Couples rarely come to me because of the dishes, or the in-laws, or who forgot to pay a bill. Those are the topics. They're almost never the actual problem. The actual problem is usually a pattern — a specific, repeatable sequence of moves each partner makes that keeps them landing in the same disconnected place, regardless of what the argument was technically about.
Learning to see that pattern, instead of just the content of the latest fight, is one of the most useful shifts a couple can make.
A lot of what looks like anger in a relationship is actually a protest against feeling emotionally alone. This idea is central to the attachment-based research of Dr. Sue Johnson, developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), who spent decades studying how couples get stuck and how they get unstuck. Her core insight: conflict is rarely really about the topic. It's usually a signal that one or both partners don't feel securely connected in that moment, and the "fight" is an attempt — often a clumsy one — to restore that connection.
Every couple's specific pattern looks a little different, but two shapes show up again and again:
The pursue-withdraw loop. One partner moves toward conflict — bringing things up, pressing for a response, wanting to talk it through right now. The other partner moves away — going quiet, needing space, avoiding the conversation. The more one partner pursues, the more the other withdraws; the more one withdraws, the harder the other pursues. Both are trying to restore connection in the only way they know how, and both are, without meaning to, making it harder for the other person to do the same.
Mutual shutdown. This one shows up after a pursue-withdraw loop has played out for a while without resolution. Eventually the pursuing partner gives up, and both people go quiet. On the surface it can look calmer — less yelling, fewer blowups — but it's often a more serious sign, because it usually means both people have stopped believing the relationship can meet their needs.
Once a couple can recognize "oh, we're doing the thing again" in the moment, something shifts. The pattern stops being an unconscious force acting on both of you and starts being a shared enemy you can face together, instead of each other. That reframe alone — from you're the problem to this pattern is the problem — often does more to de-escalate a fight than any amount of being right.
Next time you notice yourselves in a familiar fight, try pausing and saying out loud what's happening structurally — not who's right, just the shape: "I think I'm pursuing and you're pulling back right now." Naming it together, even imperfectly, tends to lower the temperature.
The anger, the silence, the sarcasm — these are almost always covering something softer: hurt, fear of not mattering, fear of being too much, fear of being left. Getting curious about that softer feeling, in yourself first and eventually with your partner, is where real repair tends to happen. It's slower than winning the argument. It's also the only version of "winning" that actually changes the pattern long-term.
Seeing your own pattern clearly is hard to do alone — it usually takes an outside perspective. That's a lot of what relationship-focused counseling and coaching sessions at Innerbloom are for.
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