Understanding Terrence Real’s Five Losing Strategies
Written by Ps. Diego Durán
What Doesn’t Work and Why
You love each other. You want things to work. But sometimes, despite your best intentions, everything seems to go at a strange angle. Conversations derail, tensions escalate, or one of you shuts down—and afterward, you’re left wondering how such good intentions led to such disconnection.
As a couples therapist, I’ve seen this happen many times. In fact, much of the pain couples experience isn’t caused by a lack of love, but by the unconscious strategies they fall back on when they feel hurt, threatened, or misunderstood.
That’s why I find Terrence Real’s concept of the five losing strategies so useful. These patterns are incredibly common, and they’ve helped many of the couples I work with understand how they may be undermining their own relationship—without even realizing it.
In this article, I’ll walk you through each of these five strategies, help you recognize them in your own relationship, and show you what to do instead. No blame. No judgment. Just a clear look at what doesn’t work—and how to move toward something that does.
1. Needing to Be Right
This strategy is about proving your point, gathering evidence, and winning the argument. It’s the courtroom mentality: if you can just present enough facts, logic, or objective proof, your partner will have no choice but to agree with you.
But here’s the truth: objective reality has no place in a close personal relationship. Evidence and logic may help solve a crime, but they won’t help you stay married or emotionally connected.
Being right is compelling. Self-righteousness can be downright intoxicating. In the heat of conflict, we cling to our version of truth like it’s the moral high ground. But here’s the problem: you won’t find a solution from a position of self-righteous indignation—because you’re not really looking for one. You’re looking to be vindicated, not connected.
Why it fails:
When you insist on being right, you often invalidate your partner’s experience. You may technically “win” the argument, but the relationship loses. In a grown-up relationship, being right isn’t the real point— understanding and finding a solution is. What matters most is staying emotionally connected and co-creating a dynamic that works for both of you.
In an intimate partnership, the goal isn’t to win—it’s to understand, be understood, solve situations and move foward.
2. Controlling Your Partner
When conflict arises, many people instinctively try to manage their discomfort by managing their partner—through persuasion, pressure, guilt, or even micromanagement. The underlying belief is simple: If you would just change, things would be fine.
Control might get you short-term results, but it undermines the foundation of the relationship. It breeds resentment, resistance, or silent withdrawal. And whether your partner shows it or not, nobody wants to be controlled. One way or another, you can count on the payback.
Why it fails:
Control shuts down the possibility of a two-way dialogue, replacing collaboration with pressure. It sends the message that one person knows best and the other needs to fall in line. But love doesn’t grow in that environment. Real intimacy requires space for both voices, both truths, both needs. You can’t create mutual connection by forcing another adult to behave the way you want. What you can do is influence—through trust, empathy, and mutual respect.
Oppressing someone may lead to compliance, but it won´t create a healthy, thriving relationship.
3. Unbridled Self-Expression
Many people are taught that honesty is the key to a healthy relationship. And while that’s true, it’s only part of the story. When self-expression becomes unfiltered, relentless, or emotionally overwhelming, it stops being a path to intimacy and turns into a weapon.
Dumping every raw thought or feeling you have, in the moment you have it, isn’t authenticity—it’s self-indulgence. This kind of emotional dumping—offloading intense emotions onto your partner without regulation or consideration—can leave the other person flooded, confused, or defensive. Some people confuse emotional honesty with saying whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of the impact.
Here’s the thing: you can vent, or you can move toward a solution. Which one is more important to you? Venting might feel satisfying in the moment, but it rarely builds bridges. Telling your partner, precisely and in no uncertain terms, how horrible you feel about them is probably not the most effective way to engender a generous response.
Why it fails:
Unbridled self-expression creates more heat than light. It floods the other person and shuts down connection rather than fostering it. In close relationships, self-expression must be balanced with self-regulation. The goal isn’t just to get things off your chest—it’s to be heard, and that requires thoughtfulness, timing, and a sense of the other person’s capacity to receive what you’re sharing.
Real communication is relational. It’s not just about telling your truth—it’s about telling it in a way your partner can actually hear. That means taking a breath, pausing for clarity, and choosing words that invite connection rather than rupture.
Real communication is relational. It’s not just about telling your truth—it’s about telling it in a way your partner can actually hear.
Paradoxically, those who do harm often feel harmed. This reversal—hurting others while convinced they’re the ones being wronged—is at the heart of much of the world’s violence.
