"When couples first come to therapy, they often want the other person to change. They can describe, in detail, how their partner shuts down, overreacts, and avoids responsibility, and list numerous flaws in their partner that, if fixed, would also repair their relationship. But real repair begins not when one partner is convinced they're right-it begins when each person takes a hard, compassionate look inward (remember the two golden rules!)."
"In the middle of conflict, many partners don't explode-they disappear. The arms fold, the eyes drift, the face goes still. The mind races even as the mouth closes. What looks like apathy is often physiological overload. Relationship researcher John Gottman identified this pattern as stonewalling, one of what he famously called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Gottman & Silver, 1999). It's a defensive reaction to emotional flooding-the body's attempt to protect itself when the stress of conflict feels unbearable."
Couples often enter therapy focused on changing the other, listing perceived partner flaws as solutions. True repair starts when each partner practices inward accountability, acknowledging how defenses, reactions, and silences shape the shared relationship. Accountability emphasizes integrity and courageous self-examination rather than guilt or surrender. Many partners respond to conflict by withdrawing—a physiological stonewalling reaction to emotional flooding—which reduces one person's anxiety but increases the other's sense of abandonment and creates a protest-withdrawal cycle. Transforming withdrawal into conscious reflection and awareness interrupts the closed circuit of pain and supports relational rebuilding.
Read at Psychology Today
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