When couples keep fighting over the same issues, it’s often autopilot nervous systems clashing. Chapter 11 offers a four-step method to break the loop without blame.
The story
Two hearts share bandwidth, then buffers start to swell.
A tiny tone glitch can trigger a full-on fight
Old scripts compile; suddenly nobody can tell.
And somehow the whole week tastes like last night
If your relationship keeps crashing on the same bug, welcome to the human operating system. We call it “autopilot”: you react, they react, and your nervous systems run a little distributed denial-of-service attack on intimacy. Sure, you can “win” the argument. Can you imagine also liking your life afterward?
Chapter 11 of *A Practical EmPath: Rewire Your Mind* by Scott Howard Swain treats romance like code you can refactor, with something he calls *practical empathy*. The point is not fantasy harmony; it’s fewer loops of misery and more connection, which tends to improve everything else too: emotional health, stress, daily functioning.
The problem pattern: “You made me feel…” becomes blame-latency.
The solution pattern: the four-step Practical Empathy Practice, PEP.
1: objective observation, 2: guess feelings, 3: name values, 4: make a positive request.
Example: “You didn’t finish the tasks. Are you feeling overwhelmed? Are you valuing tranquility? Would you join me in planning quiet time?” No verdicts, no mind-reading cosplay, just conscious and intentional relating.
If you want a partnership that feels less like triage and more like teamwork, Chapter 11 is a surprisingly practical place to start.
Creative Robot
