8 Sources of Repeating Negative Patterns in Relationships

Are your interaction behaviors destroying your relationship?

I have worked with couples for five decades. They have trusted me to help them break free of interactions that have damaged their love. Though there are many ways that intimate partners can push each other way, the one behavior that is certain to do that is a repetitive, negative fighting style that never results in a successful resolution.

After just a few sessions of witnessing these dysfunctional interactions, I can often repeat them back to the couple almost word for word. Yet, the partners caught up in them are often sadly unaware of how predictable they have become.

The accumulation of the scars that these repetitive interactions often predict a relationship in a dangerous spiral. Even more sadly, many of those couples whose partnerships have failed because of it have deep sadness and regret. Too late to stop the demise, they realize what they have done that doomed a partnership that might have had a chance to thrive.

I often find myself pleading with couples to recognize and stop what they are doing in front of me in real time and to help them see the damage they are creating as it is happening.

When they are able to recognize and face what I am seeing, most do want to change those patterns but find it difficult to stop. They don’t know why they feel the urgency to continue what they now know is harming their relationship yet continue to sabotage the healing process they so desperately need.

What makes any couple continue to expend life-wasting energy as they repeat useless and unsuccessful repeated negative interaction patterns? Have they done that in all their prior relationships, or is it particularly hard to stop these patterns in their current one? What part of the pattern did each bring into the relationship and why is that behavior triggered with that particular partner?

To successfully let go of these negative interactive patterns, both partners must look at what is driving their inability to stop them.

The 8 Most Common Causes of Negative, Repeated Behavior Patterns

Substitution for Intimacy. Fighting connects two people in a passionate exchange of energy. It may be a negative one, but often is an underlying substitution for a couple’s inability to intimately connect in a positive way. It even can pave the way for intimacy later when the couple, too far disconnected, makes up in a way they might not have been able to without the incessant and repetitive disputes.
Inability to Trust Collaboration. If either partner came from a family in which there was only hierarchical dominance, they may not trust any kind of equality in their relationship. They only believe that they are either more powerful or less powerful than the other partner, and the fights are an endless repetition of these power struggles, often over issues that never resolve because the issue isn’t the problem. Were they to exchange roles, they would still fight in the same way.
Long-standing Habits. Many couples adopted an adversarial interaction early in their relationship. They may have grown up witnessing those kinds of negative dramas and learned to normalize them. Any disruption, disappointment, disillusionment, or confusion can start a fresh battle and, once begun, it will play out. The partners could just record the interaction, go get a cup of coffee, and catch the ending. These feuding couples often meet a few hours later or the next morning and act as if nothing happened.
Dumping External Frustrations onto the Relationship. Sad as the case may be, there are many couples that use their relationship as a place to vent their frustrations in the outside world onto the relationship. They will mistakenly see their partner as symbolic of the one who distressed them in an outside encounter, and project their feelings on to them. “My boss asked too much of me” becomes “You ask too much of me,” when the problem has not been handled where it should have been.
Emotional Ramp-Up and Predictable Ending. These repetitive, negative interactions have a pattern to them. They usually begin with a sarcastic, irritated, or mildly insulting remark which is followed by a defensive “What about you,” or “You’re sure in a lousy mood,” or “Don’t dump your crap on me,” and the escalation begins. Children of these ever-dueling parents often tell me about how long the emotional seizure will last and who will win and who will disconnect. Once going, the negative connection has a trajectory of its own and nothing short of an emergency or unexpected guest arrival will stop it until it’s done.
Needing to Win. For many people, there is only winning or losing. For those partners, once an argument begins, they desperately need to force the other partner to accept their opinion. Once the need to win is firmly established, the other partner becomes the enemy who might erase, control, or punish, and, therefore, must be squashed. The gloves are off, and stay off until power over the other is established, or until it is challenged again. The issue the couple is fighting over is immaterial. It is only winning that counts.
Suppressing Deeper Fears. Hopeless, helpless, unsolvable, repeated interactive patterns often act to cover up much deeper distress that a partner doesn’t feel safe enough to share. Childhood traumas that are too hard to re-experience, for instance, can be triggered by a word, a phrase, a physical position, or the sound of a voice. When those loom, either partner may choose to fight over something irrelevant so as not to allow those deeper fear to emerge.
Hiding by Diverting Covert Behaviors. Choosing to pick a fight over an unresolvable and an often-repeated conflict may be a way one or both partners are unwilling to divulge something they don’t want the other to know. This is most obvious when those unresolvable patterns do not start until later in a relationship. Getting a partner to focus in a direction other than what is wanted can successfully keep those secrets hidden.