Creating Intimacy in Marriage (Stan Tatkin)

Be poised to effectively defuse conflict when it arrives. Get an owner’s manual for mastering and understanding yourself, your partner and your relationship. Stan Tatkin’s book Wired for Love presents simple, proven strategies based on cutting-edge research that creates stable, loving relationships. 1) What is intimacy? "Intimacy means that as a couple we spend a decent amount of time eye-to-eye, skin-to-skin, and that we are experts on each other. I am as good at YOU as I am at anything else I do. And you have my owners's manual. You know how to deal with me in ways that other people don't know". 2) How can determine your relationship style? Are you an anchor, island or wave? Stan Tatkin describes how your relationship style of today may be created by the relationship you had with your parents or primary care give 2) What does it mean to have an island relationship style? Stan describes how islands relate to others and why they move away from people. 3) What is the wave style of relationship? 4) What is an anchor style of relationship? Why are anchor kids more resilient and easier to get along with? 5) How much does personality play into your relationship style? What about a person that is more emotional, or likes being independent regardless of how they were raised. 6) Why is it important to know your relationship style? Stan believes that it's important to know how you react under stress. 7) What is a creative couple bubble? It's being in a foxhole within someone and we live on principles that are good for BOTH of us, which enables us to thrive. We do that by making agreements that protect us in public and private. Everything is transparent. Our partner is the first person we tell information. Our purpose is that all fears that we can take off the table are taken off the table. We learn how to care for each other. 8) How do you create an owner's manual for yourself and others? Figure out what your kryptonite may be from your childhood and how to take care of you when you are vulnerable. Do the same for your partner. This enables you to avoid things and be sensitive to stay away from things that may hurt your partner. 9) How does our brain affect how we are relating? We have a lot of long-term memories and we have an automated response which is what our primitive part of our brain operates on. The upper brain, which Stan calls "ambassadors" are needed to balance out our automated and primitive response. 10) What are some tips for creating connection? It doesn't matter what your style is, we are all sensitive to abandonment and there are 2 most vulnerable times are when we go to sleep (like death) and when we wake up. We want our partner to put us down and to wake up together so that we are moving through the day fully charged (tethered and safe). 11) What about having a "3rd" person in your relationship? This is a competing person (kid, mother-in-law, friend), task (work), or preoccupation(alcohol)that competes with couple's resources. Couples have to decide when and how these 3rd's are let in. If we relegate our partner to 2nd position, it can be threatening to the couple bubble. 12) How to avoid estrangement when your kids leave and you become empty nesters? How do you rebuild the dynamic if you neglected your relationships? 13) What should we ask ourselves if we decide to live together but not act really connect as a couple? Stan asks are you happy? If you aren't, then get curious what the cost is of "settling". 14) What is the point of being a couple? This is the question we should be asking ourselves as a couple. What is the point of US? What do WE serve?