I've read a lot on the mainstream psychology field of attachment theory due to me and my wife both having attachment issues, and we were well on our way to passing them on to our kids too.

Attachment theory is very well documented, and it covers what we call comfort tests. And I think it offers some additional insights that are typically not covered in red pill material.

When humans experience from loss, stress, criticism, whatever, we get anxious and this activates attachment behavior where we seek physical and psychological closeness with our attachment figures - typically parents and partners, or very close friends.

If we get that closeness, we feel secure, our anxieties are alleviated, and we can go back to our everyday activities and dealing with our problems.

If our attachment figures instead reject us, it hyperactivates our attachment system, and our anxiety and attachment behaviors increase as we try harder and harder to get our attachment figure to respond and give us the closeness we need, which may escalate to clinginess, crying, threats.

As an alternative, we give up, suppress our anxiety, distance ourselves of emotionally from the attachment figure and consider finding a replacement.

A lot of this is just basic comfort test knowledge: if you treat your wife's comfort tests as shit tests and reject them, she'll just get more hysterical and eventually leave you. Nothing new here.

What attachment theory brings to the table is the finding (and this is very well documented) that the attachment figure just needs to bring physical and emotional closeness. You don't need to fix the problem or change whatever she is complaining about. Attachment behavior is a basic survival strategy - it is an instinct in a social animal that senses trouble and just needs to check that there are pack members who are close and who has the emotional connection that will motivate them to help out if the problems get worse.

That's why when your wife is all worked up, you can fix it just by holding her: you don't need to fix her problems, she just needs to know you are close and you love her.

This is also why children still love abusive parents and why women often stay with abusive partners: our attachment wiring didn't develop to deal with things of minor evolutionary importance like not getting a black eye once a month, it is about ensuring that there are people who will have your back when predators attack or you're too ill to find your own food.

I used to have a lot of problems with telling shit tests and comfort tests apart - my wife like all women is cunning and will disguise shit tests as comfort tests. I still have trouble telling them apart, but a few weeks back I made the mental connection between attachment theory and comfort tests and that made me realize I don't have to be able to tell them apart. When I suspect it might be a comfort test, I treat what she says like a shit test and agree and amplify or whatever, and hug her (or display physical and/or emotional closeness some other way), and it's golden. And even when it is clearly a comfort test, I don't actually have to deal with the issue or give in to her demand; I just have to let her know I still love her even though she isn't getting her way on this matter either.

This works great on kids too. When they get hysterical because you tell them no, don't yell or ignore them, hug them and tell them no. Then they'll quickly calm down - the hysteria is not because of the incredible hardship of not getting cookies for dinner, but because they need reaffirming that you're not denying them cookies because you don't love them.

EDIT: clarification that I don't hug (or something similar) with all shit tests, just when I think it might be a comfort test.