COUPLES THERAPY · SAN MATEO
How do two smart people keep having the same fight?
You know how the conversation is going to go before it starts. Twenty minutes later neither of you feels heard, and you’re both wondering how you ended up here again.
Maybe the subject changes. The pattern usually doesn’t.
Sometimes it looks like this
You can talk easily about almost anything until you get to the one thing you actually need to talk about.
One of you wants to work it out right now. The other needs space. The more one pushes, the more the other pulls away.
One of you says, “That’s not what I meant.” The other says, “But that’s how it felt.”
You keep score even though neither of you wants to.
Or maybe you aren’t fighting much anymore. You just don’t feel as close as you used to.
The argument usually isn’t the whole problem.
Couples often come in wanting to settle the thing they’re fighting about. Of course we’ll talk about that. But I’m also watching what happens between you when the conversation gets hard.
Who reaches? Who pulls away? Who gets louder? Who goes quiet? And what does each of you think the other person’s reaction means?
The goal isn’t to decide which one of you is right. It’s for each of you to understand what’s happening well enough that you stop having different versions of the same fight.
WE MIGHT WORK ON
I’ll interrupt.
I won’t sit quietly while the two of you have the same fight you have at home. I’ll slow things down when I think we’re about to miss what’s actually happening. I’ll tell you what I notice, and I’ll ask each of you to look at your part in the pattern.
I’m not interested in picking a good guy and a bad guy. I am interested in being direct. If one of you is doing something that’s hurting the relationship, we’re going to talk about it.