Something keeps repeating: the same argument, the same silence afterward, the same feeling of being close to someone and still somehow alone in the room with them.
The dishes were never really about the dishes. Most conflict between partners is two people using surface-level issues to avoid a deeper one: not feeling heard, not feeling chosen, not knowing how to ask for what you actually need without it turning into a fight. This isn’t couples therapy. It’s you, figuring out your half of the pattern.
We look at your half of the pattern: the trigger, the move you make when things get tense, and where you probably learned it. A fair amount of it ends up being about what you were taught, early, about what a man does with distance or vulnerability.
Individual work is where you look at your specific relationship and your specific patterns. Group work helps when you realize how much of what you thought was a “you two” problem is actually a “most men” problem.