Long-standing togetherness writes permanent changes into a brain's open book. In a relationship, one mind revises another; one heart changes its part… - Thomas Lewis

Love is simultaneous mutual regulation, wherein each person meets the needs of the other, because neither can provide for his own.

Total self-sufficiency turns out to be a daydream whose bubble is burst by the sharp edge of the limbic brain. Stability means finding people who regulate you well and staying near them.

Encountering an early series of consistent instances can implant an erroneous generality in a child's mind. This mental machinery distills and does not evaluate; it cannot detect whether the larger world runs in accordance with the scheme it has drawn forth from the emotional microcosm of a family. Just as grammatical English emerges from our lips automatically, a structured pattern of emotional relatedness emanates from each of us.