The Loop You’re In
How Marriages Move Toward Connection or Away From It
I was watching a couple in a session last week. They weren’t yelling. They weren’t even particularly hostile. But I could see it happening in real time: every sentence one person spoke seemed to make the other person retreat a little further. And that retreat made the first person try harder, which made the second person retreat more.
It was like watching someone try to catch water with their hands. The tighter they squeezed, the faster it drained away.
They were stuck in a loop. And they didn’t even know it.
The Thing About Loops
Feedback loops are everywhere. You’ve heard that awful squeal when a microphone gets too close to a speaker, well that’s a feedback loop. Sound goes into the mic, comes out the speaker, goes back into the mic, amplified, and the cycle feeds on itself until someone breaks it.
Your thermostat runs on a feedback loop: temperature drops, heat turns on, temperature rises, heat turns off. The system responds to input and adjusts.
In marriages, feedback loops work the same way. An action creates a response. That response shapes the next action. That action creates another response. The pattern reinforces itself.
And here’s the thing: you’re in a feedback loop with your partner right now.
The only question is which direction it’s moving.
The Path Up
Think about when you and your partner first got together. Remember that feeling of everything clicking? How one good conversation made you want to have another? How being vulnerable and having it received well made you want to be more vulnerable?
That was the Arc of Connection. It’s the upward trajectory where:
Every positive interaction creates desire for more
Trust builds, making it safer to be real
Being real creates deeper intimacy
Intimacy creates more positive interactions
The cycle feeds itself
It wasn’t just infatuation. It was a genuine positive feedback loop building on itself, gathering momentum. Each moment of being truly seen made both of you want to show up more fully.
Connection created more connection.
The Pause
But then something happened.
Maybe it was a fight that never quite got resolved. Maybe it was a betrayal — big or small. Maybe it was just life — stress, kids, work, exhaustion. And neither of you had much left to give.
Someone hit what I call the Pause Button.
“I just need some space.” “Let’s not deal with this right now.” “I can’t do this today.”
It felt temporary. Protective, even. A reasonable response to feeling overwhelmed or hurt.
But here’s what most couples don’t realize: that pause often becomes the new pattern. The connection doesn’t automatically resume when you’re both ready. The pause itself starts a different kind of loop.
The Path Down
When the Pause Button gets hit and stays pressed, couples begin a slow descent. It’s not dramatic. It’s incremental. But each stage makes the next one more likely.
You start with disconnection. You’re just not connecting like you used to. Conversations stay surface-level. You’re in the same house but not really together.
That leads to disinterest. Why engage when it doesn’t feel good anymore? You stop asking questions. You stop sharing. You start living parallel lives.
Which becomes disregard. Your partner’s experience stops landing. They tell you something important and you think, “Okay, whatever.” Their feelings don’t register like they used to.
Then disrespect creeps in. Eye-rolling, dismissiveness, contempt. You’re not assuming good intent anymore.
Followed by disappointment. They’ve failed your expectations repeatedly. You’ve given up on them being who you need them to be.
Then dislike. The negative feelings crystallize. You’re not just frustrated by what they do; you’re starting to dislike who they are.
And finally, if it goes far enough, disdain. Contempt. “I’m better than you.” This one is often the relationship killer.
Each stage flows logically into the next. Disconnection makes disinterest more likely. Disinterest makes disregard easier. And so on.
It’s a negative feedback loop, feeding on itself, gathering downward momentum.
The Invisible Fuel
Here’s what makes this particularly painful: both loops are fueled by feelings that amplify themselves.
The Arc of Connection runs on warmth, safety, and positive reinforcement. Every good interaction makes you want more. You feel good, so you act in ways that create more good feelings.
The Arc of Disconnection runs on hurt, fear, and self-protection. Every painful interaction makes you want to guard yourself more. You feel hurt, so you act in ways that, albeit unintentionally, create more hurt.
And here’s the tragedy: when you’re descending, you’re both usually hurting. But you can’t see each other’s hurt anymore. You can only see each other’s behavior.
She withdraws, and he thinks she doesn’t care… when she’s actually protecting herself from more pain.
He gets critical, and she thinks he’s being cruel… when he’s actually desperate to be heard.
Both are reacting from hurt. Both are trying to protect themselves. But to each other, it just looks like attack. So they each defend, which confirms the other’s interpretation, which makes them defend more.
The loop feeds itself.
The Question That Changes Everything
So here’s the question I’ve been asking myself lately: What interrupts a feedback loop?
If a couple is on the Arc of Disconnection, locked in a negative pattern that’s reinforcing itself, what breaks it?
The answer, I think, is both simpler and harder than most people expect.
It’s not a big conversation about “the state of us.” It’s not couples therapy. It’s not waiting for your partner to change first.
It’s changing your own input into the loop.
Because feedback loops respond to feedback. They are systems. They respond to input. Change what you’re putting in, and what comes back will eventually change, too.
Even if you’re the only one changing.
The Shift
Think about it this way: if you’re in a pattern where your hurt leads to your reaction, which triggers their hurt, which leads to their reaction, which triggers your hurt again… someone has to interrupt the cycle.
What if, instead of reacting from hurt, you responded from curiosity?
“I wonder what they’re feeling right now?”
“What might be driving this behavior?”
“What are they afraid of?”
What if, instead of waiting for things to be fair, you acted from your values?
“Who do I want to be in this?”
“How do I want to show up, regardless of what they’re doing?”
“What matters most to me about how I treat my partner?”
What if you focused only on what you actually control, like your awareness, your acceptance of reality, your actions, and let go of trying to control their response?
One different input into the system. One moment of choosing something other than the automatic reaction. One instance of breaking the pattern.
That’s all it takes to start.
No Guarantees
I want to be honest about something: this doesn’t guarantee your relationship will survive.
Changing your input into a negative feedback loop will change the system. It has to. That’s how systems work. But you can’t control exactly how it changes.
Sometimes a small shift in you creates a small shift in them, which encourages a bigger shift in you, and the positive loop starts building momentum again.
Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes your partner isn’t willing or able to engage differently. And if that’s the case, you still needed to know you showed up with integrity. You still needed to know you did everything you could.
But here’s what I’ve seen over and over: the person who starts operating from curiosity and values instead of hurt and reaction? They change. Even if the relationship doesn’t survive, they become different. Freer. More grounded. More themselves.
And that has value beyond the outcome of any single relationship.
The Loop You’re In
So maybe take a moment today and notice: which loop are you in?
Are you on the Arc of Connection (which we now know is a loop of connection), where each positive interaction makes you want more? Where warmth creates more warmth? Where you are building momentum toward each other?
Or are you on the Arc of Disconnection (which we now know is a loop of disconnection), where hurt creates more hurt, distance creates more distance, and you’re slowly drifting further apart?
And if you’re descending, what would it take to change your input into the loop?
Not your partner’s input. Yours.
Because that’s the only input you actually control. And in a feedback loop, that’s all you need to change the direction of the system.
One choice at a time.
One interaction at a time.
One moment of choosing connection over protection, curiosity over certainty, values over reaction.
The loop will respond. It has to.
The question is: what are you feeding it?
If you want to go deeper on this topic, I teach a comprehensive framework for shifting feedback loops in my VIP program. We work on the specific skills of curiosity, values-based action, and focusing energy where you actually have control. Learn more HERE.