Maybe you've done it. You and your partner have an argument, you walk into another room, open your phone, and type some version of, "Am I being unreasonable here?"
Or maybe you've copied an entire text exchange into ChatGPT and asked it to explain what your partner really meant. You might ask whether something is a red flag, how to respond without starting another fight, or why the two of you keep having the same argument even when you've promised each other things would be different.
Sometimes you're not even looking for advice. You just want someone to understand why you're so upset.
In the fifth season of Showtime's Couples Therapy, this increasingly familiar experience makes its way into the therapy room. In one episode, Jason turns to ChatGPT for support while navigating difficulties in his relationship (Paramount+, 2026). Outside of television, researchers are beginning to explore how people use artificial intelligence for dating advice, emotional reassurance, and help navigating conflict with romantic partners.
As a couples therapist, I find this fascinating. Not because I think asking ChatGPT about your relationship is inherently a problem, but because I think it tells us something important about what people are looking for when their relationships feel difficult.
We want perspective. We want reassurance. We want to feel understood. And sometimes, after having the same argument for what feels like the hundredth time, we desperately want someone to help us figure out what we're missing.
AI can be useful for some of those things. But there's an important difference between understanding what might help your relationship and actually creating change within it.
Why Talking to ChatGPT Can Feel Easier Than Talking to Your Partner
Most of us understand, at least intellectually, what healthy communication is supposed to look like. We're supposed to listen, avoid blaming, express our feelings, and try to understand each other's perspectives.
Knowing those things and actually doing them when you're hurt, angry, exhausted, or afraid of being misunderstood are two very different experiences.
It's relatively easy to write, "I felt hurt when that happened," in a conversation with AI. It's much harder to say those words to someone whose response matters so much to you, especially if previous attempts have ended in defensiveness, dismissal, or another argument.
When we communicate with our partners, we're bringing far more than the immediate disagreement into the conversation. We're bringing our histories, insecurities, expectations, previous disappointments, and the ways we've learned to protect ourselves when we feel vulnerable.
Maybe you grew up in a family where conflict meant yelling, so even a small disagreement makes your body tense. Maybe your partner tends to shut down when they're overwhelmed, and that silence feels like rejection to you. Maybe you've had the same conversation about parenting, money, sex, or household responsibilities so many times that you're both anticipating disappointment before anyone has even said a word.
Our experiences outside the relationship matter, too. The expectations we've grown up with, the ways our identities have been understood or misunderstood, and whether the people around us have supported our relationships can all influence how safe it feels to be vulnerable with someone we love.
AI doesn't come with those same emotional stakes. It doesn't become frustrated when you repeat yourself, and you don't have to worry about hurting its feelings. You can explain your side of the story, change your mind, ask for reassurance, or start over as many times as you'd like.
That can feel incredibly relieving.
A 2026 study examining how people use AI for relationship advice explored how individuals turned to these tools for help navigating emotionally complicated situations. Researchers identified potential benefits alongside concerns about overreliance and AI's tendency to provide overly agreeable responses (Tseng & Liang, 2026).
And I think that last part is worth paying attention to.
When you're hurting, validation can feel wonderful. But having your feelings validated isn't necessarily the same thing as having your relationship understood.
Why Couples Keep Having the Same Arguments
Imagine you and your partner have been arguing about household responsibilities.
You feel like you're carrying the mental load of remembering appointments, planning meals, coordinating schedules, and anticipating everything that needs to happen. Your partner feels like they're constantly doing things around the house and never getting credit for what they contribute.
You might turn to ChatGPT and explain how exhausted you are and how unfair the division of responsibility feels. You may receive a thoughtful response validating your frustration and suggesting ways to communicate your needs.
Meanwhile, your partner could be having an equally convincing conversation with their own AI assistant about feeling criticized, unappreciated, and unable to do anything right.
Now you both have beautifully articulated explanations for why you're hurt, and you're no closer to understanding each other.
Of course, sometimes the division of responsibilities really is unfair. Understanding your partner's perspective doesn't mean minimizing your own experience or pretending every problem has two equally responsible sides.
But many couples aren't only disagreeing about the practical issue in front of them. They're also responding to what that disagreement means emotionally.
One partner feels disconnected and tries harder to initiate a conversation. The other feels overwhelmed or criticized and begins to withdraw. The more one person pulls away, the more anxious or frustrated the other becomes, so they push harder to get a response.
Eventually, one person feels abandoned and the other feels attacked.
Both may genuinely want things to improve, yet each person's attempt to protect themselves unintentionally reinforces the other's distress.
This is sometimes described as a pursue-withdraw or demand-withdraw cycle, a pattern relationship researchers have studied for decades. Research has associated these interactions with difficult conflict experiences and changes in relationship satisfaction over time (Papp et al., 2009; Johnson et al., 2018). Studies also suggest that the topic of a disagreement, and how important it feels to each partner, can influence how these patterns unfold (Crenshaw et al., 2021).
These patterns aren't determined by gender or sexual orientation. There's no designated partner who is supposed to be the emotional one or the one who pulls away. Either person can find themselves pursuing or withdrawing, and those roles can shift depending on the circumstances.
For LGBTQ+ couples, relationship challenges may also exist alongside experiences involving family acceptance, identity, discrimination, or outside expectations about what a relationship should look like. Those experiences aren't universal, but when they're present, they deserve to be understood rather than overlooked.
Once a couple becomes stuck in a familiar cycle, they may stop noticing the pattern itself. Instead, they focus on whatever started the latest disagreement.
The dishes. The phone. The lack of intimacy. The in-laws. The unanswered text. The feeling that one person is always initiating difficult conversations while the other would rather avoid them.
Underneath those disagreements, there may be questions neither person quite knows how to ask.
Do I matter to you? Can I count on you? Do you still want to be close to me? Can I tell you something difficult without disappointing you? Is there room for my experience, too?
These questions are often much harder to express than frustration about the dishwasher. And they can be much harder to hear.
A 2025 study of 217 couples found that greater intimacy, particularly feeling understood by a partner, was associated with less withdrawal following conflict (Lu et al., 2025).
That distinction matters because healthy communication isn't simply about explaining your position so clearly that your partner finally agrees with you. It's also about creating enough understanding that both people can stay engaged when a conversation becomes uncomfortable.
If these patterns sound familiar, our article on anxious and avoidant attachment styles explores how our experiences with closeness, reassurance, and vulnerability can influence the ways we respond to each other.
Can ChatGPT Actually Help You Communicate Better?
I don't think we need to treat AI as something that has no place in conversations about relationships. In fact, some early research suggests that it may be helpful when used thoughtfully.
A 2025 randomized controlled trial published in PLOS Mental Health examined a specialized AI chatbot designed to provide brief relationship support. