Most couples who call us aren't fighting about anything new. They're having the fight they had last spring, with a different topic on top.
A question about the checking account turns into forty minutes about who does more around here. One of you asks "Are we okay?" three times in an evening, and the other answers by going out to mow the lawn.
Or there's no fighting at all anymore, just "Anything new?" "Not really," and two people passing each other in the kitchen.
This page answers two questions: why the same fight keeps coming back, and what actually changes it.
The topic is not what you're fighting about
The topic is whatever happens to be on the table that night. Underneath it, the same four things happen every time, in about the same order.
We think about a person in four parts, and a marriage fight runs through all four:
Your body, which reacts before you've decided anything.
The space between the two of you, where your move sets off your spouse's move and theirs sets off yours.
The story in your head, an old sentence about yourself that tells you what the moment means.
Your connection with God, where your worth is either settled or still up for grabs.
When counseling only works on one of these, the fight comes back. When it reaches all four, the fight starts to lose its fuel.
Your body moves first
Before either of you picks a word, your body has already picked a move. Most people have one they reach for: fight, flight, freeze, or flock, which is the move of smoothing things over and pleasing.
Your face gets hot or goes blank. Your voice gets louder or flatter. The grown-up part of your mind, the part that can see two sides of anything, goes offline.
That's why the same person who handles a tense meeting at work with patience can't finish a sentence at home. At work the stakes are a project. At home the stakes feel like whether you're loved.
The dance between you
Your move lands on your spouse, and their body answers with its own. Do that a few hundred times and it becomes a dance, a pattern so familiar neither of you notices you're doing it. Three dances show up more than any others.
Find the bad guy
Two people who both fight. A small remark arrives as an accusation, so each of you builds a case and presses the other to agree with it. Adam's own description of what's happening:
"We are basically reading our version of the stories / mental maps to them and yelling at them to agree with it."
Nobody can tell you afterward what started it, and both of you are sure you're the good guy.
The unstoppable force and the immovable object
One of you presses and the other goes quiet. The quieter one gets, the harder the other presses, and the harder one presses, the further the other withdraws.
The one pressing is usually afraid, and fear pushed through a raised voice sounds like anger. The one withdrawing is usually trying to keep things from getting worse, and silence sounds like not caring. Each of you is trying to save the marriage in the way that makes the other feel it slipping away.
Ships in the night
Two people who both go still. Nothing gets fought about, and nothing real gets shared. Bills are paid, the kids get to practice, and you haven't really talked in months.
This one fools couples because it feels peaceful. Nothing sets off an alarm, so nothing stops the drift.
The old sentence underneath
A sixty-dollar charge doesn't usually earn a forty-minute fight. When a reaction is far bigger than the moment, there's usually a sentence underneath it that was written long before this marriage:
"I can't get anything right."
"I don't matter to you."
"Nothing I say is ever good enough."
"If I say what I feel, I'll only make it worse."
These sentences get written early, in the first relationships of our lives, and they rarely get revisited. Then they sit quietly until someone close enough touches them.
In most dances, each person's protection proves the other person's sentence. Your silence proves to your spouse that they don't matter. Their pressing proves to you that nothing you say is good enough. You're both protecting the same thing, which is the hope of being loved, and you're doing it in ways that convince the other it isn't there.
Adam puts the way out in a single line:
"Something that was forged through relationships needs to be brought into something better relationally."
A sentence learned in a relationship changes in one, often the very relationship it has been fighting.
Where God comes into it
Most of these fights are about worth more than chores or money. Who's right. Who does more. Whether I count.
If your standing is still up for grabs, every disagreement becomes a trial you can't afford to lose.
Before the blame of Genesis 3, where the man blames the woman and the woman blames the serpent, there's Genesis 2. Two people "were both naked, and they felt no shame" (Genesis 2:25). Fully seen, with nothing to hide and nothing to win. That's the picture good marriage counseling keeps reaching back toward.
The Christian word for having your standing settled is being justified, declared in the right by God rather than by your own record. Paul writes, "since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God" (Romans 5:1). Someone whose case is already settled doesn't have to win the one at home.
If faith isn't part of your life, you're still welcome here, and you decide how much of it comes into the room. The work on the body, the dance and the old sentences is the same either way.
What changes it
You can't argue a dance away. You change it by changing your own step, usually in a calm week, before the next round starts.
Call the pause on yourself, and come back. When your body is already up, nobody can listen well. Say something like "I'm getting too heated to be fair to you. I'm going to walk, and I'll be back at the table in thirty minutes."
Then come back. A break with a return time calms the person who presses, because what scared them was the distance without explanation.
Name your share, as a number. Ten percent or eighty, and only your share. It takes away the case your spouse was arguing against. The limit cuts both ways:
"We can't shove everything to the other side of the table. But we also can't take everything in as our fault too."
Say the story instead of the verdict. "You never listen" is a verdict, and verdicts get defended against. "When you went quiet, I told myself I don't matter to you, and I got louder" is a story, and a story can be answered. Adam's distinction:
"Confession would be putting words to things without the criticism and control. It's not an edgy demand."
Let both accounts stand. You can each have an honest experience of the same evening without one of them having to lose. In Adam's words, "I can have my honest subjective experience and so can you and together we seek God's best for our relationship."
If you're ships in the night, move first. Nothing in that dance will move on its own. Pick a calm moment and say one true sentence: "Something from last week is still bothering me, and I'd like to tell you about it."
If only one of you is willing
A dance needs two people doing their usual steps. When one of you steps differently, the other's usual step stops working, and the pattern has to change shape.
So if your spouse won't come yet, come alone. A lot of marriage work starts with one person.
When it isn't a dance
Abuse is not a dance, and "it takes two" does not apply to control or harm. If raising anything with your spouse brings threats, intimidation or punishment afterward, the work is safety, not communication skills.
If you're afraid of your spouse, talk with a counselor on your own first. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, any hour. In an emergency, call 911.
What marriage counseling with us looks like
Our licensed Christian counselors use emotionally focused therapy, which works directly on the dance and the fears underneath it, along with practical communication work you can use the same night. Both Adam Hoover and Dan Moyer see couples.
You can come together to our Blue Bell office at 910 Lenmar Dr, just off Skippack Pike, or meet online from anywhere in Pennsylvania, including from two different places when one of you is traveling. If you're coming from Ambler, Plymouth Meeting, Lansdale or Norristown, here's how long the drive is.
Sessions are $165 for fifty minutes, with reduced rates available during afternoon hours (10am to 3pm) for those who need them. We accept HSA/FSA cards. We're out-of-network and provide superbills you can submit to your insurer for possible reimbursement, though most plans don't reimburse couples counseling; here's why.
Common questions
Do we both have to be Christians? No. Faith comes into the work as much as each of you wants it to, and couples where one spouse believes and the other doesn't are welcome.
Will the counselor take sides? No. The dance is the problem, not either of you, and the counselor's job is to help you both see it.
My spouse won't come. Is there any point? Yes. Come on your own. When one person changes their step, the dance changes.
Can we meet online if we're in different places? Yes, as long as both of you are in Pennsylvania during the session.
Is it too late for us? Couples often wait years longer than they needed to. If you're both still willing to sit in the same room, or the same video call, there's something to work with.
Talk to us
If you recognized your dance on this page, you're not as stuck as it feels. Our licensed Christian counselors see couples in person in Blue Bell and online anywhere in Pennsylvania. For more on how couples heal, read Out of the Ice and Into the Fire and Communication of the Heart.
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