What Is the Negative Cycle in Couples Therapy? (And What Is This Damn Squirrel I Keep Mentioning?)
- May 9
- 9 min read
By Dr. John O'Malley, PhD, LPC, NCC | Couples Therapist in Golden, Colorado
If you've sat across from me in my Golden, Colorado office, you've heard me say it: "If you can name it, you can tame it."
You've also heard me say something stranger: "We have to get the squirrel out of the house."
The couples I work with always laugh the first time. Then, three weeks later, one of them says it back to me in session, and I know the work is taking root. So let me explain. What is the negative cycle in Emotionally Focused Therapy? And what the hell is this squirrel?
The Squirrel in the House
You and your partner are home on a regular Saturday. Coffee's brewing. The dog's on the couch. Life is fine.
Then a squirrel gets in the house.
He's tearing across the kitchen counter, knocking over the fruit bowl, leaping onto the curtains, leaving chaos in every room.
Here's the question I want you to sit with: What do the two of you do? Because how you respond to that squirrel — that, right there, is your cycle.
The Three Patterns: Sue Johnson's Demon Dialogues
Dr. Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy, identified three negative patterns nearly every distressed couple falls into. She calls them the Demon Dialogues. And here's what most articles miss: these aren't three separate options. They're a progression. Most couples start in the first one, slide into the second, and if nothing changes, end up in the third.
Pattern 1: Find the Bad Guy: This is where most cycles begin. The blame game.
There's a squirrel destroying your living room. Instead of dealing with the squirrel, you turn on each other.
Elizabeth: "Jack, it's YOUR fault. You left the back door open." Jack: "I did NOT. YOU did. You always leave it open with the groceries." Elizabeth: "Oh, so I'm the careless one? You never check the door." Jack: "This is exactly what you always do."
Meanwhile, the squirrel is in the kitchen, eating your bread.
Both partners are pointing fingers. Both are defending. Nobody is dealing with the actual squirrel. And underneath the blame, both of you are scared. Each one is fighting to prove you're not the bad one because somewhere deeper, you're terrified that maybe you are.
Couples rarely stay parked here. The exhaustion of constant blame eventually wears one partner down. That's when the cycle migrates.
Pattern 2: The Protest Polka (Pursue and Withdraw)
This is the pattern Sue Johnson sees most often. Researchers call it the demand-withdraw pattern. And it matters: in Dr. John Gottman's research at the University of Washington's "Love Lab," his team predicted divorce with 93.6% accuracy by observing four specific behaviors during couples' conflict — what he calls the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling. Contempt, the Gottman Institute reports, is the single greatest predictor of divorce.
The Protest Polka is where these horsemen show up the loudest.
Same squirrel. Same chaos. But now one of you is escalating, and the other is going silent.
Elizabeth: "Jack, the squirrel is in the house. Why are you just standing there? JACK." Jack: (staring at his phone) "It's too much right now. I'll deal with it later." Elizabeth: "Later?! There's a squirrel on the bookshelf RIGHT NOW. Why don't you ever take anything seriously?" Jack: (walks into the garage, shuts the door)
One partner pursues. Loud, sharp, pushing. Here's what most blogs get wrong: the pursuer is not actually angry. The pursuer is terrified of disconnection. The criticism is the flare. The fire underneath is the fear of being abandoned, of not mattering, of being alone in the marriage. Underneath every sharp word is a panicked reach: Are you there? Do I matter to you? Please don't leave me alone in this.
If you're the pursuer reading this: you are not the bad one. Your protest is, at its root, a longing for connection that has gone sideways.
The other partner withdraws. Quiet. The garage, the office, the phone, the workshop. Gottman calls this stonewalling. And here's what most blogs miss: the withdrawer's silence is not absence. It's shame doing what shame always does — telling you to hide. Underneath the retreat is a brutal voice: I am not enough. I cannot get this right. Whatever I do is going to hurt her more. Disappearing is the only way to stop failing the person I love.
Now look at the cruel mathematics of the polka. The more one pursues, the more the other withdraws. The more one withdraws, the harder the other pursues. Each partner's coping move is the exact thing that triggers their partner's worst fear. The pursuer's protest confirms the withdrawer's belief that he's failing. The withdrawer's silence confirms the pursuer's belief that she doesn't matter. Round and round, each of you accidentally proving the other's nightmare true.
The squirrel? Still in the house.
Pattern 3: Freeze and Flee
This one is the quietest. Clinically, it's the most dangerous.
Couples don't usually start here. They land here after months or years of the first two patterns have drained them dry. The fights have been too painful, too often, too unresolved. So both partners stop trying. The squirrel is in the house. You both know it. Neither of you says a word. You're scrolling on the couch. He's in the basement. The squirrel is doing whatever it wants.
Elizabeth: (thinking, but not saying) "Last time I brought something up, it turned into a three-hour fight. What's the point." Jack: (thinking, but not saying) "If she wanted to deal with it, she'd say something. I'm not walking into that."
It really is one of the most damaging pattern of all. From the outside, it can look peaceful. No yelling. The neighbors think you're fine. But there's also no reaching. No risk. No bid for connection. Two people sitting in the wreckage, choosing not to look at it together.
If you read about Find the Bad Guy and thought, "We don't really fight anymore," read this section twice. The absence of conflict is not the same thing as connection. Sometimes silence is the late stage of the cycle, not the absence of one.
The Whole Point
In all three patterns, the squirrel never gets out of the house.
Write this down: You and your partner are not the squirrel. The cycle is the squirrel.
