The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse; or: "We Said".

I write these blogs mainly to help new couple therapists identify problems they can help their clients notice and understand. Some couples may find them helpful as well.

The idea that there are "four horsemen of the apocalypse" that a couple can identify and put a stop to–thereby heroically saving their relationship– is by now familiar in couple therapy circles. There's a fifth horseman that over and over again tramples and distresses couples who are already distressed enough. Naming this fifth horseman and watching out for how it derails partners in conflict is usefu because it's pervasive, destructive, and yet completely obvious on reflection. For a little energy in dealing with it, alot can be gained.

The Fifth Horseman in Action

A: I'm not sure what you are talking about. You said you didn't want to see that movie because it's too long.

B: No I didn't. I didn't say that. I just said I was worried I wouldn't like it.

A: No that's not what you said. You said you you'd rather not see it.

B: No, I didn't say that. You're the one who said we shouldn't see it then.

A: No, what I said was we maybe shouldn't see it, not we shouldn't see it. I was asking.

and so on.

The fifth horseman of the apocalypse is arguing over memory of speech– what was said or not said. Though the above looks particularly childish in written form, the live phenomenon is pervasive in distressed adult relationships. Arguing over the minute details of any past events is already dubious exercise because of the fallibility of our memories. We all should know we can't rely on our memories; they are always incomplete renderings of what happened. What has been captured is rarely or never a literal recording anything said, and certainly even farther removed from what the speaker had in mind. We speak contexts, not words; these contexts include a range of perceptions private to me and only partly available to you. And now the context has changed, and yet couples are now fighting over memory of speech.

What I say is likely to land in you differently from where it came from in me; my intentions with it may not be as transparent to you as they are to me; sometimes also, they are not utterly transparent to me either. If I dispute this and insist that what I heard is what you said, ie, meant, or vice-versa, we are already in a fight. Now, incomplete memory with its only partially-overlapping interpretations conspire to frustrate us when we fall into the trap of trying to find solid ground through memory.

When we can't move stop fighting over memory, it may be because our memories support something much more fundamental: our sense of who we are and what we can count on as absolutely true. Such fundamentals loom larger in importance under stress, when we inherently feel a little less safe. Until partners lower stress and recover a sense of humor about how differently we respond to, interpret, and review mental movies, we may continue to question their (and our own) hold onto this very reality that keeps us safe. This is the crucial point: we look to our memory as the keeper of our connection to reality and thus to safety and solidity. It's not uncommon for couples to experience a kind of outrage at the alternative memories a partner insists on. As outrage takes over the world because of people's different experiences and interpretations of the same events, it's increasingly important to understand how we can contain it at home. But we seem to be wired to feel outrage when the social-relational fabric starts to slip. After all, we depend on collaboration to get anything done, and if we don't share enough of a basis for that, indignation at those who don't share what we share will surge.

Adding injury to insult, insistence on memory of what they said effectively puts words they don't recognize in their mouth. This will feel intrusive, and now they are not only fighting over memory but over the experience of intrusion, which can only summon up further defense and offense. Most couples therapists recognize this intrusive fight carried out through arguing over memories of speech, and yet less experienced couples therapists often feel helpless to work with it. I know I did at the beginning. For the couples therapist, there are solutions. These include preparation to briefly explain the concepts presented here in a 3-5 second format.

Recently, i've been calling "memory of speech" the "gateway to hell", which captues some immediate brief attention and can help couples full stop in the moment. Longer explanations (more than 7-10 words) are best not delivered in the heat of the moment, though I sometimes fall into the old habit probably because these are the often part of the stressful moments in couples work, the full blown fight over memory-of-speech. But the higher cortical functions needed to take in explanations from anyone including therapist are not active under high stress. Once couples have stopped goading each other into fighting with memory of speech battles, they often don't need much more than to hear the same phrase again. It goes like this: "going to memory of speech under stress in conflict will take you two further down to the gates of hell you every time".

The following is an excerpt from a couple that had been addicted to the fifth horseman, to their own memory and thus their own interpretation of what was meant. They had worked on it; now, in session, partner B, has started to become aware of how "you said" under stress pours fuel onto the fire. They cue both themselves and their partner to a different path:

A: I'm not sure what you are talking about. You said you didn't want to see the movie because it's too long. A could be about to ignite a memory of speech war.

B: Ok, we don't do the memory of speech thing any more, so here's what I want you to know: I want to see the movie. What about you? B wisely sidesteps the question of whether they said that or not. Referencing a concept from couple therapy is fine, as long as the partner is ok with it and the name of the therapist is kept out of it!

A: Let's skip it and watch something new from X on youtube..... A moves on, wisely.

B: Deal.

B and A saved themselves from their recurrent memory-of-speech purgatory. A could have done even better to have been the one to ward off trouble one turn earlier:

A: So, about the movie, I'm not sure what we said before that you you want. Do you want to see the movie?

B: Yeah. I mean, No.

A: Practice tango instead?

B: Deal.

When trouble has been warded off, it leaves only a little trace of the potholes that had been there before. They may not even notice.

Bottom line: when someone wants to know what their partner wants, needs, thinks, etc, ask them to speak now, for now, rather than trying to get them to be loyal to what (you think) they said. And maybe they did use those words, but they don't feel it now, so what a partner thinks they said is now irrelevant. And both partners are very likely to be wrong in, if not details of words spoken, the additional messages that their speech conveyed if they insist that these are the only messages that would be reasonable to mean. These context cues (indirect messages or meta-messages) are quite varied and hard to pin down later on, but are often what was actually meaningful to the speaker. For instance, in the first dialogue above, speaker A clarifies a context cue at the very end: "I was asking." By that time, though, it's too late, the clarification probably won't land. Clarify intention in the beginning, or in the middle, not the end.

In contrast to an "I said-you said" argument spiral, "we said" is a cue to memory of speech that we can allow ourselves under stress. "We said" points to well-worked out explicit agreements as a couple. "We said we wouldn't argue over speech" is a legitimate reminder of our agreements. And it doesn't inflame in the same way because it is unlikely to be felt as intrusive. We agreed, together, out loud. If partners haven't agreed on these basic things, and need to, this is the next order of business for couple therapy, the couple's fundamental agreements.

Finally, don't weaponize: with all the patterns partners notice such as the fifth horseman, we/they have to be careful not to weaponize them. Weaponizing is tempting because the annoying pattern, now carrying a name, will now jump out at us, as it should, but when an annoyance has a name, we may harness and overuse it, in the process putting our partner down. Instead, agree with your partner to not argue over memory of speech and to cue each other gently if, you one or both, accidentally start doing it. A cue like "we don't argue over memory of speech," spoken gently, is a reminder to an agreement to not invite the fifth horseman into our conflicts.