Couples & Marriage
The Same Fight, On Repeat
A Pittsburgh psychologist on why couples get stuck in the same argument — and how to break the loop.
Most couples don’t come to therapy because the love is gone — they come because they keep having the same argument and can’t find the exit. The content of the fight rarely matters; the pattern underneath it does. Couples therapy helps you see that pattern, interrupt it, and rebuild the connection beneath the conflict. David McAnallen, a psychologist with 35+ years’ experience, works with couples in Pittsburgh’s South Hills area in person and by telehealth.
You already know how it’s going to go. It’s a weeknight, one of you has just come off the Parkway West after a long day, and within ten minutes you’re in it again — the same argument you’ve had a hundred times, with the same lines, landing in the same stalemate. Nobody wins, nothing changes, and you go to bed a little further apart. After thirty-five years of sitting with couples across Pittsburgh, I can tell you this is the single most common thing I see. It is also one of the most workable.
It’s Almost Never About the Dishes
Couples usually arrive convinced the problem is the topic — money, the in-laws, whose turn it was, the thing that was or wasn’t said. But in my experience the topic is rarely the real issue. The same couple could resolve any one of those problems and still be stuck, because what’s actually broken is the pattern the argument runs on. One person pushes to be heard; the other pulls back to keep the peace; the pushing gets louder and the pulling gets quieter, and around it goes. The content changes week to week. The pattern doesn’t.
Why the Loop Is So Sticky
The reason you can’t just talk yourselves out of it is that, in the moment, each of you is doing something that feels completely reasonable. Pressing feels like finally being taken seriously. Withdrawing feels like preventing a blow-up. You’re each solving the problem the only way you know how — and your solutions are feeding each other. Add a hard day, a short fuse, and a nervous system already braced for the fight, and the loop runs almost before you’ve decided to have it. None of that means you’re bad at this or wrong for each other. It means the pattern has more momentum than either of you alone.
What Changes in the Room
The work isn’t learning to never argue — couples who last still argue. It’s learning to argue in a way that doesn’t cost you anything. In session, I help you see the loop while it’s happening, slow it down, and notice the move each of you makes that keeps it going. From there we build the alternative: real repair when things heat up, a way to say the hard thing so it can actually be heard, and a steady rebuilding of the friendship the conflict has been eroding. Thirty-five years has taught me to be patient and specific about this — it’s skill-building, not a personality transplant, and most couples feel the loop loosen before the warm feelings fully return. That order is normal.
What It Looks Like When It’s Working
You’ll know it’s working not because the arguments vanish, but because they end — they reach a resolution instead of a standoff. You’ll feel yourselves heading into the old pattern and, more and more often, step out of it before it takes over. The thing one of you has been avoiding saying for a year finally gets said, safely. And a bad night takes hours to repair instead of days, because you both know the way back now.
Close to Home
I see couples in person at our South Hills office — convenient to Bridgeville and the Route 19 corridor, from Mt. Lebanon to McMurray — and by telehealth across Pennsylvania for the nights when getting out the door is one thing too many. If you’re worn down by the same argument on repeat, that’s not a sign your relationship is failing. It’s a sign the pattern needs a hand neither of you can give it from inside the loop. I’d be glad to help.
About David McAnallen
David McAnallen, Psychologist is a therapist at CPA Counseling’s South Hills office. With more than 35 years of experience, he helps couples and individuals across Pittsburgh’s southern suburbs work through communication breakdowns, conflict, anxiety, and life’s hardest transitions.