You’re sitting at dinner with your partner, and they mention they forgot to pick up milk at the store. What starts as a simple statement somehow spirals into a full-blown argument about responsibility, respect, and who does more around the house. Sound familiar?
If you’re nodding your head right now, you’re not alone. Many couples feel trapped in this exhausting cycle where even the smallest disagreements explode into major conflicts. Here’s the thing—conflict itself isn’t the enemy but rather how you fight. Dr. John Gottman’s research shows us that even the happiest couples argue. Successful relationships aren’t conflict-free; they’re simply better at managing arguments and repairing when something has gone wrong.
Conflict can be productive and healthy, but too often conflict there is a significant difference between healthy and unhealthy conflict. Unhealthy conflict is characterized by the presence of criticism, defensiveness and a lack of understanding. These patterns can be changed. Learn more about why fights can quickly and easily become destructive and how to turn things around.
7 Signs You’re Stuck in Unhealthy Conflict Patterns
Recognizing these patterns is the first step toward change. Do any of these sound familiar?
Small issues become disproportionately large fights. You disagree about dinner plans and somehow end up questioning your entire relationship. Normal differences of opinion escalate to relationship-threatening conflicts.
You argue about the same things over and over. You’ve had the “dishes conversation” 47 times, yet nothing changes. These recurring conflicts feel like being stuck in a broken record that keeps skipping.
Conversations quickly become personal attacks. What starts as discussing a specific behavior turns into character assassination. “You forgot to call” becomes “You’re completely unreliable and selfish.”
One or both of you regularly shut down. When emotions run high, someone goes silent and withdraws. This stonewalling often happens when someone feels overwhelmed or flooded, but it leaves the other partner feeling abandoned.
You can’t remember what started the fight. Arguments take on a life of their own, spiraling so far from the original issue that neither of you can recall how it began. You’re fighting about fighting about fighting.
Resolution never seems to happen. Conflicts fizzle out from exhaustion rather than reaching any real understanding or agreement. You might stop talking about it, but nothing actually gets resolved.
You both feel defensive most of the time. Instead of being able to take responsibility for your part of the situation or argument, you respond defensively. This may look like playing the victim or criticizing your partner in response to something they say.
Why Some Couples Turn Everything Into a Fight
The Hidden Culprit: Unmet Needs
Most arguments aren’t really about the dishes in the sink or who forgot to pay a bill. They’re about deeper needs that aren’t being met. When someone feels unseen, unheard, or undervalued in their relationship, even minor issues become opportunities to express that pain and unhappiness.
Some couples fight constantly about mundane issues like household chores. However, when you dig deeper you realize that the fight isn’t about washing the dishes or doing the laundry. It might be about one person feeling like they are invisible in the relationship, and their contributions are not acknowledged. The chores aren’t the issue, it’s the idea that one partner feels undervalued or unappreciated in the relationship.
The Four Horsemen Riding Through Your Living Room
Dr. Gottman identified four communication patterns so destructive to relationships that he dubbed them “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” When these show up regularly, they predict relationship failure with over 90% accuracy.
Criticism attacks your partner’s character rather than addressing specific behavior. Instead of “You left dishes in the sink,” it sounds like “You’re lazy and inconsiderate.”
Contempt is the most toxic horseman—it involves eye-rolling, sarcasm, name-calling, and an air of superiority. When contempt enters a relationship, things can deteriorate very quickly. The presence of contempt is the #1 predictor of divorce.
Defensiveness typically follows criticism. Instead of taking responsibility, you counter-attack or play the victim: “Well, at least I don’t spend all day on my phone like you do!”
Stonewalling happens when one partner completely shuts down and withdraws from the interaction, often feeling overwhelmed or flooded.
When these negative dynamics become regular communication patterns, a phenomenon called ‘negative sentiment override’ can occur. When it does, you start interpreting neutral or even positive actions through a negative lens. Your partner brings you coffee, and instead of feeling loved, you think, ‘Of course they didn’t add cream. They don’t even know what I like after 10 years of marriage.’
When Life Stress Spills Over
External pressures can impact our wellbeing and infiltrate our closest relationships. Work deadlines, financial worries, family drama—all of this stress needs somewhere to go. Unfortunately, we often dump it on the people we’re closest to because they feel ‘safe.’
This pattern can intensify dramatically during major life transitions. New parents, couples dealing with job loss, or those caring for aging parents often find themselves snapping at each other over things that wouldn’t have bothered them before. The overwhelming stress and pressure from these life situations impact every interaction one has.
The Pursuer-Distancer Pattern
Every couple has a different conflict style, and sometimes these styles create their own problems. Some people are “pursuers“—when there’s tension, they want to talk it out immediately. Others are “distancers”—they need space to process before they can engage.
