In today’s post, I outline five losing strategies couples use toward each other that can eventually kill their relationship. These five strategies come from Relational Life Therapy (Terry Real).

Most long-term couples aren't actually arguing about twenty different topics — they're having the same one or two arguments in different costumes. The specific trigger changes (money, in-laws, chores, tone of voice), but the underlying pattern repeats: one person pursues and the other withdraws, or both dig in and neither backs down, or the same unresolved hurt from years ago gets reactivated every time.

This quandary rarely announces itself with a crisis. It arrives quietly, through years of full calendars, tired evenings, and the assumption that the relationship will simply take care of itself while attention goes elsewhere — work, kids, ministry, the next deadline. Then one day someone looks up and realizes they're coexisting rather than truly knowing each other.

A common question Christians ask when they encounter marital and relationship problems is some version of this: "I love God, I love my spouse — how did I end up here?" It's asked with genuine confusion, and often with deep shame. Understanding the honest answer matters, because most approaches to this struggle fail by treating surface behavior instead of the root.