“We have the same fight over and over”

What could be going on

Pursuer-distancer (demand-withdraw): Fits if one pushes to talk and the other withdraws, round and round.

Four horsemen (Gottman): Check for criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling in how the fights go.

Psychological games (Berne): Fits if the fight follows a predictable script with the same bad ending.

Rupture and repair: Fits if fights end without real repair, so the issue never closes.

Triggers: Check what sets it off each time; often an old hurt, not the surface topic.

Repetition compulsion: Check whether the fight mirrors arguments your parents had.

Also said as

• every argument is the same argument
• we keep fighting about the same thing
• why do we have the same fight every week
• stuck in the same argument
• we argue about the same issue all the time
• the same argument keeps coming back