Couples who get caught in escalating slugfests like that usually wind up in one of two patterns. One is to lock away the issue and try not to talk about it again. That solution can keep them together, albeit with increased protectiveness. Couples opting for that pattern come to have an exiled issue that affects them in the same way that an individual’s exile does. It becomes an area of the relationship that they fear, and they avoid anything that might trigger it.
