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It's 9:15 on a Tuesday night. The kids are finally asleep, and one of you is reloading the dishwasher because the other one did it wrong. Bowls on the top rack again. Four minutes later you're both saying things like "Why am I the only adult in this house?" and "Nothing I do is ever good enough for you," and you end the night on opposite edges of the mattress like strangers sharing a train compartment.

That fight was never about the dishwasher.

In this episode, I'm walking you through the drama triangle, a model created by psychiatrist Stephen Karpman in the late 1960s, and why it hits high-achieving couples so hard. The same skills that make you excellent at work (taking charge, fixing problems fast, carrying the load) are the exact skills that pull you into this pattern at home.

You'll learn:

• The three roles, hero, villain, and victim, and what each one is protecting underneath
• Why you rotate through all three in a single argument, and how what feels like victim on the inside can land as villain to your partner
• How to tell the difference between helping and rescuing
• The healthier version of each role from David Emerald's Empowerment Dynamic: creator, challenger, and coach
• Three practical tools, including one you can use tonight

Nobody in this triangle is the bad guy. You're two people who learned some very good survival skills that just aren't working for you anymore, and once you can see your role, you get to choose a different one.

Listen now to find out which corner of the triangle you keep landing in and how to step out of it this week.

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