4. Retaliation
When we feel hurt, it’s natural to want the other person to feel it too. Retaliation can take many forms—sarcasm, passive-aggressiveness, blaming, bringing up old mistakes, or even outright hostility. The common thread is this: You made me suffer, now it’s your turn.
It may feel justified in the heat of the moment, even righteous. But retaliation doesn’t repair—it escalates. It doesn’t open space for accountability or healing; it shuts it down.
Retaliation is often a primitive way of communicating—literally acting out how the other has made us feel when we lack the capacity to express it with words. It’s a behavior that tries to transmit pain when language fails us. But instead of bringing understanding, it provokes fear, anger, or defensiveness.
One of the most prevalent underlying dynamics of retaliation is offending from the victim position. You wind up being a perpetrator who feels like they are being victimized even as they attack. In fact, almost all perpetrators feel themselves to be the victims. This psychological twist—lashing out while feeling wronged—accounts for the vast majority of violence in the world.
There’s a crucial difference between self-defense and reciprocal attack. If you’re mugged, you are absolutely right to immobilize your attacker. But once they’re down, if you keep hurting them, you could be brought up on charges of assault. The same logic applies in relationships: protecting yourself is one thing—punishing the other is another.
Why it fails:
Retaliation shifts the focus away from the issue and turns it into a power struggle. It often leaves your partner feeling attacked or humiliated, and when people feel attacked, they defend—not reflect, not soften, not reconnect.
What retaliation really does is keep you stuck. Instead of expressing your vulnerability or asking for what you need, you act out your pain by trying to make your partner pay for it. The result? More distance, more resentment, and a cycle that’s harder to break each time.
If your ultimate goal is to feel seen, valued, and connected, retaliation won’t get you there. You can’t punish someone into loving you better.
5. Withdrawal
When conflict feels overwhelming or unresolvable, some people retreat—not to reflect or regroup, but to avoid. Withdrawal can be physical (leaving the room, walking away), emotional (shutting down), or relational (checking out, turning cold). It’s a quiet form of protest that says: I’m done. You don’t get access to me anymore.
One of the most recognizable—and painful—forms of withdrawal is the silent treatment. It’s not just silence; it’s silence with a message. Rather than communicating hurt or frustration directly, the silent treatment shuts the other person out completely, often without explanation. It can feel like punishment, rejection, or even erasure.
While withdrawal may appear passive on the surface, it’s one of the most damaging relational strategies, especially when used repeatedly. It replaces communication with absence, and tension with emptiness. Over time, it chips away at the sense of emotional safety the relationship depends on.
Sometimes, withdrawal overlaps with passive-aggressive retaliation, especially when it’s meant to punish or deprive the partner of connection. But withdrawal can also come from a different place: a distaste for conflict, a fear of intimacy, a reluctance to be vulnerable, a sense of futility, or sheer exhaustion.
Why it fails:
Withdrawal blocks the possibility of two-way dialogue. It leaves your partner alone with the problem, often confused and hurt. When there’s no explanation and no pathway back to connection, emotional distance grows.
It’s important to distinguish between withdrawal and responsible distance-taking. We all need breathing room—especially after an argument. But in a mature relationship, that space comes with context and care: a brief explanation and a promise to return to the conversation. It sounds like: “This is why I need space right now,” followed by “and this is when I’ll be ready to talk again.”
Rather than communicating hurt or frustration directly, the silent treatment shuts the other person out completely, often without explanation. It can feel like punishment, rejection, or even erasure.
These five losing strategies—needing to be right, controlling your partner, unbridled self-expression, retaliation, and withdrawal—are incredibly common. Most of us fall into them from time to time, especially when we feel hurt, afraid, or overwhelmed. They’re not signs that something is deeply wrong with you or your relationship. They’re signs that something needs attention.
What matters is not whether these patterns have shown up in your relationship, but whether you’re willing to recognize them and do something different. These strategies are automatic—but they are not inevitable. With awareness, intention, and support, they can be unlearned.
Intimacy doesn’t thrive on control, perfection, or winning. It thrives on curiosity, accountability, vulnerability, and the courage to pause and ask: Is what I’m doing helping us feel closer—or further apart?
If you’re beginning to see yourself or your partner in any of these patterns, that’s already a step forward. Understanding what doesn’t work opens the door to discovering what does.
And if you’d like help walking that path, I’m here for that too.
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