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People often make faulty judgments about why their partners behave the way they do.

Thinking that your partner’s negative behaviors are intentional is a major predictor of relationship distress.

Understanding your partner’s attachment style can prevent attributing their behavior to negative intentions.

You can use knowledge of your partner’s attachment style to preserve and build a healthier relationship.

Research with couples shows that one of the major factors underlying dissatisfaction and distress in romantic relationships is the idea that our partner is wounding us on purpose and with conscious awareness.

An attribution is a causal explanation we give for someone else’s behavior.

When negative, anxiety-inducing events occur, our human brains quickly move to find the explanation for the event. If you hear a loud noise in your house at night, you might feel impelled to go find the source. (Don’t do this if you are a character in a horror movie!) If you find the source of the noise and it is not a threat, your anxiety will go down. If you don’t find the source, your brain will stay active and keep searching for an explanation.

In relationships, if someone says something—or doesn’t say something—that makes your anxiety spike, your brain will similarly search for the source. For example, if your avoidant partner says nothing or doesn't attempt to comfort you when you share a disturbing experience at work, you may attribute (i.e., explain) their behavior as reflecting that they do not care about you. If you can’t find another explanation for their behavior, you will accept your conclusion as fact and react to it accordingly. In this case, your reaction might be to get more upset, point out their shortcomings, and accuse them of not caring.

People frequently make misattributions (faulty causal explanations) for things in ambiguous circumstances. Although your partner’s behaviors may be overtly observable, their motives may be ambiguous and need to be inferred. If you attribute your........

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