The Pattern Library
The Patterns
I lived every one of these loops before I could name a single one of them. I'm writing them down so you can name yours faster than I named mine.
These come from my own marriage and from years in counseling rooms. Details are generalized. I'm not naming anyone but myself.
- Pattern 016 min read
The pursuer–withdrawer loop
One reaches, one retreats, and each is convinced they are responding reasonably to the other.
See the loop
- Pattern 025 min read
When “peace” means two different things
You have both been asking for peace for years and neither of you has ever defined it.
See the loop
- Pattern 035 min read
The scorekeeping marriage
Two ledgers, both accurate, both being used as evidence in a case neither person admits they are building.
See the loop
- Pattern 046 min read
The moving goalpost problem
Every requirement gets met and a new one appears, until effort stops feeling like a path and starts feeling like a treadmill.
See the loop
- Pattern 055 min read
When repair feels like pressure
One person's urgency to fix it becomes the exact reason the other cannot engage with fixing it.
See the loop
- Pattern 066 min read
When sex becomes the scoreboard
Physical intimacy stops being connection and starts being the metric both people read to find out where they stand.
See the loop
- Pattern 075 min read
When history swallows the present
Every current disagreement gets tried as a re-hearing of the worst thing that ever happened.
See the loop
- Pattern 086 min read
The “I've changed, why don't you see it?” trap
Real change, unacknowledged, curdles into resentment — and resentment undoes the change.
See the loop
- Pattern 096 min read
When counseling becomes another battlefield
The room meant for repair becomes a courtroom with a professional mistaken for a judge.
See the loop
- Pattern 105 min read
When the future becomes a weapon
Divorce gets mentioned to be heard, and each mention makes the relationship less safe to be honest in.
See the loop
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