In the tapestry of human relationships, understanding the attachment material that weaves our interactions is paramount to fostering healthier connections. 

One crucial aspect of this understanding is recognizing the negative interactive cycle that is a virus to a couples connection. An invisible force that creates yucky feelings of disconnection and loneliness in the relationship. 

The Three Cycles of Disconnection

In the realm of emotionally focused couples therapy, it's crucial to understand the intricate dance of negative interaction patterns that couples often find themselves entangled in. Here are the three most common patterns as outlined by Dr. Sue Johnson in Hold Me Tight Ⓡ. 

The Protest-Withdraw Cycle:

In this cycle, one partner takes on the role of the "protester," while the other adopts the role of the "withdrawer." This cycle occurs in response to unmet emotional needs or unresolved conflicts. Let's break it down step by step:

• Activation: The activation for the Protest-Withdraw cycle is usually an emotional need or a conflictual situation. One partner may feel disconnected, unloved, or unheard, prompting them to seek emotional closeness or resolution. Sometimes this cue is a partner shutting down emotionally or pulling away. 
• Protest: The protesting partner expresses their emotional needs, desires, or frustrations through various means. Protests can take the form of criticism, complaining, or persistent attempts to engage in a discussion.
• Withdrawal: In response to the protests, the withdrawing partner disengages emotionally. They may physically withdraw from the conversation, go silent, or become emotionally distant. This withdrawal is often a defensive response to the perceived criticism or pressure.
• Heightened Tension: As the protesting partner escalates their efforts to connect or resolve the issue, the withdrawing partner withdraws further. This escalation of tension intensifies the emotional disconnection between them.
• Emotional Disconnection: The Protest-Withdraw cycle deepens emotional disconnection and creates a sense of frustration and hopelessness for both partners. The protester feels unheard and unloved, while the withdrawer feels overwhelmed or not enough.
• Pattern Reinforcement: The cycle repeats itself, reinforcing the roles of protester and withdrawer. This pattern can become ingrained in the relationship, making it feel hopeless to break free from the cycle. Below I’ll help outline steps to start to break free from this destructive pattern. 

A variation of the Protest-Withdraw pattern: 

Protest-Withdraw Proactive Defense Strategies: Sometimes in the protest-withdraw pattern, partners feeling the cycle about to occur may proactively defend themselves, blame, or be angry before withdrawing. Those who protest may give a cold shoulder when their partner tries to resolve the issue instead of complaining. These are still withdrawing and protesting strategies that block us from being able to feel secure in our bond together. 

Connecting Through Confrontation

This cycle often unfolds when partners perceive each other as adversaries rather than allies. It typically involves a pattern of escalating conflict, where blame, criticism, and accusations become the weapons of choice. Let's break it down:

• Activation: Something happens, often a minor disagreement or misunderstanding, activating one or both partners' feelings of frustration, hurt, or insecurity.
• Escalation: Instead of addressing the issue collaboratively, partners escalate the conflict. They begin to find fault in each other's actions, words, or intentions. Accusations, criticism, and blame are frequently used to defend oneself or attack the other.
• Defensiveness: In response to the blame and criticism, partners become defensive. They may deny responsibility, counter-accuse, or shut down emotionally.
• Heightened Tension: The tension in the interaction escalates further as each partner digs in their heels, becoming more entrenched in their positions.
• Negative Emotional Impact: The cycle perpetuates hurt feelings, resentment, and emotional disconnection. Over time, this erodes the emotional safety and intimacy in the relationship.

The Avoid-Avoid Cycle

The "Avoid-Avoid cycle” manifests when one or both partners employ avoidance strategies to sidestep conflict or emotional discomfort. Here's a breakdown of this pattern:

• Activation: Something cues feelings of discomfort, anxiety, or fear in one or both partners. This cue could be a disagreement, a perceived threat, or even the prospect of discussing a sensitive issue.
• Avoidance: Rather than engaging with the issue, one or both partners choose to avoid it. This avoidance can take the form of physical withdrawal, emotional distancing, or changing the subject.
• Silence or Stonewalling: One partner may become emotionally distant, stonewalling the other. They may refuse to communicate or shut down, leaving the other partner feeling unheard and frustrated.
• Pursuit: The partner who feels disconnected or ignored may intensify their efforts to reconnect. They may pursue the other person, seeking validation, attention, or resolution.
• Rejection and Emotional Isolation: The pursuer's efforts are often met with rejection or further withdrawal, deepening feelings of emotional isolation and insecurity.
• Pattern Reinforcement: The cycle repeats, reinforcing the pattern of avoidance, making it increasingly difficult to address issues effectively.

Dominant and Secondary Cycles

Some relationships exhibit dominant, such as the ones above, and secondary cycles, with different patterns emerging in specific contexts or content areas. For example, one partner may pursue sexual intimacy, while the other avoids intimacy yet purses emotional closeness or support in other aspects of the relationship.

