04/30/2026
THE PATTERN IS THE PROBLEM🤔
Today is the first in our 4-part series focusing on conflict issues within relationships.
If you’ve been having the same fight over and over again, you might be surprised to learn that it’s not about the dishes. Or the phones. Or the kids.
Decades of research from Dr. John Gottman suggest that the topic is usually not the real issue. What matters much more is the pattern couples can fall into during conflict.✋🏼
What Trips Us Up?
Gottman identified the four communication patterns (AKA The Four Horsemen) that tend to repeat themselves and derail arguments:
Criticism – attacking your partner’s character (“You never help around here”)
Defensiveness – protecting yourself instead of listening (“That’s not true, I did it yesterday”)
Contempt – sarcasm, eye-rolling, or disrespect (“Wow, you’re unbelievable”)
Stonewalling – shutting down or withdrawing (silence, leaving the room, checking out) 🐎🐎🐎🐎
Once couples fall into this pattern, conversations tend to escalate quickly. One partner criticizes, the other gets defensive, the tension rises, one or both withdraw. One client described it as “a feeling like we’re on a runaway train, and we cant use the brakes”. Usually the pattern takes us far down the tracks before we can even recognize it. It doesn’t seem to matter what the issue is, we argue in the same way, with the same inevitable negative outcomes.
Why Do We Behave This Way?
FULL FEATURE: https://www.eastbayrelationshipcenter.com/the-problem-isnt-the-problem-the-pattern-is-the-problem/
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