Most couples come into my office convinced their partner is the problem. He's too withdrawn. She's too critical. He doesn't care. She's too much. That's not what's happening. Two people who once loved each other enough to build a life together have gotten caught in a pattern that is wrecking the home while they blame each other for the damage.
The cycle is the enemy. Not your partner.
In EFT, we say it like this: "It's you and me against the pattern, not me against you." When both partners can really feel that sentence, the work begins.
10 Signs You're In the Cycle
Couples often ask me, "How do I know when we're in it?" Here's what to watch for:
That familiar pit in your stomach the moment your partner uses a certain tone.
You're already drafting your defense before they finish the sentence.
The conversation has stopped being about the actual issue. You came in to talk about the dishes and somehow you're re-litigating 2019.
One of you is getting louder, the other quieter. Or you've both gone silent and the silence has teeth.
You can predict exactly what your partner will say next, and you're right almost every time.
You start using "always" and "never." "You always do this." "You never listen."
Your body is tense. Jaw clenched, shoulders tight, heart pounding. Your nervous system is treating this conversation as a threat — because, in attachment terms, it is.
You feel utterly alone, even though the person you love most is two feet away.
You catch yourself thinking, "Why do I even bother?"
Afterward, you can barely remember what the fight was about — but you remember exactly how unsafe, unseen, or unloved you felt.
If you read that list and recognized yourself, breathe. You're not broken. You're not failing at marriage. You're a human being whose attachment system got scared and reached for the only moves it knew. Every couple I work with has been here. The ones who heal are the ones who learn to see it.
The Goal: Get the Squirrel Out of the House
This is where the work begins.
When you're in the cycle, you cannot productively talk about whose fault it is, why it happened, or how to fix it. You won't find the truth in the middle of the storm. You won't negotiate with a squirrel running across your kitchen counter while you're yelling at each other.
In EFT, we call this stage de-escalation, and it's the non-negotiable first move. Before any couple can do the deeper attachment work, we have to slow the cycle down. Stabilize. Get the squirrel out of the house.
The rule I give my couples: Do no harm. Get out of the pattern before you talk about the content.
That might mean taking a breath. Taking a break. Saying out loud, "Babe, we're in it. Can we pause?" It might mean putting your hand on your partner's hand and saying, "I don't want to fight you. I want to fight this with you." It might mean coming back in twenty minutes when both nervous systems have settled.
Once the squirrel is out — once you've stopped the cycle — then you can talk about what happened. Then you can hear each other. Then the deeper work, the rebuilding of trust and safety, can begin.
This Is the Work
Naming the cycle is the first big move in EFT. It's why I spend real time with couples in those early sessions making sure both of you can see the pattern, name the pattern, and feel the pattern when it's happening — in the room, in real time, while it's still hot. It's why I won't let couples sit in front of me and fight each other for an hour. That's not therapy. That's the squirrel running the house with an audience.
The work is to step out of the pattern, together, and turn around to face it.
Once you can name it, you can tame it. Once you can tame it, you stop being two people on opposite sides of a battlefield. You become two people on the same team, with a shared enemy. That's when reconnection, healing, and rebuilding become possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the negative cycle in couples therapy? The negative cycle is a recurring, predictable pattern of reactive behavior that distressed couples fall into when they feel emotionally disconnected. In Emotionally Focused Therapy, it's understood as an attachment-driven response — both partners are scared, but their coping moves trigger each other's deepest fears. The goal of EFT is to help couples see the cycle as the shared enemy, rather than seeing each other as the enemy.
What are Sue Johnson's three Demon Dialogues? Dr. Sue Johnson, the founder of EFT, identified three negative patterns: Find the Bad Guy (mutual blame), the Protest Polka (one partner pursues, the other withdraws), and Freeze and Flee (both partners shut down). Most couples experience these as a progression rather than separate options.
How is EFT different from other couples therapy? EFT focuses on the emotional bond between partners rather than just communication skills or conflict resolution. Decades of research show EFT has a recovery rate of approximately 70-75% for distressed couples, with up to 90% reporting significant improvement. It's the most evidence-based couples therapy approach available today.
Do you offer couples therapy in Denver and the Front Range? Yes. I see couples in person at my office in Golden, Colorado, just off I-70 Exit 256. I work with couples from Golden, Genesee, Evergreen, Conifer, Morrison, Lakewood, and across the Denver metro. I also offer telehealth couples counseling statewide in Colorado.
How long does it take to break the cycle? Most couples begin to see the cycle clearly within the first two to four sessions. De-escalation — stopping the cycle in real time — typically takes longer and is the focus of the first stage of EFT. The deeper attachment repair work happens after the cycle is no longer hijacking every conversation.
You Don't Have to Keep Fighting Each Other
If any of this sounds painfully familiar — if you read about Find the Bad Guy or the Protest Polka or Freeze and Flee and thought, that's us — know two things. You are not alone. The vast majority of distressed couples are caught somewhere in this progression. And this is the work I do every day with couples in Golden, Genesee, Evergreen, and across the Denver Front Range.
We can get the squirrel out of your house.
You don't have to keep fighting each other. You can start fighting the cycle together.
Dr. John O'Malley, PhD, LPC, is a couples therapist in Golden, Colorado, specializing in Emotionally Focused Therapy. He works with couples in person across Golden, Genesee, Evergreen, Conifer, Morrison, Lakewood, and the Denver metro, and via telehealth statewide in Colorado. Learn more at omalleycounseling.com.