Vermonters know this experience well. Eight inches of new snow overnight, and you walk out to a driveway that’s been packed down hard under fresh powder. You haven’t put the winter tires on yet. You get in, put it in reverse, and press the gas to back out. The tires spin. So you press harder, because that’s what you do when something needs more power to move. The engine works, the tires spin faster, and the car settles another inch into the exact same spot it was already stuck in.

Or you know the April version. Mud season, when a dirt road out past the last plowed stretch turns to something closer to batter than dirt. You pull to the shoulder to let a truck pass, wait a minute, and when you go to pull forward again the tires have already sunk into ground that looked solid and wasn’t. You give it gas. The tires spin, throw mud eight feet behind you, and dig a fresh hole in the exact place you were trying to leave.

You don’t need four months of mud season to know this feeling. Anyone who has ever tried to move a stuck car by pressing harder on the gas has felt it. The instinct makes complete sense in the moment. Pressing the gas is not a foolish choice, it’s the one built into us for getting out of trouble. More power, more effort, don’t give up. It’s just that the very thing which works almost everywhere else in life is the thing burying you deeper here.

If this sounds familiar outside of driving, you’re not alone.

Most couples I sit with in my office are doing some version of this. One partner feels the distance opening up and pushes harder to close it, asking more questions, chasing for reassurance, raising their voice to be heard. The other partner feels the pressure building and does what has always kept them safe, they pull back, go quiet, find something else to focus on. Each one is doing the thing that makes sense to them in the moment. And each one’s strategy, meant to solve the problem, ends up feeding the other person’s fear and digging the whole relationship in deeper.

We call this the Cycle. It isn’t about which partner is right or wrong, or who tries harder. It’s the pattern itself, the way two good people with two understandable strategies can end up stuck together, tires spinning, further from each other than when they started.

The good news is a cycle that’s been learned can be understood, and a pattern that’s been understood can be changed. That’s the whole aim of the work I do with couples, helping each partner see the cycle clearly enough to stop feeding it, and find their way back to each other instead. You can read more about how we work with the Cycle at flourishvt.com/retreats.

Autumn in Vermont

Don’t worry…it won’t be mud season.  This fall I’m hosting a workshop retreat for couples called Created for Connection, out at Seventh Seed Farm in Huntington. It’s the kind of setting that does half the work for you, mountain views, fall color and more intentionality than most weekends allow. Over the course of the weekend we’ll work together to name your particular version of the cycle, understand the emotions and fears underneath it, and practice a different way of reaching for each other.

If your relationship has felt like tires spinning in the snow lately, more effort somehow leading to more distance, this weekend might be exactly what you need. Head to our retreats page for the full details and to reserve your spot.  Let’s get on the road again.