Curious if my approach is the right for you? Let’s talk. I offer a free 15-minute consultation.
Let’s Connect
You know what's incredibly frustrating? Having a conversation with your partner, coming up with a solution, agreeing that things will be different, and then finding yourself having the exact same fucking argument three weeks later.
Except this time, it's about something completely different.
You fixed the dishes. Now it's the laundry. You figured out the laundry. Now it's Christmas presents. You divided responsibilities for the kids, and somehow you're still fighting about who does more.
At some point, you're thinking, WTF. Is this what the rest of our marriage is going to look like?
Maybe you're not dealing with six different problems. Maybe you're dealing with one that neither of you has actually understood. And that's where we need to start.
If you read Part 1 of this series, you already know my first rule: stop trying to solve problems when you're too dysregulated to have a productive conversation. So you've paused, you've regulated, and everyone is back online.
Now can we solve the problem? Nope. Not yet. I know. Annoying. Sorry?
Cliché. But true. So, let’s go back to the dishes.
You can absolutely sit down and create a better system. You load the dishwasher Monday through Wednesday. I do Thursday through Saturday. Sunday we live dangerously. Whatever. And maybe that system genuinely works for some time. The fighting stops. But what if the actual problem was never really the dishes?
What if underneath the argument, one person feels like they are carrying everything on their own while the other person gets to sit there, comfy and unbothered? Now we have a very different problem.
Because maybe the conclusion isn't you don't do the dishes. Maybe it's I can't rely on you. You don't notice how much I do. My needs only matter if I make enough noise about them. I'm alone in this relationship.
Or maybe the person on the other side has their own version. Nothing I do is ever enough for you. You're always disappointed in me. You don't trust me to do anything my way. The only way to make this stop is to stay out of your way.
Now tell me: what chore chart fixes that?
You can fix the dishes without ever touching any of it. So that feeling is going to find somewhere else to go. Grocery shopping. Taking out the trash. Scheduling the dentist appointment. Paying the bills. Making weekend plans. Different topic. Same fucking fight.
This is why solving the issue in front of you isn't always enough. If you haven't figured out what the actual problem is, you might just be putting a very efficient system on top of something much bigger.
When something becomes repetitive in a relationship, I want to know more than what happened this time. Yes, tell me what happened. But then I want to know what happened inside of you when it happened.
What did you feel? What did you immediately think? What did you assume your partner's behavior meant? What conclusion did you make about them? About yourself? About the relationship?
And then: since when?
Because maybe this started six months ago. Maybe it started after a betrayal, and what looks like an argument about being 20 minutes late is actually happening inside a relationship where trust has already been hurt. Maybe there was a version of how you thought marriage, parenthood, or partnership would look, and what you're living now is nowhere close to it.
Maybe this reaction existed long before your partner did. Hello, mom and dad. Nice of you to join us.
Or maybe your partner has done this exact thing 47 times, and your reaction makes a lot more sense once we stop pretending we're only talking about what happened Tuesday.
Context matters. The history of the relationship matters. The meaning you gave the moment matters. The parts of you that show up to protect you matter. The story your brain immediately tells you about your partner matters.
Because two people can experience the exact same event and be having two completely different emotional experiences of it. If all we do is negotiate the logistics, we miss all of that.
Need a quick list to refer back to? I’ve got you.
Get the deeper story first. Then we can talk about the fucking dishes.
This is where repetitive conflict gets extra fun. We literally talked about this. I thought we fixed this. Why are we back here AGAIN?
Eventually, you aren't only upset about the original problem anymore. Now you're pissed that you're still having the problem. And that becomes its own fight.
Some people bring out the big guns. We must not be over this because you're too emotional. We must not be over this because you're lazy. You never let anything go. Nothing is ever enough for you. Why do I have to keep asking you for the same thing?
Now you have the original hurt, plus however many rounds of hurt you've accumulated trying and failing to fix it. And somehow it gets uglier every time.
This is how couples end up looking at each other like, How the fuck did we get here?
You didn't necessarily get there in one giant relationship-ending moment. Sometimes you got there one unresolved argument at a time.
Problem solving is THE LAST STEP. I know we really, really want it to be the first.
Especially my high achievers. Find problem. Optimize system. Execute. Put it on the shared calendar. Beautiful.
But good problem solving only works once you know what problem you're actually trying to solve. Otherwise, you found something that covers the immediate issue and maybe even makes it feel better for a little while.
You know what happens to Band-Aids, though? They come off. The wound still exists underneath until the healing is done.
Tempting, though. I’ll give you that. Put a Band-Aid on it and move on. Just don't be shocked when you're fighting about the laundry next month.
And when that happens, make sure to call me so we can repair the thing that actually needs to be repaired.
I work with individuals and couples in Houston and across Texas who are tired of having the same arguments, repeating the same patterns, and wondering why nothing seems to change. Sometimes we work on understanding what happens between two people. Sometimes we work on understanding what happens inside one person that keeps showing up in their relationships. Either way, the goal is to understand the problem well enough that we can actually do something about it.
Because I promise you, there is more to relationship work than learning how to communicate nicely while secretly wanting to throw the dishwasher out the window.
