Jess Conscious explains why couples get stuck in repetitive arguments: when triggered, both partners focus only on themselves, creating a defensive cycle where the rational brain shuts down. The fix is simple: pause, regulate yourself, then talk.
Here's why you get stuck in a loop with your partner in an argument, because you don't have space for your experience and their experience. So if you're going into it or you're activated or you're triggered and you're completely focused on what's going on with you, often what happens, it will leave little to no space for what's going on with them. And when you're triggered, very soon after they are going to be triggered and then you're just gonna bounce off of each other. Like trigger pong, and you're probably gonna be stuck in, well, you did this and you need to understand what you did and the impact of it on me. And in the meantime, they're gonna be thinking, I need you to understand me. I need you to get it. So when you get it, then everything's gonna be okay. And you get stuck in this finger pointing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And it creates this energy, cuz when you point the finger at someone, they have really no option but to point the finger back at you in defense. And then you're stuck in this attack, defend, attack, defend, and you're looping and you're looping and you're looping. Sound familiar? So if you want a way off of the loop, you want a way off the hamster wheel, the first step is to pause. As soon as you're able to pause and disengage from whatever's going on and work on regulating yourself, once you are regulated, come back to the conversation from a different place because your rational brain is actually offline when you're triggered. So you're not going to be able to see their point of view. You're not going to be able to articulate your point of view and you're just going to be stuck. But once you're calm and your rational brains back online, then you can have a conversation and it'll be productive. But until then, you're gonna be looping, looping, looping. So if you need help with this and you're stuck in a pattern, in a loop that you can't get out of, comment "loop" and I'll send you a quiz that will help you figure out exactly where you're stuck, what pattern you're in, and how to break it.
