Why do we keep having the same fight over and over again?
- Brian Tohana
- Oct 8, 2025
- 7 min read
Why Do Couples Keep Having the Same Fights?
In partnership, we're unconsciously trying to make each other our "primary attachment figure" the person who we can depend on the most. So any indication that we can't depend on them or can’t trust them to be there for us triggers a big reaction.
As you attempt to build real security, it’s like doing a simultaneous trust fall. When your partner doesn’t follow through on something they said they would do, you’re dropped. So you’re learning how to open your heart and hold each other’s with care.
It’s not about the dishes or the socks on the floor, or different styles of parenting or communication… it’s what certain things represent. Dr. Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy taught us that when you can’t rely on your partner in the little moments, your attachment system is always unconsciously probing:
“Can I rely on you when it really counts?”
“Do I matter enough to you to get your attention?”
“Are you really there for me when I need you?”
"Can I trust you to turn towards me instead of away when it's hard?"
“Small things” spiral into “big fights” because they trigger our attachment system. Both partners must learn to attune to each other emotionally and be able to offer reciprocal empathy for each other’s pain.
Why Does Everything Turn Into an Argument?
Because when you get hurt, most partners become self-absorbed and slip into what I call the parallel monologue:
Two speakers, no listener.
Demanding to be understood first: “You hurt me. You should understand me and my pain!”
Both fighting to exist and to have their pain and perspective understood over empathizing with the other.
Conflict escalates when you invalidate each other’s pain with explanations like, “If you saw it my way, you wouldn’t feel that way. You’re overreacting. I disagree. You’re wrong, I’m right.”
Conflict is: You had two different experiences of the same event, so you must focus on validating each other’s subjective experience rather than have “Objectivity Battles.”
Both partners must work through their resistance to empathizing with each other.
How Do You Actually Stop Escalating Fights?
Step one: Take turns. One person is the Speaker, the other is the Listener.
The Speaker shares what hurt, slowly, one drop at a time.
The Listener puts aside their perspective temporarily and joins their partner’s subjective world.
This can feel challenging at first. But once you recognize that the only way to truly create mutual understanding is taking turns, you save a ton of time. When you get hurt or triggered you need structure that acts as guardrails for your conversation so you stop from spiraling into reacting to each other’s reactions.
De-escalation = Empathizing with their subjective experience.
Escalation = Reiterating your point of view over and over.
👉 Want to learn more about my approach? Watch my free 12-minute video here.
What Is Validation in a Relationship?
Validation is not saying, “I understand.” Those words never help anyone feel understood.
Validation is demonstrating that their perspective makes sense from inside their world.
It’s walking into their House of Understanding on the other side of the street. From your porch, it looked one way, but from theirs, it looked completely different.
Empathy is saying:
“From your side, of street, I can see how it felt scary, disrespectful, etc., because _______.”
If you’re unable to empathize with them because you genuinely can’t comprehend their point of view, get curious!
Empathy requires checking assumptions and sustained curiosity until you birth new understanding together.
You should be able to elaborate and explain your partner’s point of view better than they can themselves. Think out loud what they would be thinking.
Validation has nothing to do with right vs wrong. It’s simply explaining from their point of reference their subjectivity experience of reality from the inside out.
How Do You Share Your Feelings Without Triggering Defensiveness?
We typically want to share our feelings because we were hurt in some way. The best way to do that is to ask for consent. Creating shared language that works for both of you is important so you can cue each other for a “repair conversation”, “feedback”, “sharing a concern”, etc. Without shared language your pain or concern will come out as an accusation.
When we get hurt, there are usually layers to our pain, and we need that pain to be empathized with by our partner. We need them to understand how they hurt us. It wouldn’t make sense to stay in a relationship where you keep getting hurt and your partner doesn’t really get how, or how bad, or what it’s like to be you.
So how you share your pain is very important, otherwise you risk overloading your partner or triggering their defensiveness.Think of sharing pain like combining an acid and base in chemistry:
When both of you dump 5,000 liters of each at once, it explodes. (Both trying to have your pain understood at the same time never works).
But When you use a dropper — one drop of pain at a time — it slowly neutralizes until you dissolve the entire solution without any explosion.
Conflict resolution works the same way. Instead of venting just to get it out, slow down. Share one drop and create understanding as a team:
“What hurt?”
Empathize with one drop.
Repeat layer by layer, drop by drop.
Pain is neutralized with empathy, but you shouldn’t expect your partner to be able to empathize with all of your pain (which is in layers anyways) in one go. When you approach this process extremely intentionally, you can actually experience true resolution.
