In a previous blog post, Why Couples Have the Same Arguments Over & Over Again, we discussed how couples can find themselves in recurring conflict. According to Gottman Method Couples Therapy, generally, relational conflict includes one of three types of problems – solvable problems, perpetual problems, or a subtype of perpetual problems, called gridlocked problems. We posed three questions, and this month, we’ll address the second of these questions.
Question 2: Will we ever be able to solve this problem?
The quick answer to this question is… maybe. To analyze this further, let’s look at a few example scenarios that sometimes come up in couples therapy, where a couple is arguing about yard work.
Can you spot what type of problem the couple is dealing with?
What are the important differences in these scenarios?
Base scenario in Couples Therapy:
Kate and Danny have been married for six years. They are currently in an argument over Danny’s lack of attention to their yard. When they got married, they discussed that Kate would be in charge of most of the indoor chores and Danny would be responsible for everything outside, including the yard.
Scenario A = Base scenario + the following:
Kate is upset that Danny hasn’t been taking care of the yard in the last few weeks. Danny argues that he’s been increasingly tired due to additional work stress and having to spend more hours at work. He tries to explain that it’s hard to keep up the yard as he usually does since he now gets home after dark. Kate’s still mad because he’s not keeping up his end of their agreement.
Scenario B = Base scenario + the following:
Kate refers to herself as a ‘recovering perfectionist’, and she takes pride in the tidy home she keeps. When she started dating Danny, she noticed that he was messier than she was, but she decided that if she took over the home and Danny could just keep up the yard, she’d be able to tolerate their differences in how they organize things. Danny feels the yard looks fine, and compared to the other yards in their neighborhood, the time he spends on the yard work is adequate. In his mind, their yard doesn’t look as bad as the other yards in the neighborhood, and he feels Kate is overreacting.
Scenario C = Base scenario + the following:
When they first met, Kate noticed Danny was messier than she was, but she thought he’d eventually come to realize how important keeping an organized home was to her. Kate feels their neighbors judge the messiness of their yard, and she sees Danny’s dismissal of the severity of the issue as a sign he doesn’t prioritize their relationship. When they have this fight, Kate accuses Danny of being lazy and worthless as a husband. Now, every time that Kate brings up the issue of the yard, Danny walks out of the room and refuses to discuss the issue. He’s stopped doing much of anything to keep the yard up and only does the absolute minimum to meet their neighborhood HOA standards. In fact, they have been cited and fined several times over the last year.
When you consider whether Kate and Danny will be able to resolve this problem – which of these scenarios seem the easiest or hardest to solve?
Which of these scenarios is solvable, perpetual, or gridlocked?
Scenario A is an easy one - it's the solvable problem. This argument is situational in nature and there are many ways to address the issue - Kate and Danny could temporarily hire someone to help with the yard, Kate could help out, or Danny could share more about his work stress with Kate so that she relaxes her standards during this unusually stressful time.
What solutions do you see for Scenario B and Scenario C?
Those are the types of scenarios that couples often find themselves learning to navigate in couples therapy. These scenarios aren’t so easy…
In the next blog post in this series, we’ll examine how to approach perpetual or gridlocked issues.
Article by Lindsay Poth, MA, LMFT Associate
