Gridlock
Peer-Reviewed
A state of perpetual conflict where neither partner moves and both feel deeply misunderstood.
A state of perpetual conflict where neither partner moves and both feel deeply misunderstood. Often signals an underlying dreams-within-conflict issue.
Evidence
Peer-Reviewed
Gridlock, conflict that recurs without resolution because it sits on deeper unmet needs or values, earns Peer-Reviewed as a descriptive Gottman construct. It comes from the same Love Lab observational program (Heyman, 2001) that reliably distinguishes distressed from stable couples, and it pairs with the finding that most couple conflict is perpetual rather than solvable. The rating is for the descriptive science, not the marketed divorce-prediction accuracy.