Understanding the unseen internal worlds that keep repeating themselves
I was reading this Forbes article about why 69 percent of conflicts in relationships never go away, and it immediately drew me toward the deeper framework of object relations.
The moment I saw the statistic, it wasn’t the number that caught my attention. It was the implicit truth behind it: conflict persists because the internal world persists. Even when two adults are speaking to one another, the deeper interaction is almost always between an internalized self and an internalized other formed long before the relationship began.
This is the territory of object relations.
Internal objects shape external reactions
Most recurring conflicts are not happening in the present moment at all. They are echoes. They are reenactments. They are the psyche’s attempts to complete unfinished business by using the partner as a proxy for an old, often invisible relational pattern.
When the rejecting object relation becomes activated, anything resembling distance, disinterest, or emotional delay feels like abandonment. A partner stepping into another room can stir the same old internal voice: you could disappear. The present moment collapses into an ancient memory, and the conflict becomes larger than the situation that triggered it. The argument is never really about what was said. It is about the fear of not mattering.
When the frustrating object relation takes over, no amount of reassurance feels sufficient. The partner can offer closeness, care, and presence, yet the deeper experience remains one of almost but not quite. This is not a flaw on either partner’s part. It is the residue of early inconsistency, the kind that leaves hunger embedded in the nervous system. The conflict keeps returning because the longing is aimed at an internal figure who cannot answer.
When the idealizing object relation rises to the surface, the partner becomes unconsciously cast in the role of the perfect other, the one who should soothe all fears and stabilize all uncertainties. When they fail to meet this silent ideal, disappointment turns quickly into conflict. The inevitable human imperfection of the partner feels like betrayal, not because they did something wrong, but because the idealized internal image has cracked again.
Each of these object relations contains its own self-state. The rejecting object generates a self who feels unlovable. The frustrating object generates a self who feels empty. The idealizing object generates a self who feels small or inadequate. These self-states are what meet the partner in the moment of conflict. The partner often becomes a placeholder for the internal dynamic, which is why the same arguments repeat with uncanny precision.
This is what makes the Forbes statistic so accurate. It is not that couples struggle to resolve practical issues. It is the psyche that keeps replaying unresolved internal patterns until they are brought into awareness. The conflict persists not because the relationship is broken, but because the internal world keeps reasserting itself through the relationship.
Transformation begins when one can recognize the object relation in real time. Not intellectually, but experientially: this anger is not about you; this urgency is not about you; this disappointment is not about you. The moment the internal object is recognized, the partner is released from playing a role they never agreed to play. Presence enters. The cycle loosens. The conflict becomes transparent.
Conflict as the messenger, not the mistake
Conflict then serves a different purpose. It becomes the place where the internal world emerges into consciousness. It becomes a doorway rather than a battleground.
If 69 percent of conflicts never go away, it is not a sign of failure. It is a sign that the psyche keeps offering its deepest truths, again and again, in the only way it knows how. When we finally meet those truths directly, the pattern changes, not by force, but by understanding.
John Harper is a Diamond Approach® teacher, Enneagram guide, and student of human development whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and deep experiential inquiry. His newest book, Nurturing Essence: A Compass for Essential Parenting, invites parents to discover the role essence plays in child development. He is also the author of The Enneagram World of the Child: Nurturing Resilience and Self-Compassion in Early Life and Good Vibrations: Primordial Sounds of Existence, available on Amazon.