Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
Name your own move in the dance today: I chase when I am scared, or I go quiet.
Not their part. Yours. Owning your step in the pattern is what starts to change it.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Adam and his wife said, our Lord, we have wronged ourselves (Qur'an 7:23). Owning your own part is where every repair begins.
قَالَا رَبَّنَا ظَلَمۡنَآ أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمۡ تَغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَتَرۡحَمۡنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلۡخَٰسِرِينَ
They replied, ‘Our Lord, we have wronged our souls: if You do not forgive us and have mercy, we shall be lost.’
Qur’an 7:23read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
The pattern needs both dancers. Owning your own move, the pursuit or the retreat, is the part you can actually change.
Johnson, S.M. (2019). Attachment Theory in Practice: Emotionally Focused Therapy with Individuals, Couples, and Families. Guilford
The originator's account of EFT as attachment-based practice.
Strength of evidence: research links. Replicated observational or longitudinal work.
Why it works
Seeing one's own role in the cycle is the first step to shifting it.
Where this sits: EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy), attachment-based couple intervention.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.