Negative cycles within marriages become very entrenched over time. Effective marital therapy must address this entrenchment. For most couples negative cycles are not confined to discreet moments in time. Commonly, they become part of each partner’s daily, even hourly, anticipation of the other. Over time, they come to infiltrate all manner of couples/family interactions throughout the days and nights, weekdays and weekends. The defensive ways of responding become automatic, barely thought about, even unconscious.
Another way of saying this is that negative cycles in marriage become implicit in daily interactions, often unspoken of, but nevertheless very present. They are implicitly expressed and implicitly responded to, and barely recognized. The result is that daily life is colored by the underlying cycle… made flat, even grim, and commonly absent of joy!