This creates a painful dynamic where the pursuer pushes for resolution, and the distancer retreats. The pursuer feels abandoned and ramps up their efforts, while the distancer feels overwhelmed and shuts down further, causing this cycle to repeat in every conflict conversation. Both partners end up feeling frustrated and misunderstood.
Similarly, some people are ‘escalators’; they get louder and more intense when upset, while others are ‘withdrawers’ who go silent and tend to shut down. Neither style is inherently wrong, but without understanding and accommodation, they can fuel endless conflict.
The Iceberg Effect: Hidden Dreams and Values
The Gottman research reveals that 69% of relationship conflicts are about perpetual problems—ongoing differences that may never be fully resolved. These often stem from fundamental differences in dreams, values, or life philosophies.
What looks like an argument about money might really be about security versus adventure. A fight about social media use might actually be about autonomy versus connection. When these deeper values remain hidden and unaddressed, surface-level conflicts become unsolvable because you’re not actually discussing the real issue.
The Gottman Research on Conflict
The Gottman Love Lab has given us incredible insights into what separates happy satisfied couples from unhappy distressed couples that may or may not break up. After studying thousands of couples for over four decades, their team can predict with remarkable accuracy which couples will make it and which won’t.
The satisfied couples maintain happy, stable relationships—but aren’t conflict-free. They argue just as much as everyone else, but they do it differently. They stay emotionally regulated during disagreements, show respect even when they’re upset, and make successful repair attempts to reconnect.
Distressed couples, on the other hand, get caught in destructive cycles where conflict escalates quickly, repair attempts fail, and both partners end up feeling hurt and misunderstood.
The Magic Ratio That Changes Everything
One of Gottman’s most powerful findings is the “Magic Ratio” of 5:1. For every negative interaction during conflict, stable couples have five positive interactions. This doesn’t mean you need to stop mid-argument to give five compliments—it’s about the overall balance in your conversation. By the way the ratio during non-conflict times of positive to negative interactions is 20:1 in happy couples.
How do you generate or build up to 5:1 positive to negative ratio in your conflict communication? Consider doing the following:
- May eye contact while talking to your partner and intentionally soften your gaze
- Begin with a gentle approach to conflict – praise and acknowledge before giving negative feedback
- When your partner is talking, try to listen for inspiration or to catch them saying something you can agree with or find reasonable and then tell them
- Smile at your partner – make sure it is genuine. If you don’t feel like smiling, pay attention to whether your facial expression has become a scowl. Positive is better but neutral is acceptable.
- Let your partner know what you find admirable or positive in their outlook before you share your own different perspective
- Validate and empathize often.
- Repair as soon as the conversation turns even slightly negative. Pause, check in and offer to rephrase something or take it back. Let your partner know you don’t want to hurt them to make your point.
When couples maintain these ratios, they build up enough goodwill to weather inevitable storms. Their positive interactions create an environment of ‘positive sentiment override’—a tendency to interpret ambiguous actions in the best possible light and to assume the best of your partner in all situations. When couples have a strong foundation of love, respect and friendship, they are able to have arguments without damaging their connection.
The Power of Repair Attempts
Repair attempts are efforts to de-escalate tension during conflict. They might be humorous (“Well, this is going well!”), affectionate (“I love you even when we’re fighting”), or simply a request to slow down (“Can we take a break?”).
In happy relationships, repair attempts are successful about 80% of the time primarily because the conflict rests on a foundation of friendship and care.. In distressed relationships, repair may be missed or rejected because of a lack of safety or friendship and the negative sentiment override makes partners suspicious of each other’s motives.
The good news? You can learn to make better repair attempts and become more receptive to your partner’s attempts. This single skill can dramatically improve your conflict resolution.
Here is the Gottman Repair Checklist for a variety of phrases and actions that can help you repair when a conversation derails.
Final Thoughts
When you are in a cycle of conflict with your partner, where every minor complaint turns into an argument, it can feel like your relationship is broken. However, once you understand some of the dynamics at play, especially around the reasons why your partner reacts so strongly about seemingly small things, you are prepared to change these negative patterns. Using the Gottman skills to deal with arguments leads to an environment of positive sentiment override where you and your partner will experience more relationship satisfaction and wellbeing.
Reviewed by: Dr. Vagdevi Meunier, PsyD
Vagdevi Meunier, Psy.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and Founder of The Center for Relationships in Austin, TX. Vagdevi has over 40 years of experience as a therapist, coach, and educator who taught graduate students and professionals at University of Texas and St. Edward’s University in Austin. She is a Senior Certified Gottman Therapist and Approved Clinical Trainer. For the past 20 years, Vagdevi has been facilitating the Art & Science of Love Workshop Gottman retreat for couples in Austin and around the US and has taught all 3 levels of the Gottman professional trainings and coached clinicians from around the world on this method.
