At a glance
In a couple, the pursue withdraw cycle is not one person’s bad habit but a loop that only keeps going because each of you plays a part. One of you reaches, the other pulls back, someone blames, and each step is a reasonable reply to the step before. This article shows how that loop moves between you, and where it can be broken.
Clinical insights from 22 years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 22 years of full-time, face-to-face clinical practice.
- The ceasefire rarely survives the week. Couples tell me they agreed at the weekend to do things differently, and by Wednesday both are back in their old places without either choosing it.
- Everyone is answering the previous move. Most often I see two people reacting sensibly to whatever just happened, and that is precisely what keeps the loop alive.
- Quiet does not mean calm. Partners who fall silent in these moments usually describe far more happening inside them than the other person guesses.
Clinical notes: My observations are anonymised and compounded from my session notes since 2004.
Why does it start again when we both understand it?
Knowing a pattern and being caught in it are two separate states, and the second arrives much faster. You can explain the whole loop to a friend over lunch and find yourselves deep inside it that same evening, the dishwasher still running. A familiar map of this has three roles: one partner rescues, one feels helpless and waits to be understood, one points out what is wrong and who caused it. In a couple you never take up a position alone. You take it in reply to theirs, just as they took theirs in reply to yours.
So understanding alone cannot halt it. Recognising the outline lets you spot it later. It does nothing for the instant when your nervous system has already judged who your partner is being right now.
How does my reaction land on the other side?
Harder than you realise, since what you do to cool things down often heats them up on the other side. Falling silent is the clearest case. If you go quiet so you will not say something you regret, that is a careful choice made out of care. To the person opposite, the room has just gone empty. So they push harder, since pushing has sometimes worked before. And their pushing convinces you that silence was wise. Now each of you is doing more of what feeds the problem, with sound motives that the other simply cannot see.
A study of 175 couples in Spain found that when one partner tended to withdraw from conflict, the other tended to respond with more demands or hostility, and that both partners were less satisfied where this pairing was strongest1. People described themselves at a single point in time, so the study shows the two moves going together rather than one causing the other.
Why does working out who started it never help?
A loop has no starting point, and hunting for one becomes another turn of the loop. Both of you can follow the evening back to a moment when the other moved first, and each of you is reporting honestly what you saw. You begin at the sentence that hurt you. Your partner begins at what provoked it. Keep rewinding and you land in a different year altogether.
I want to be careful, because this can sound like a claim that everything is always shared equally, which is untrue. One partner may cause more harm, shoulder more of the household, or have more say. What is true is narrower: in this particular loop, finding who started it has never been what stopped it.
Why does talking about the pattern turn into another round?
The conversation about the loop usually begins from inside one of its positions. Often the partner who raises it is the one who reads about these things, so the opening line comes with a diagnosis attached. Something said warmly, such as an idea about how your partner was raised, can land as a verdict. They defend themselves, you feel unheard after all your effort, and within minutes you are running the loop about the loop.
The useful shift is small and a little awkward. Describe your own side rather than theirs: the tug you noticed, the move you nearly made, the wish you kept back. A statement about yourself leaves little to argue with, and your own inner experience is the one thing that evening you truly know.
How can we work on it together, and when is couples work the wrong place?
With a therapist, the loop is no longer one partner’s account of the other; it turns into something you observe together as it happens. That is most of its value. It is slow and specific, and it usually works on one real exchange rather than the relationship as a whole.
- Pick one evening, not the whole pattern. One shared memory gives you material to study, while talk of the pattern overall tends to start a fresh dispute.
- Choose a word for the moment it begins. Something ordinary that works as a signal rather than a charge, used to pause rather than to score a point.
- Name what you wanted, not what they did. Beneath most of these moves sits a wish never said aloud, often because saying it feels like handing over a weapon.
- Let repair be modest. Returning 20 minutes later with the simpler version does more for you both than any talk that ends in agreement about the past.
When I work with couples I rely chiefly on Emotion-Focused Therapy for couples, in Leslie Greenberg’s tradition, which stays with what each of you feels as the other speaks rather than ruling on who is right. There are times when seeing you together is not the right step. Where one partner fears the other or lives under their control, the apparent loop is no loop at all, and joint sessions would wrongly present something one-sided as mutual. It is also not the place to start when an affair has just come out and nothing else can be discussed, or when depression in one of you has to be addressed before anything else. Even then work is possible, though it may start individually.
Questions people ask
Is it necessary for both of us to attend?
It helps a lot here, since the loop is easiest to see with both of you present. Where that cannot happen, change in one partner still alters what the other is reacting to.
Will you assume we share the blame equally?
No, that would be a failure on my part. Responsibility is sometimes balanced and sometimes not, and naming the difference honestly belongs to the work.
Can we have couples sessions by video from two different places?
Yes, all sessions are online by video, in English. You can join together or from separate locations, at a regular time in Copenhagen time.
Can we come if we are already thinking about separating?
Yes, many couples arrive at that point. Part of the work is then making sense of what has gone on between you, whatever you choose.
Do we have to agree on what happened before starting?
No, waiting for agreement would mean never beginning. Two accounts that do not match are useful material, not a barrier.
If you keep ending up in the same chase and retreat, online couples therapy gives you both a place to find a way out.
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Sources
How this article was written: I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. I read the draft, correct and improve it and stand behind every clinical statement. The professional and clinical judgement is mine.