Now that we have an understanding of the negative reinforcing cycles that cause disconnection and pain in the relationship, let’s explore how to do things differently. 

5 Steps to Understanding Your Relationship Dance

Step 1: Seeing the Pattern

Look at the patterns above and see if your partner and you see yourselves in one of the patterns. It’s important to understand that not every interaction will align with the pattern. These patterns emerge in difficult interactions, so it may be helpful to remember a recent conflict that didn’t go well to map this dynamic. 

To help, read through the list of protesting and withdrawing behaviors below and circle any behaviors that resonate with your part in the relationship dance. 

For now, we just want to understand the behavior and make the cycle the enemy, so partners can feel emotionally safer to connect with their deeper fears and share them. 

Protesting Behaviors

• Criticize
• Attack
• Blame
• Demanding
• Nagging
• Yelling to make a point
• Judging
• Questioning
• Confronting

Withdrawing Behaviors

• Defend
• Analyze
• Rationalize
• Quiet
• Turn cold or aloof
• Calm up
• Withdraw
• Avoid
• Leave

*Tilley, D. (2003). When we are not getting along: My feelings, thoughts and behaviors checklist. Douglas Tilley LCSW-C. Retrieved September 19, 2023, from www.douglastilley.com/Forms/Your Relationship ThoughtsFeelingsand Behaviors.pdf

Step 2: Weaving Behaviors with Feelings of Disconnection

To identify your relationship's specific cycle, engage in open and honest communication with your partner and map out the current pattern. Reflect on recent interactions and behaviors, from step 1 that seem familiar in your relationship dance. 

Then complete sentences adapted from Hold Me TightⓇ by Dr. Sue Johnson in Conversation 1: Demon Dialogues.

When [partner’s name] experience disconnection or a sense of instability in our relationship, I react by [behavior], and then [partner’s name] react by [behavior], which reinforces the disconnection so I react by [behavior] and that reinforces disconnection for [partner’s name] so you react by [behavior] and around and around we go.

“The very thing one of you does to cope with feeling hurt, lonely, inadequate and/or insecure triggers fear in your partner. The way each of you handles that fear brushes on tender places in the other, perpetuating the distress cycle.” - Veronica Kallos-Lilly and Jennifer Fitzgerald. 

Do you see the behaviors of each partner feeding on each other? Identifying this pattern is a crucial step in transforming your relationship. 

Step 3: Naming the Cycle and Making It The Problem

Dr. Sue Johnson recommends creating a nickname for the disconnecting cycle. By naming it, it enables partners to have a common enemy they can reference when the cycle is happening so they can work together to change their relationship.

In Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, we have a phrase when it comes to naming negative cycles. If we can NAME IT, we can TAME IT, and that allows us space to CHANGE IT!

Some examples from couples I’ve worked with include: 

• The Tornado of Disconnection
• The Trap
• Darth Vador 

Some couples enjoy having funny names for the cycle to help defuse the disconnection. Others feel the humor invalidates and makes it worse. The goal is to work together to come up with a name or phrase that would support partners in defusing these tense moments, to help us see that the protesting and withdrawing behaviors block us from the connection we crave.

Step 4: Naming The Enemy Real Time

Now that you have a name for the disconnecting cycle, partners can start to notice when the cycle occurs. Each partner can work on becoming aware of the behaviors they do from step 2 above and then express that to each other. 

Here’s an example: Name the cycle and desires to avoid the pattern. 

• Avoiding partner: I feel that urge to leave right now so Darth Vader's here with us. I don’t want him to use force against us. 
• Pursuing partner: I feel the urge to be demanding, so I know the trap is here. I don’t want to get caught in that place with you. 

At this point in transforming your relationship, the goal is not to change the cycle, but to name it so we can tame it. So it stops causing so much destruction to your connection. 

Step 5: Highlight the Common Goal

Both pursuing and withdrawing behaviors serve legitimate goals for the relationship. Pursuers often seek connection and responsiveness, while distancers may withdraw to prevent things from getting worse. No matter the strategy you adopt, pursuing or withdrawing, when you sense a disconnect in your relationship, the world can feel like a lonely and insecure place when you perceive a lack of support and collaboration. Recognizing the unintentional impact these behaviors have on each other is the first step toward collaboration.

Identifying your relationship cycle and acknowledging it when it unfolds is a vital step toward changing your relationship. While you may not always break the cycle immediately, gaining some control over it occasionally can instill hope that you can learn to relate differently. In upcoming articles, we will delve deeper into what fuels these negative cycles, offering new strategies into understanding and expressing yourselves more effectively within your relationship.

Recommended Books: 

• Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Dr. Sue Johnson
• An Emotionally Focused Workbook for Couples: The Two of Us (2nd Ed.) by Veronica Kallos-Lilly and Jennifer Fitzgerald
• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help You Find - And Keep - Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

Courses: 

• Hold Me Tight ® Workshop