Imagine yourself in this scenario:

You come home from a long day at work to find an overflowing trash can. Meanwhile, you turn to find that your partner is enjoying their day off from work and watching tv while lounging on the couch. You start to get heated. Your mind starts racing. You think to yourself… Really? Again? He’s seriously just going to lounge around all day without even thinking about taking out the trash? He is so lazy and unsupportive. Then you say to him, “Are you kidding me? You never take out the trash!”

Have you ever caught yourself thinking or saying something similar about your partner?

Has your partner ever said these things about you?

If so, what usually happens next?

Perhaps it goes something like this:

Your partner begins to think… Here we go again… nag, nag, nag. This is my only day off this week and she’s going to act like this? She’s so demanding. Your partner has been enjoying a much needed day off from work and is exhausted. They respond to you, “I’m so sick of this. All you ever do is nag me! Take out the trash yourself.” Then they storm out of the room.

Terry Real, founder of Relational Life Therapy (RLT), states in his book New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work:

“The problem with trying to help (this couple) stop arguing with each other is that they actually aren’t arguing with each other anymore; they’re arguing with each other’s ghosts. By the time they move into ‘You always’ and ‘You never,’ they no longer address their real partner but rather a caricatured version of that partner… They are no longer actually fighting with each other, but rather with each other’s core negative image.”

Couples can get stuck in a “frozen box” of seeing their partner only as the worst version of themselves, which fuels the argument and the cycle continues.

The next time you find yourself in an argument with your partner, consider if you might be doing just this — thinking of your partner at their worst and seeing this negative image of them in those moments of conflict.

In my next post, we’ll explore how couples can move beyond this stuck place of arguing with one another’s core negative images and communicate in a more relational space with an RLT exercise I use in couples therapy called a Core Negative Image Exercise.