Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

Romantic love was all about attachment and emotional bonding. It was all about our wired-in need to have someone to depend on, a loved one who can offer reliable emotional connection and comfort.

We called it Emotionally Focused Therapy, EFT for short.

bonding moments in your relationship when one of you reaches out and the other responds in a way that makes you both feel emotionally connected and secure with each other?

Accessibility: Can I reach you?

This revelation “moved” their blaming partners into responding more tenderly,

Responsiveness: Can I rely on you to respond to me emotionally?

Nothing brings people together like a common enemy, I remembered. I realized that I could help couples by helping them see their negative patterns of interaction — their Demon Dialogues — as the enemy,

In a third conversation, Revisiting a Rocky Moment, this couple replay a time when they got stuck in a demand-distance loop, acknowledging the steps each made and the emotions each felt.

The more we can reach out to our partners, the more separate and independent we can be.