Dancing to the Rhythm of Our Hearts: Navigating Conflict in Romantic Relationships

In the third week of my counseling internship, I found myself in a role I had never envisioned for myself: a couples therapist. This was a lot more responsibility than I had anticipated. I was in a room with a couple, engaging with a relationship, a living, breathing entity that exists between two individuals, and I felt like a scared little child. The back and forth, two versions of the same story, and the storm of words overwhelmed my nervous system instantly, in a way that an individual session hadn’t done before.

Through training and supervision, I have learned that the therapist’s emotional reactions often mirror what the client is feeling. And I felt fear. I felt fearful and helpless. And I could only imagine how scared and helpless my clients felt.

In romantic relationships, our most vulnerable childlike parts are activated. When we feel cared for and loved by our partners, it is almost as if we go back to the part of us that felt safe in the arms of our caregivers. However, when we feel abandoned, neglected, or punished by the people we love, the fear and pain are just as intense.

Fighting is a natural and healthy part of relationships. It's how we negotiate our needs and boundaries with each other. In fact, couples research has shown that anger is a positive approach-emotion associated with connection. In their book Fight Right, the Gottmans, some of the foremost researchers in couples science, write that fighting is essential to successful relationships. It encourages communication, co-regulation, and connection.

So where does it all break down? Why do we feel so hurt and abandoned by our partners in a moment of heated conflict? Is there a solution?

What I have found working with couples is that the way we fight matters more than what we are fighting about. So much of what we are fighting about remains unsaid, like the jagged underbelly of a vast iceberg. Uncommunicated needs, values, hopes, and dreams fester in the dark while contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling take center stage during the fight.

The Gottmans call these “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse;” the first sign of a communication breakdown. From there, the conflict escalates rapidly; we forget to listen and only react to each other, we say mean and hurtful things, our bodies respond with an intense physiological response, and negativity envelopes the night. There is tension and tears and an inability to repair what is broken.

How do we come back from here?

The truth is that this is a pattern, a dance, that can often spiral out of control, and couples who come into counseling after being stuck in it for a while often see no way out. All couples are dancing a cosmic dance, close and apart, close and apart, close and then apart, often clumsy, stepping on each other’s toes, forgetting a step or two.

As someone who is good at identifying patterns, my job is to watch this dance, go beyond the words, and understand the rhythm, the music that sets the tone of the relationship. The question I often ask my clients is this: are we fighting to be right or are we fighting to connect?

In the heat of the moment, we often forget to hear each other, and our isolated soundproof boxes breed resentment and loneliness. When we open up our ears, take time to self-soothe and communicate our needs, we begin to figure out what we are actually fighting for.

We are fighting to weather a storm together. We are fighting for connection.

In my personal life, being a couples therapist has given me a language, a dance, a world where I know what I need and can ask for it. A world where we take off our masks and dance to the rhythm of our hearts with reckless abandon. Without fearing stepping on each other’s toes.