10 No-Win Relationship Gridlocks

6. Accuser vs. excuser.

Most couples come into therapy to resolve a current crisis or to work on bettering their relationship. Each partner has their own perspective, expectations, and goals, and it is the job of the therapist to help them determine their best path forward.

Too often, though, the problem they came in to resolve is immediately sabotaged by the way they communicate about that presenting issue. Soon into their sharing of their side of the reasons they have come into therapy, they fall into a counterproductive communication pattern that becomes a no-win gridlock. As soon as that self-sabotaging process happens, there is no possibility to resolve the issues that brought them into therapy.

Most of the couples I’ve worked with, once I point out their no-win communication patterns, can readily see how slipping into them consistently has undermined their ability to successfully resolve any problems they face. That awareness gives them the opportunity and desire to explore how they’ve created their personal gridlock and how to leave it behind. They feel a new hopefulness and commitment to end these unresolvable frustrations.

To help them develop perspective, I find it helpful to share with them the most common gridlock patterns I have observed in my practice. Once aware of how so many other couples struggle with these limited communication patterns, they are better able to look at themselves objectively and with less judgment.

The 10 Most Common Communication Gridlocks

All of these no-win situations predictably end in a stalemate.

1. Emotional Reactor vs. Martyred Robot. In this gridlock pattern, one partner blows up as if they are a volcano erupting, after swallowing their frustration and pain over a long period of time. They cannot hold back anymore and explode in a tirade of pain and blame. The other partner becomes super calm and robotically sane and takes the position of staying quiet and seemingly centered and unemotional. That often drives the other into a greater fury, as they desperately try to get the other to react. The interaction ends with the exploder guilty and alone, and the “robot” shut down, seeming to manifest a picture of moral superiority.

2. Pusher vs. Withdrawer. This pattern usually grows more and more heartbreaking over time. One partner continually reaches out for connection and resolution and the other withdraws in silence, essentially shutting them out. The initial desires, requests, or hungers to be let in become a constant pushing behavior, often just to get any reaction at all. The withholding partner then justifies their withholding silence by the right to stay independent of the control they feel is behind the pushing.

3. Dominator vs. Silent Rebel. The power-oriented, determined-to-win partner out-talks, out-yells, and out-reasons the other partner's point of view, causing the other partner to remain silent and to bury wounds and feelings of injustice. Those silent resentments build and then punish the other by sabotaging any later attempts at reconnecting or intimacy.

4. Attack vs. Attack. Two angry people are needing to be heard and unable to hear the other. Invalidating, undermining, blaming, and outright insulting, each partner takes turns at reducing the other to rubble. They are no longer talking to each other, but at each other, often as if they were people from the past. The arguments end when one or both are exhausted and, scarily, are rarely mentioned the next day. The cumulative scars build, and the relationship is on its way out.

5. Pleader vs. Invalidator. One person is literally begging to be understood, loved, forgiven, or valuable. The other continuously finds reasons to maintain their advantage by not acknowledging anything worthwhile in the other. That silence about any good qualities that do exist feeds the low self-esteem of the pleader.

6. Accuser vs. Excuser. The continually accusing partner is always finding fault with the other. Instead of standing up and stopping the interaction, the accused partner makes continual excuses for what they are being accused of but does not change the behavior. The behavior is passive/aggressive because the reaction is simply to appease without the desire or capability to measure up to what the accuser wants or demands.

7. Predator vs. Victim. When an interaction becomes grim and mean-spirited, it is usually because one partner has decided to destroy the other in any way they can in the interaction. They are out for blood and are not satisfied until they feel they have decimated the other. Because there is some kind of sadistic satisfaction in these heartbreaking interactions, the predating partner will often then try to resurrect the other’s value in order to be able to destroy it in the next fight.

8. Preacher vs. Infidel. In these communication gridlocks, one partner holds themself as the high moral authority on how the other should have behaved, assuming that bringing in a higher power will get them what they want. The other partner rebels and undoes any loyalty to the moral lessons expressed and invalidates the message to undo the power of the other to deliver it.

9. Score-Keeper vs. Invalidator. A partner who keeps score does so because they do not feel they have power in the moment and have to have a ledger of wrongdoings and backup people to feel powerful in a fight. The partner on the other end simply has to feign or actually not agree that there is any validity to the scores because the original contracts to be accountable to those ratings were not agreed to.

10. Disruptor vs. Appeaser. When the relationship appears to be going somewhat smoothly, a disruptive partner takes that opportunity to start a fight by upending anything good about the relationship. They begin by nit-picking little things as the other partner tries to listen, to argue back, to try to keep the situation from escalating. That behavior fuels the disruptor to double down in the attempt to get the attention felt lacking over time. The interaction usually ends with the appeaser giving up and just accepting the one-sided attack.

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