving towards greater complexity and greater compassion.

TS: Now Stan, I know a lot of couples come to you when they’re in crisis. Are we going to be able to save this relationship or not?

ST: Right.

TS: Here, now you’ve written a new book for people who are considering taking on the burden of each other. And whether a couple is just beginning or whether a couple has been together for awhile and they come to you in crisis, I’m wondering if there are some telltale signs in your experience. “This couple can make it, they have what it takes. If they invest a little bit more it’s going to work.” Or some telltale signs you can see right in the beginning when you meet with them, “Uh oh, I think this is destined to go towards death, this relationship.”

ST: Now are we talking about people who are just starting off or people who have been together for awhile?

TS: I’m curious about both.

ST: Well, people who have been together for awhile it’s very easy once you understand development and once you understand how couples operate and move through time and the individuals in the couple move through time, it’s very easy to see how they got where they are. I often think if I were there in the beginning I might have helped more, because I could have helped them predict what they would be fighting about for the next 20, 30 years, and then build in some tools for them in understanding for them to be able to predict each other and work with each other in a way that wouldn’t have ended up in this mess. That’s actually the reason for We Do is seeing what people do, not because they are trying to mess things up purposefully, but like everyone else, they’re doing it automatically, they’re doing it according to what they know and what they’ve experienced, right?

The idea of being able to prevent this from the get-go and to help couples from the start learn how to be secure functioning and learn how to avoid threat or the incurring of threat. By the time I see people one of the big problems that will get them is the constant misunderstandings, the constant errors that they’re making on a micro level, which we can see when we do microanalysis of digital video we can watch couples in action in terms of their movements and we can see their errors, the mistakes that literally, the brain is making in their appraisal system. These accrue and because many couples don’t repair well or at all, they become a biological issue. John Gottman wrote about this very early, where these couples will eventually just be in a room together and their heart rates will go up at least 15 beats because they become more predatory to each other.

This is because they’re constantly repeating the same errors. Again, on this micro level think of it as it starts off as sand in the shoe and then it becomes pebbles and then it becomes rocks and then it becomes a boulder. The repetition, repetition, repetition of all these constant interactions that are misattuned and un-repaired. Then they come in as a mess. If they are really gone too far and they can’t even go for a few moments without being threatened and feeling attacked and attacking back then we have a system, that is almost impossible to intervene without medicines. Because they’re constantly in this fight-or-flight state. That’s very sad. OK. That’s one.

The other thing that I’ll see is constant mismanagement of thirds, and they’ve betrayed each other so much that their safety and security system is dead in the water. They’ve both, either one of them or both of them, has done so much damage to the trust in the relationship, which is all they really have. They didn’t understand that, that it’s almost impossible for them to proceed because they’re living on very little oxygen.

The other is people like I said who have set a course where they are living too much parallel. They’re not doing things together very much, and they drift. That’s a very predictable pattern, they’ll drift. One person will outgrow, so to speak, the other. People don’t outgrow each other when they’re together. They outgrow each other where they go off into different places when they’ve been leading parallel lives and one person goes into therapy, one person gets into a certain practice, whatever, and then they just start to grow apart. That’s another scenario.

There are all these different scenarios, some seem more bleak than the others. I think the one that is the most difficult is the highly-kindled couple, that as soon as one opens their mouth they’re both off and running, they go from zero to 100. They cannot for the life of themselves see clearly. They can’t wait, they can’t hold, because everything the other person is going to say or do in the next second is dangerous. These couples are in a dangerous situation where they could hurt each other. Like I said, the only thing that could possibly slow them down would be to do certain kinds of medication in the room with them, to get something called parasympathetic tone in place so it could slow down their acceleration, or put them on medication.

Unfortunately these couples don’t do these practices when they’re out of the office, so they don’t really … They’re interesting for research but they are not really as practical as interventions. Many of them just won’t take medications. They’ll do drugs, and sometimes that works. Believe it or not there are some couples—because pot is legal in so many states—there are some couples that have found that if one partner—believe me I’m not trying to sell this to the audience. But one person smokes a little pot, and now they’re both fine. This is a sort of a phenomenological thing here. Where one person’s state changes, slows down, mellows and so then that changes the system. That is what I’ll see.

And then of course there is the major betrayal issue in one direction. This is … I’m looking for an acronym for this. The reveal of information that if previously known would have changed everything, when that happens it creates a tsunami effect and a PTSD-like syndrome in the victim. Many couples, unless they are guided through this, may not recover from it. That revealed information could be, “Oh by the way I’m gay,” or “I have another family that I support,” or “I squirreled away money in an account and I’ve been embezzling from the family,” or “I’ve had lovers on and off since we were married.” Anything… “I’m really a dog, not a duck.” Anything that is so earth-shattering that the other person’s brain has to re-sort their entire experience with this person, which takes about a year, it is so disruptive and it’s so painful. Many partners won’t recover from that unless they’re with a very skilled therapist that can guide them through the process. That’s definitely one that can tank things.

