Going against a parent’s edicts can trigger the fear of abandonment and death. To your old brain, it’s far safer to turn away your partner’s love than to trigger a parent’s rage.

Unfortunately, most people experience their first “relationship difficulty” in the first eighteen months of life. Experts in child development call this critical period the “Attachment Stage.” Having a close bond with one or more caregivers is important throughout childhood, but it is essential in those earliest months.

1. closing down the exits that prevent intimacy, 2) returning to the caring behaviors of romantic love, 3) using the Imago Dialogue to deepen understanding and compassion, and 4) defusing anger and frustration by transforming criticisms into respectful requests.

hold the key to a long-ago kingdom, and all we have to do is persuade them to unlock the door. Their failure to do so is one of the main reasons for our eventual unhappiness.

You fell in love because your old brain had your partner confused with your parents! Your old brain believed that it had finally found the ideal candidate to make up for the psychological and emotional damage you experienced in childhood.

of firm boundaries will be a recurring problem in marriage.

When two individuals surrender their centrality,

Not surprisingly, when her partner acts in a similar manner, she is filled with the same fears she had as a child. Buried in her criticism of her partner, therefore, is a plaintive cry from childhood: “Why can’t someone take care of me?”

A child who has painful experiences early in life will either feel cut off from those around him or will attempt to fuse with them, not knowing where he leaves off and others begin. This lack