Why Does My Partner Take Everything as an Attack?
Because they’re protecting their “good person” identity. To them, taking accountability feels like admitting they’re bad. To most people we mistakenly assume “I’m sorry” = “I did something wrong.”
That’s why you need to shift from fault → impact. It’s not about who’s right vs wrong, it’s about acknowledging the impact you have on each other, even when you didn’t mean to hurt each other.
You rocked the canoe and they fell in the water.
You didn’t mean to. You’re not a bad person.
But they’re still wet, and their pain still matters, even though you didn’t mean to hurt them.
Accountability isn’t about fault. It’s about acknowledging impact without shame or judgment.
So you need to work on sharing, “Here’s how you hurt me” without making it an accusation. Because “You hurt me” implies they’re the villain who did the hurting, so they immediately need to defend themselves.
Instead, you can massage their ego, “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, and I know and trust you’re a good person, here’s the story I’m making up, here’s how I interpreted things, here’s what wasn’t okay with me. Could you try empathizing with my subjective experience please?
What Does Repair Actually Mean in a Relationship?
Repair isn’t “Sorry, I get it. Can we move on already?”
Repair is:
The healing of emotional wounds, such that their charge dissolves completely, so the pain that was in the way of the natural flow of energy between you is resolved and a felt-sense of connection is restored.
Repair happens when you fully join your partner in their experience; when you demonstrate your understanding of their pain by speaking from their perspective so clearly, that their nervous system relaxes because they feel you get what it’s like to be them. Once done correctly, there’s no more need to have the pain seen, heard or understood,
therefore it dissolves and connection is restored.
It can take 30, 60, even 90 minutes of slow, layer-by-layer validation. When you finally get to the “Oh My God, Yes” experience. When your partner’s nervous system fully relaxes because they feel seen all the way through.
When you are able to articulate better than your partner can themselves what it was like to be them, that’s true resolution. And it’s a felt sense. You’ll know when you get there, when your partner says:
“Yes. That’s exactly what it was like.”
“You get it. Finally! Thank you!”
Should You Problem-Solve Right Away?
No. That’s the trap. Making it better or "fixing it" is usually invalidating and creates more upset.
Most couples try to fix the issue before they feel connected. But you can’t solve problems from opposite teams. You must reconnect emotionally first. Then, once you both feel deeply understood, solutions come naturally.
What Is the Deepest Level of Empathy?
It’s when you can speak as your partner. You should be able to explain your partner’s point of view better than they can themselves. When you do that, there's nothing for them to argue against.
“If I were you, here’s how I’d feel… here’s why it would hurt.”
Empathy does not mean you agree. You do not need to prove you’re a good partner or defend your good person image. Empathy is not explaining your point of view. Empathy is not relating to their experience from your own. The empathy that heals is actually inhabiting their world long enough to describe it better than they can.
Remember empathy is exiting your reality and entering theirs. That takes some practice at first. You must be able to think as them, to leave your House of Understanding and cross the street into theirs.
That’s the level of empathy that transforms not just fights, but your entire relationship.
FAQs About Conflict Resolution in Relationships
Why do couples fight so much about small things?
Everything feel unfair because of a lack of connection/security - broken trust, lack of security, fear of being left - a shaky insecure foundation. When you create real security, little things stop turning into big things because you know you can rely on each other for reciprocal empathy.
What is the #1 tip for resolving conflict in marriage?
Stop the Objectivity Battles. Take turns empathizing with each other’s subjective experience.
How do I stop getting defensive with my partner?
Shift explaining good intentions to empathizing with impact. You’re a good person, you didn't mean to hurt your partner, and you hurt your partner.
What does real repair look like?
Repair is slow, and requires empathizing with layers and layers of pain, one partner at a time, until both partners feel a full “OMG Yes” moment of being completely seen in their subjective experience.
Is conflict normal in healthy relationships?
Yes. The problem isn’t conflict itself, it’s unresolved pain. Repair is the process of resolving the pain between you so that it doesn’t infinitely compound.
Final Takeaway
You don’t need more “communication skills.”
You need emotionally corrective experiences, moments of deep empathy where defensiveness and resentment melts and intimacy returns.
That’s what I help couples create every day. Even after years of profound pain and resentment, I’ve watched partners reconnect in just a few hours of this process.
👉 Check out my Repair Anything course here. Couples who work with me get it free.
👉 Or book a free 20-minute consult to see if this approach is the support your relationship has been missing.
You deserve a relationship where conflict brings you closer, not further apart. Let’s build that together.
