Shadow Boxing: Couples

When old wounds enter the ring and your partner takes the hit 

by Stephanie Robinson, Psychotherapist, Executive & Life Coach, and Chief Clinical Officer, Open Mind Health

As a couples therapist, the most common presenting issue is conflict, but it isn’t primarily about each other. Our partners become the trigger for our attachment wounds, insecurities, fears, and defenses. One partner feels dismissed and becomes critical, while the other feels criticized and becomes defensive. One feels abandoned and pursues causing the other to feel overwhelmed and withdraw. One feels unseen and protests. The other feels inadequate and protects.

Before long, both are convinced they are fighting each other. But what they’re actually fighting are the meanings they’ve attached to the interactions. The hidden and old wounds say:

“I don’t matter.”

“I’m not enough.”

“I’m alone.”

“I have to earn love.”

“Nobody sees what I carry.”

“I can’t depend on anyone.”

The conflict is happening in the present, but the root cause is often coming from the past.

That’s why the argument about dishes feels bigger than dishes. The argument about sex feels bigger than sex. The argument about work feels bigger than work. Because underneath the content is something way bigger, it's about purpose, meaning, and connection to ourselves, each other, and how we connect to the world. The partner becomes the stand-in for every time we’ve felt unseen, rejected, controlled, criticized, abandoned, or inadequate.

This is what I call Shadow Boxing. The punches are aimed at each other. But the real opponent is usually us. It's an old fear, an old wound, or a protective strategy that no longer serves the relationship.

The husband who says:

“You don’t respect how hard I work.”

The wife who says:

“You don’t appreciate everything I do.”

Neither may actually be talking about work or chores. They’re talking about worth, identity, recognition, and belonging. The tragedy is that both partners are often asking the same question while defending themselves from the same fear: "Do I matter to you?

Do I matter?”

And somewhere along the way, they stop protecting each other’s value, and start fighting for their own. The relationship becomes a competition. Who works harder, contributes more, or sacrifices more? Who is more exhausted, neglected, or deserves more appreciation?

But in the history of relationships, keeping score has never created a deeper connection.

It only creates opponents. Sometimes the work of finding your way back to each other must start long before the couple is ready to have these conversations together.

Sometimes I need to work with each partner individually first. Not because they’re the “identified problem”. But because we need to build a foundation for psychological or emotional awareness of how parts of themselves that might be misunderstood or mismanaged keep showing up in the relationship. The defensive, critical, withdrawing, controlling, people-pleasing, terrified, or ashamed part. The part that learned long ago that vulnerability wasn’t safe. When those parts take over, many important parts disappear, like curiosity, compassion, and understanding. Many conversations become competitions, and connection disappears.

Couples therapy involves helping each person understand their own triggers before expecting them to navigate their partner’s. It helps them recognize what gets activated, what they’re protecting, what they’re afraid of, or what story they are telling themselves in those moments.

Only then can they begin returning to the relationship with enough capacity to stay present when the conversation becomes difficult. And then sometimes something beautiful happens. They start to see things differently and see each other again. They stop fighting against each other and start fighting for each other. The scorekeeping loses its appeal, and the certainty that the other person is the problem begins to soften. This is when couples are ready to come sit together and put the gloves down long enough to see what is really happening and the love that has been buried under layers of protection. And in those moments, they begin finding their way back to each other. Not because the problems disappear. The unchanged toilet paper roll and missing toothpaste caps are still annoying. No one is finally crowned the “winner”. But a different emotional experience occurs. Partners becoming willing to move toward each other, and that is the healing.

The defenses are no longer needed with the same intensity. And what emerges isn’t perfection. It’s a partnership. Two imperfect people learning, over and over again, to turn toward each other instead of away and to protect the relationship more fiercely than their own position.

Questions for the Shadow Boxer

Before your next argument, ask yourself:

·    What am I actually feeling underneath this anger?

·    What am I afraid this means about me?

·    What old message or story or pain just got activated?

·    What am I trying to protect?

·    What am I longing for that I’m struggling to ask for?

·    Am I seeking connection or trying to win?

·    What would my partner say they are protecting right now?

·    What pain might they be carrying that I cannot currently see?

·    If I put down my gloves for a moment, what would I want them to understand about me?

·    If they put down theirs, what might I finally hear?

And perhaps the hardest question of all:

What if my partner is not the enemy?

Because despite the hurt, betrayal, resentment, or the years of misunderstanding, people can find their way back to each other. Not always. But more often than you might think.

I’ve watched couples who could barely sit in the same room learn to see each other again. I’ve seen years of criticism soften into grief and defensiveness transform into accountability. Healing is possible even when the past is still the past, and trust isn't magically restored. Healing is possible when both people accept there was never a fight to win.