TS: Stan, there’s so much I want to talk to you about. I want to see if I can squeeze in just a few more questions here.

ST: Sure.

TS: You mentioned that your new book, We Do was designed for prevention, to help couples in the very beginning learn the skills so that they don’t get into any of the types of outgrowth patterns that you’ve just described of people coming into your office 20, 30 years later. One of the things you recommend is for people to read the book—new couples who are thinking of getting married—to read the book together. I’m curious, let’s say someone buys the book, they’re reading it and they think, “Ah, I don’t think my partner is going to want to go through this book.” There’s a lot of detail, there’s a lot of self revelation that’s required, discussion about what our values are as a couple, the commitments we’re making. What if the other person says, “I don’t know, I’m not into that.”

ST: Well, I think then there has to be a sort of a come to Jesus moment or a sit down because this is, again, part of human nature to believe we know already how to do this thing. We know how to do step parenting, we know how to do marriage. But we don’t. If you’re with somebody who is not interested, and fair enough you don’t want to read a book but there are other things you can do. You can listen to a book, you can have one partner read it, you can change off chapters, you can have one partner teach the other, you could do the exercises in the book. But to turn a blind eye to information (rather than reinvent the wheel) to information that could save you a lot of tsuris, a lot of grief and trouble down the road and a lot of money, is hubris, right? It’s part of what we all do.

The hope is that people will take it seriously and look forward, in other words look ahead, to not what is just today and how I feel today or next week, but what I could be feeling and what could be happening a year, five years, 10 years down the line, then good for those people, right? They’re going to save themselves a lot of trouble. There’s always going to be people are just not interested in learning about the new baby, learning about anything, because they think they already know it. To those people, I say good luck and I hope it works out. At least this is there. My hope is that people will not show up in my office 10, 20 years from now. I know there will always be people who will, but this is really to prevent that.

TS: Yes.

ST: You know people that are religious and they have to take certain exams, let’s say, by the church, the clergy, they take certain exams for marriage, right? Usually they’re temperance orders or they’re inventories about interests or so on, they’re not very powerful and not very telling. But what if you could really look at the future and say are we really fit for each other? Do we really agree on what this relationship should be? Do we have a shared vision? Do we have shared principles in place that will protect us from each other and everyone else? What would that be worth to you in order to have a more robust, and as I said, easy relationship—because these relationships should be easy compared to everything else? Then read this book, or I’ll be seeing you.

TS: OK Stan. Now I want to squeeze in this question that has come up for me a couple of times when I’ve shared your work with other people. Two people who I know very well said, “You know, I really liked Stan’s work but on this one point I’m just not quite sure.” So I want to make sure to ask you this. When you’re talking about being a survival unit together and making sure that we increase and protect each other’s sense of safety and security there’s a quote from your book that “we depend on each other for nervous system regulation.”

The reason that these two people I know don’t like this, they’re like “Look, it’s not my job to soothe my partner all the time. My partner can be unregulated, dysregulated a lot. They need to learn to self soothe. They’re adults. It’s not my job to always go and soothe my partner when they’re upset. All the time, really?” Is this a misunderstanding or are the people who are reading your work not taking on this survival unit model in the right way?

ST: I think it can be both. So many of the ideas here can be taken too literally and not in the way it’s intended, the spirit of something, the spirit of something. If you are with a partner, and you’re constantly having to regulate them, and constantly having to soothe and constantly have to calm them down, then that’s not secure functioning. Because this is supposed to be quid pro quo. “Yes, you’re difficult, but I am difficult. You have to do things for me as I have to do for you.” We never ever want to cross into the zone of being too difficult. What that means is that we accept that we’re difficult, we do stupid things, we make mistakes, for which we apologize and make amends but we don’t want to be in a position of being greedy and putting too much of a burden on the other partner, which actually burdens the entire system because that is self-harming.

If I overburden you, if I am not taking care of you as well, if I’m constantly on fire and am constantly ringing the bell, then I’m going to wear you out. I’m going to hurt my own sense of safety and security because I am abusing this idea of secure functioning by making it too unfair. That is the answer to somebody who is hogging all of the oxygen, and is requiring so much and is willing to do so little that the relationship is in gross imbalance.

Having said that, what is meant by nervous system regulation has to do with the relationship face-to-face, eye-to-eye and sometimes skin-to-skin. When we are dealing with each other and we are regulating both our own states and the collective state of the couple, this is phenomenological system that we understand to some degree that involves resonance and it involves a process that either works really well or it doesn’t.

