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/relationship-science-coach

@3323bc9
by Tristan Manchestertristanmanchester/agent-skills3 stars
2
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Offer practical adult relationship coaching for communication, conflict, trust, dating, breakups, affection, and consent-led intimacy. Use when the user seeks relationship help, including support when experiencing coercion, surveillance, threats, or abuse. Do not help perpetrate coercion or surveillance, diagnose an absent partner, or substitute coaching for medical, legal, crisis, or specialist abuse support.

Use this Skill: https://skilld.dev/gh/tristanmanchester/agent-skills/relationship-science-coach

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referencesSOURCE_MAP.md

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Source map and evidence basis

This skill is an integrative coaching aid. It combines public descriptions of influential relationship books with peer-reviewed relationship and sexuality research. It should not claim to reproduce proprietary programmes, official certification, or validated clinical treatment.

How to use sources in responses

Use sources as lenses. Do not dump theory. Translate the relevant idea into one concrete coaching move.

Avoid claiming “science proves” when the source is a popular book, a clinical tradition, a small study, or an indirect finding. A better formulation is: “A useful lens here is...” or “A practical way to test this is...”

When a framework is popular but weakly validated, use it as vocabulary rather than diagnosis. The love-languages model is a good example: it is useful for naming forms of care, but should not be treated as a rigid compatibility theory.

Do not quote more than a few words from a book or article. Paraphrase and create original worksheets.

Popular and clinical relationship frameworks

Gottman Method and The Seven Principles

Use for conflict process, friendship, positive sentiment, repair, bids, Love Maps, Four Horsemen, flooding breaks, perpetual versus solvable problems, compromise, and shared meaning.

Public sources:

Coaching translation:

  • If a user opens harshly, build a soft start-up.
  • If they are flooded, stop problem-solving and create a timed return.
  • If the fight is perpetual, stop trying to “solve” the personality/value difference and explore the dream underneath.
  • If they feel like roommates, rebuild friendship through bids, appreciation, and curiosity before problem-solving.

Emotionally Focused Therapy and Hold Me Tight

Use for attachment needs, pursue-withdraw cycles, emotional accessibility, responsiveness, engagement, vulnerable conversations, and bonding repair.

Public sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Identify the cycle, not the villain.
  • Translate secondary moves such as criticism, shutdown, sarcasm, or pursuing into primary attachment emotions: fear, loneliness, rejection, overwhelm, helplessness.
  • Use bonding scripts: “When X happens, I protect myself by Y, but underneath I feel Z and need A.”

Attachment science

Use for anxious pursuit, avoidant distancing, fearful/disorganised patterns, protest behaviour, deactivation, self-soothing, and earned secure behaviour.

Public research sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Avoid labelling the partner as “avoidant” or “anxious” as a weapon.
  • Coach observable moves: “When I feel panic, I send three texts. I’ll send one clear text and then self-soothe for 20 minutes.”
  • Secure behaviour is not suppressing needs; it is expressing needs clearly while tolerating uncertainty.

How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It

Use when relationship talks have become shame/fear loops, especially when one partner experiences verbal processing as pressure or exposure.

Public sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Do not force more talking when talking itself is the trigger.
  • Use connection-before-analysis: warmth, small acts of care, shared tasks, physical proximity when welcome, appreciation, and non-demanding contact.
  • Then talk briefly and specifically, after connection is re-established.

Mating in Captivity and erotic intelligence

Use for desire in long-term relationships, the closeness/separateness tension, novelty, aliveness, playful distance, erotic imagination, and the difference between domestic security and erotic charge.

Public sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Do not treat desire loss only as lack of love.
  • Explore erotic conditions: autonomy, novelty, play, admiration, distance, privacy, anticipation, and the ability to see the partner as separate.
  • Build “erotic aliveness” experiments that are consensual and pressure-free.

Come as You Are and Come Together

Use for modern sex education: context, stress, sexual brakes and accelerators, responsive desire, pleasure, body image, sexual scripts, and sustaining sexual connection over time.

Public sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Desire is not always spontaneous; many people experience desire after arousal, connection, or context.
  • Arousal depends on accelerators and brakes. Often the best intervention is removing brakes, not pushing harder on accelerators.
  • Pleasure, willingness, and freedom to stop are better standards than performance, frequency, or orgasm as obligation.

