It’s the damn dishwasher argument, again.

If you’ve ever found yourselves stuck in a cycle about something seemingly small or insignificant, or feeling like no matter how many times you try to explain what’s going on, it just doesn’t land with your partner, know this: you’re not alone.

I see this everyday in my therapy room with the couples I work with.

And it’s not necessarily a sign that your relationship is broken. It’s a sign that something deeper needs attention.

It’s a phrase that comes up often in Relational Life Therapy “The More The More'“. A simple idea that describes something profoundly painful and frustrating: the reactive cycle couples get caught in when they feel hurt, unheard, or unseen.

You’ve probably lived it in some form. The more one of you chases, the more the other distances. The more one complains, the more the other shuts down. The more one partner tries to control, the more the other resists or rebels. And on it goes.

At first glance, these dynamics might look like personality clashes or mismatched needs. But in RLT, we zoom out. We look at the dance: the relational pattern between you, and how both partners are co-creating it, usually without meaning to.