The complete “insider’s guide” to understanding your partner’s brain, sparking lasting connection, and enjoying a romantic relationship built on love and trust now with more than 170,000 copies sold.
“What the heck is my partner thinking?” “Why do they always react like this?” “How can we get back that connection we had in the beginning?” If you’ve ever asked yourself these questions, you aren’t alone, and it doesn’t mean that your relationship is doomed. Every person is wired for love differently with different habits, needs, and reactions to conflict. The good news is that most people’s minds work in predictable ways and respond well to security, attachment, and routines, making it possible to neurologically prime the brain for greater love and connection and fewer conflicts. This go-to guide will show you how.
Drawn from neuroscience, attachment theory, and emotion regulation, this highly anticipated second edition of
Wired for Love presents cutting-edge research on how and why love lasts, and offers ten guiding principles that can improve any relationship. This fully revised and updated edition also includes new guidance on how to manage disagreements, as well as new exercises to help you create a sense of safety and security, establish healthy conflict ground rules, and deal with the
threat of the third any outside source which threatens the harmony in your relationship, including in-laws, alcohol, children, and affairs.
You’ll find proven-effective strategies to help you strengthen your relationship by:
- Creating and maintaining a safe “couple bubble”
Using morning and evening routines to stay connected
Learning how to see your partner’s point of view
Meeting each other halfway in a fight
Becoming the expert on what makes your partner feel loved
By using simple gestures and words, you’ll learn to put out emotional fires and help your partner feel appreciated and loved. You’ll also discover how to move past a “warring brain” mentality and toward a more cooperative “loving brain.” Most importantly, you’ll gain a better understanding of the complex dynamics at work behind love and trust in intimate relationships.
While there’s no doubt that love is an inexact science, if you understand how you and your partner are wired differently, you can overcome your differences, and create a lasting intimate connection.
About the Author
Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT, is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of the psychobiological approach to couples therapy. He is assistant clinical professor in the family medicine department at the University of California, Los Angeles and is on the adjunct faculty of the masters psychology program at Antioch University in Santa Barbara, the masters psychology program at the California Lutheran University of Thousand Oaks, and the doctoral pre- and perinatal psychology program at Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. He teaches and supervises psychology students at Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills and is the creator of
A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy, or
PACT. He is coauthor of
Love and War in Intimate Relationships.
Industry Reviews
"Getting to great in your relationship is much easier with guidance from the brilliant couples therapist, Stan Tatkin, who shows you how to make the hard things in your relationship easier through shared agreements. Stan is a pioneer in relationship science, and no topic is off limits--sex, gender, race, polyamory. No matter who you are, Stan makes room for you and the circumstances you face in Wired for Love."
--Brooke Bibeault, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and media executive--Brooke Bibeault
"If you and your partner are ready to work on the things that are difficult in your relationship, sit down together with Wired for Love. This book will take you many revolutionary steps forward in your relationship. Stan is a true relationship genius, and you are in the best of hands."
--Mark Groves, human connection specialist--Mark Groves
"Stan Tatkin can be entirely followed into the towering infernos of our most painful relationship challenges. With certainty, humility, profound knowledge, and searing clarity, Tatkin illustrates the many avenues that can be taken toward a sense of 'home' and healing resolution in our primary relationships."
--Alanis Morissette, artist, activist, and wholeness advocate--Alanis Morissette
"Stan Tatkin is a brilliant couples therapist and thinker. His updated relationship toolkit will be invaluable for so many partners looking to reconnect and grow closer together."
--Gwyneth Paltrow, founder and CEO of goop--Gwyneth Paltrow
"Stan Tatkin is one of the world's most brilliant couples therapists, making his classic, Wired for Love, essential: Not everyone can sit with him, but everyone can benefit from his wisdom. Stan guides through the lens of attachment, meaning he will guide you to understand who your partner is, and what your partner needs--at the deepest level--making it easier to communicate, avoid triggers, and navigate conflict."
--Elise Loehnen, New York Times bestselling author of On Our Best Behavior, and host of the Pulling the Thread podcast--Elise Loehnen
"What does it take to make a loving relationship work? Read renowned couples therapy expert Stan Tatkin's new edition of Wired for Love. Based on neurobiology, this gem gives you all the practical tools to help you manage the conflict that has become the uninvited guest in your love relationship."
--Vikas Shah, MBE, DL, host of the Thought Economics podcast--Vikas Shah, MBE, DL
"What I admire about Stan Tatkin as a psychotherapist is that he writes from a neurobiological perspective. As a couples therapist, he delves into how different parts of our brains are wired, makes sense of our biological inheritance, and shows how we can better read our partners and build stronger relationships. Business partnerships wouldn't survive without secure-functioning principles. In Wired for Love, he gives them validity for our love relationships, too."
--Scott Steindorf, producer--Scott Steindorf
