You both know how it goes. One of you says the usual first thing, the other gives the usual answer, and you are off. Money, the in-laws, the phone at dinner. The words change and the fight does not. On paper we have nothing to fight about, and we still keep fighting.
This page is for both of you. It shows the method on one made-up evening.
01
The topic and the sequence
A fight has a topic, and it has an order of events. The topic is what you would tell a friend it was about. The order is what happened inside each of you, one step after another.
Project Gina's line for this is that couples don't have a hundred fights. They have one loop with a hundred topics.
The steps are the same four for each of you. What set it off. What you took it to mean. What you protected. What you did.
02
One example
It is a Thursday. One of you comes home late without texting. The other is short at the door. Within five minutes you are fighting about respect.
Take the one who waited. What set it off was the hour passing with no message. What it meant may have been I am not on their mind. What they protected was their standing with the other. What they did was go cold at the door.
Take the one who was late. What set it off was the cold greeting. What it meant may have been I have failed again. What they protected was being a decent partner. What they did was explain, at length, why it wasn't their fault.
Now the first hears the explaining as my being hurt doesn't count. The second hears the coldness as nothing I say will be enough. The topic by this point is respect. The sequence started an hour before anyone spoke.
03
What may be under each side
For the one who waited, one possibility is Chosen, where the fear is that if you are not selected, you were not enough to select. Another is Needed, where the fear is that without your usefulness there is no reason for you. Would you rather be loved and unnecessary, or necessary and taken for granted? Loved is the Chosen answer. Necessary is the Needed answer.
For the one who was late, one possibility is Right, where the fear is that if you are wrong about this, what else are you wrong about. Another is Peace, where the fear is that someone's disappointment means you did something wrong. Say you were right and they were upset anyway. Is that alright? No, the upset is what counts, is the Peace answer. Yes, being right settles it, is the Right answer.
Each of you answers only your own question. Other rules could be on either side, and it may be none.
04
What decoding does not do
It does not decide who was right about the text. Sometimes it was only a late evening and a missed text, and that is the whole of it.
It does not work on one fight alone. The same four steps have to show up under a different topic before they mean much. Until then there is not enough to tell.
Setting two or three decoded fights side by side and removing what doesn't repeat is subtraction.
The version of this page for one person reading alone is Why the Same Fight Keeps Happening.
Why the same fight keeps happening
The same fight usually keeps happening because the topic changes and the sequence underneath it doesn't, so settling the topic settles nothing.