She Comes First and pleasure equity

Use for female pleasure, clitoral literacy, moving beyond penetration-centred scripts, partner feedback, and pleasure equity.

Public sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Do not make vaginal intercourse the default centre of sex.
  • Prioritise feedback, comfort, safety, rhythm, stimulation that actually works for that partner, and pleasure over performance.
  • Do not promise orgasm or make orgasm a duty.

Passionate Marriage and differentiation

Use for emotional fusion, integrity, self-soothing, desire under pressure, truth-telling, self-confrontation, and growth in long-term committed relationships.

Public sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Differentiation means staying yourself while staying connected.
  • Coach the user to say what is true without forcing the partner to validate it immediately.
  • Replace “I need you to make me feel okay” with “I can regulate enough to be honest and listen.”

The Five Love Languages

Use as a care-menu vocabulary: words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Do not use as rigid science.

Public sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Ask: “What makes care land for you lately?” rather than “What is your fixed language?”
  • Encourage partners to receive and offer love in multiple forms.
  • Avoid scorekeeping and entitlement.

Relationship-science findings to use broadly

Responsiveness and feeling known

Perceived partner responsiveness is central to intimacy and satisfaction. Feeling understood, validated, and cared for often matters more than perfect advice.

Sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Teach “understand before fix”.
  • Use listener summaries and validation before problem-solving.
  • When discussing sex, responsiveness to sexual talk matters as much as the content.

Capitalisation and positive responding

Couples benefit when partners respond actively and constructively to good news, not only when they handle bad news well.

Sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Ask couples to practise enthusiastic responses to good news.
  • Build positive rituals, not just conflict tools.

Conflict and demand-withdraw

Negative interactions are linked with lower relationship satisfaction; demand-withdraw patterns can make both partners feel trapped in a cycle.

Sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Help the pursuer soften and ask one clear question.
  • Help the withdrawer name overwhelm and return reliably.
  • Solve the cycle before solving the content.

Sexual communal strength and pressure-free desire

Sexual communal strength means caring about a partner’s sexual wellbeing without self-erasure or pressure. It is different from doing sex to avoid guilt, conflict, or rejection.

Sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Support generosity and responsiveness, but never duty sex.
  • Discuss “willingness” separately from spontaneous desire.
  • Respect a no without punishing or withdrawing affection.

Dating and flirting research

Use for early-stage attraction and texting. Evidence is suggestive, not deterministic.

Sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Flirting works best when warm, specific, reciprocal, and calibrated.
  • Escalate only when there is interest and comfort.
  • Prefer curiosity plus specificity over generic compliments or explicit openers.
  • A clear invitation beats ambiguous testing.

Kink, consent, and high-risk sexual practices

Use a kink-aware but consent-strict approach.

Sources:

Coaching translation:

  • A fantasy is not a real-world consent plan.
  • CNC requires explicit adult negotiation, limits, safewords, aftercare, and a clear end to roleplay.
  • Do not provide non-consensual erotic content or pressure tactics.
  • Do not teach choking techniques. Offer safer roleplay alternatives.

Safety and crisis resources

Use only when relevant.

Sources:

Coaching translation:

  • Safety red flags override couples exercises.
  • If monitoring is possible, mention safe devices and privacy.
  • For imminent danger, local emergency services come before relationship coaching.

Source: SKILL.md on GitHub

Skill behaviors

skilld matched fixed text patterns in SKILL.md and file names. Patterns miss obfuscated code.

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Third-party checks

No alerts1mo3 checks · Risk SAFE
  • Gen Agent Trust Hub1mo

    The skill is a relationship coaching assistant that includes several utility scripts for session planning and validation. Analysis of the instructions and scripts shows no evidence of malicious intent, data exfiltration, or unsafe remote operations. Static analysis flags regarding concealment are false positives related to legitimate domestic safety advice provided to users in high-risk situations.

  • Socket1mo

    No alerts

  • Snyk1mo

    Risk: LOW · No issues

Provenance

Signed by skilld at 3323bc9. This ties the file your Agent reads to that commit on GitHub. It does not review the instructions.

Last checked against GitHub 2 weeks ago.

Steadyupdated last month

Capability

metadata
{
  "version": "4.0.0",
  "reviewed": "2026-09-13"
}
Other metadata
compatibility
No external tool is required for ordinary coaching. Optional recipe/worksheet scripts need Python 3.9+. Check current sources and location-appropriate support for specialised or safety-critical guidance.

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