When it works really well we’re both managing each other’s nervous systems by keeping our eyes on the other person’s face, by keeping aware of the other person and they’re aware of us. We’re interactively, or co-regulating or mutually regulating each other, which is what we see successful mothers of infants do and we see successful partners do. We’re making errors, we’re making mistakes all the time but in this co-regulatory environment we’re correcting them very quickly and so we’re able to shift each other’s state, we’re able to move each other up, move each other down, excite each other, calm each other. All of these things, because we’re a team on this nervous system level.

This is very important because this is what allows us to remain energetic, vital and relaxed. It is much more efficient for us to co-regulate than to simply self-regulate. That isn’t to say that if you cannot self-regulate that you can be in a relationship, because if you cannot self-regulate at all you’re likely going to be alone or be in an institution or in jail.

We’re talking about a two person system here that is strictly neurobiological. Two nervous systems being able to get along and be able to manage in real time states. That’s all that means. That doesn’t mean I’m taking care of you, you’re taking care of me. It means that we’re a good team and we’re able to take the stress off the table quickly. We’re able to co-create exciting love. We’re able to co-create quiet love. This is, again, this is phenomenological. We don’t really understand why two people can do this well and another two people can’t. I’ve seen people who are really good at self-regulation but together they just are terrible. I’ve seen people where one person is really bad at self-regulation, but together they’re really good, because the other person is the master regulator of the team.

That’s what I’m really speaking about here. Not codependency, not even to take care of somebody and they’re not stepping up to be an equal partner. In secure functioning, both people step up, both people do their jobs. Trauma is not an excuse. Bad history is no excuse for bad behavior. You have a job to do, it’s a serious matter, and if you can’t do it, won’t do it, you should be fired.

TS: Now, Stan, secure functioning, is that a term that you have introduced into our vocabulary? Secure functioning relationships.

ST: I think I’m maximizing it as much as possible. Secure functioning has been used. It’s not in any literature that I can find, but I know Dan Siegel has used the term and others. The way I’m using it as a part of attachment. Here I’m using it as a kind of social contract theory. Two people engaged in an agreement or series of agreements to protect each other’s interest, to be in the foxhole together. Secure functioning is strictly an adherence to a system that is dedicated to be fair, just, sensitive, collaborative, and cooperative. In that sense anybody who’s willing and wanting to do it can do it, regardless of the personality.

TS: OK, here’s my final question.

ST: Sure.

TS: I’ve heard from some people that they believe that it’s powerful couples, I think in your language, secure functioning couples, that actually will have the most hope for us as a species in helping us solve some of the problems that we currently face as a collective. That we need couples to be able to join with other couples, that they’re this force of evolution, positive evolution in the world. I wonder how you see that.

ST: Well, that’s a very grandiose idea. And like most grandiose ideas, they just remain nice ideas.

TS: Stan, you’re so sober. I love that about you. You’re like the reality sandwich teacher.

ST: We have to understand, again, our nature as human primates. There’s only so much we can do to push up against it. In our little areas, in our little circles, we can join with others who are like-minded and influence larger circles and so on. But we cannot control the huge system that we’re a part of globally, of people from varying backgrounds and varying ideologies and more importantly, varying levels of development. That is the major issue, that I don’t know how that could ever be solved unless in some utopia where everybody has equal education and abundance. They have the resources available to develop and so on. But that’s… I don’t think that’s just going to happen.

I think the best we can hope for is that we do what we can as individuals and as couples to influence each other, and our children the next generation, and our community as best we can and then hope for the best. Is it better than the alternative? Yeah. It’s better than the alternative which is the breakdown of civilization and we go back to war. We go back to, well, we see it right now. It’s what we’re all afraid of. The decisiveness and the tribalization of the country. The loss of a unifying mythology. We see that happening. And in a sense this is what I see on the micro level, at the macro level, in my office between partners.

This dissolution of a vision where two people are working together towards something and then a breakdown of that. I think it is a worthy thing for one’s own life to imagine something that actually can work, and be toward something good. Not only for self-development, but to contribute to one’s small circle of influence, and hope that it spreads best as possible. We try to spread it everywhere we go and everywhere we go people are excited about it. Even in tribal areas and other countries. Whether they can do it or not is a whole other matter.

TS: Stan Tatkin, I vow to take you on as a burdensome author here at Sounds True. I hope you’ll take me on as a burden-filled publisher. What do you say? We do.

ST: I love and adore you, Tami.

TS: Thank you so much for the conversation. I’ve been speaking with Stan Tatkin. He is the author of a new book with Sounds True called, We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, True Connection, and Enduring Love. He’s also created with us two audio learning programs. Your Brain on Love, which has been an underground bestseller here at Sounds True. A lot of pass-around after people listen to it. The subtitle is The Neurobiology of Healthy Relationships. As well as an audio program called Relationship Rx: Insight and Practices to Overcome Chronic Fighting and Return to Love. Stan, thank you so much for the conversation and for all your great work.

ST: Thank you Tami.

TS: Soundstrue.com, waking up the world.

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