In Each Other’s Care: A Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts

Few things are more frustrating than repeating the same fight with your partner. Playing out the same disagreement about money, parenting, sex, or household chores may leave you exhausted, cut off from the person you want to feel close to. While conflict in any relationship is inevitable, healing is possible. With In Each Other’s Care, Stan Tatkin shares a hands-on repair manual that will help you discover how arguments get triggered, why they keep happening, and what you can do to get better at communicating what you want without the drama.

Drawing on his vast experience as a couples therapist, Tatkin uses the concept of secure functioning―a two-person psychological system of teamwork, full collaboration, and cooperation based on fairness, justice, and mutual sensitivity. This form of unionizing “takes time to learn,” Tatkin says. “And still, the rewards are awesome and make the effort worthwhile. Secure functioning benefits you, your partner, your family, your friends, everything, and everyone.”