In Each Other's Care

What it is about

In Each Other's Care is Tatkin’s later book on the ordinary conflicts of a shared life—money, chores, sex, children, betrayal—read through secure functioning rather than through who is right. Partners are treated as equals under a contract of fairness and mutual sensitivity; when one person’s state shifts into threat, the first move is to return that person to a felt sense of safety before solving the issue. Shared principles are the structure that keeps those fights from becoming a trial. It assumes the reader already has the idea of secure functioning, and applies it to the household, rather than introducing the nervous system from the start.

Questions it can answer

• How does secure functioning change a fight about money, chores, sex, or children?
• What does it mean to return a partner to safety before arguing the issue?
• How are shared principles different from deciding which person is right?

What you will not find

• A verdict on the correct budget, sexual frequency, or way of raising children
• A full safety plan for one-sided violence
• Pickup advice, or a dating-stage method for choosing a partner