Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

Recommended for relationships by Matt, a CEO coach. I have to say I expected more: the book is vague and light on specific advice, mostly a collection of conversations and simulations, though they are described well. Sue focuses on partners’ difficult moments, the Polka Dance, where one uses a certain mechanism, for example seeking attention and affection in an aggressive way (e.g., raising their voice), and the other withdraws and ignores it. If you do not notice the mechanism and have a conversation about it, you will stay stuck in a loop.

Notes

1. Blame is a common killer of stable relationships, but remember you should not look for a culprit, look for the pattern. Talk about it, explore why the other person does this, and do a postmortem.
2. Recognize the Demon Dialogues, the exchanges that always lead to fights and whose dynamics you have not explored with your partner yet. Why does he or she say this? What is the problem underneath?
3. If your partner does certain things, they often come from past wounds (often family figures who hurt them). Identifying and discussing them can help you develop a strategy and understand the irrational parts.
4. It is inevitable to face difficulties and it can be hard to stay united; finding a reason and a shared path will keep you together.
5. We all need affection, and many fights happen because a partner wants to express this need when they feel neglected and cannot communicate it. They need to feel the partner’s support and, well, be held tight.
6. Remember the small things that make a relationship special: notes left around, small rituals, moments to talk, skin-to-skin contact.

The rest were sample dialogues. They are fine to skim, but I do not recall much except for one that rang true, where the wife raised her voice because she wanted support and the husband withdrew because he did not know what to do. It stuck with me.