Here at the Samaritan Counseling Center's Couples Institute, couples present with problems in various areas such as money, sex, parenting, and so on. Another, less obvious, source of difficulty are the interactional patterns that develop around these problem areas. Dealing with these patterns gets to the root of the problem and provides more leverage for change. In these destructive interactional patterns, couples play scripted roles that put them in conflict with one another. We see a dance in which each partner's behavior triggers opposite behaviors in the other in an escalating negative cycle.

The following are five common roles or patterns that couples get locked into as they struggle to deal with the stuff of married life:

• Pursuer/Distancer: In this dance one person pursues, seeking more closeness and time together. The other resists by distancing. His distancing fuels her anxiety (about "abandonment") causing her to pursue harder, which intensifies his discomfort with intimacy causing him to distance more, and round and round. Pursuers say things like: "Let’s talk. Tell me how you feel." Distancers say things like: "Give me space. I just don’t want to talk about it." Sometimes roles reverse. For example, the pursuer, frustrated by the other’s rejection, may distance by turning to friends or to an affair. This sparks the distancer’s insecurity causing him to turn around and pursue his mate.
• Parent/Child: The one identifying with the parent role sees their spouse as immature, irresponsible and self-centered. The spouse acting out the child role experiences the other as critical, controlling and demanding. The more the Parent scolds and lectures, the more the Child actively or passively resists or rebels. The parent resents having this additional child to take care of and the Child feels trapped—that there is no way to gain respect and acceptance as an equal partner.
• Overresponsible/Underresponsible: This pattern is similar to Parent/Child in terms of the inequality of power and respect. But it focuses more narrowly on the issue of responsibility— how much weight each is pulling in the work and tasks of marriage. The over-responsible spouse feels weighed down, depleted and resentful at having to shoulder more than his fair share of the work. However, there’s often a rigid perfectionism that demands that tasks be completed to his level of exacting, high standards. The under-responsible one, seeing that she can never "do it right" tends to give up out of discouragement and frustration. They get locked into a cycle of angry criticism and defensive excuse making.
• Criticism/Withdraw This has much of the feel of Over-responsible/Under-responsible but it revolves more around verbal communication about many issues, not just the area of work and responsibility. Initially, criticism may elicit defensiveness—the latter is still engaged. Eventually though, seeing that the criticizer can always win the war of words, the other stops playing the game and withdraws. This withdrawing or stonewalling is the ultimate weapon, depriving the criticizer of her target and thus may fuel harsher, more hurtful attacks. Another name for this dance is Fight/Flight.
• Dominant/Submissive: The issue of power is central to this pattern. In traditional marriages husbands tend to be dominant, having the power of the purse and the weight of history on their side. This pattern can escalate to extremes in the form of Abuser/Victim. The more abusive the husband is, the more cowed and submissive the wife becomes. Any sign of the wife gaining strength and independence is highly threatening to the abuser and his reaction is to clamp down harder.

Looking deeper in this way it’s easy to see that the pattern is the problem; the content, i.e., the problem area, is only a symptom. Couples need to change the dance they are doing around the problem. Couples therapy can be a catalyst in naming the dance. And once each spouse identifies their part they are often highly motivated to change because they usually don’t like playing the role. They only do so feeling that they need to compensate for the extremes of their partner’s behavior/role. Therapy can begin the process of helping each to move toward the middle where equality, mutual respect and true intimacy are found.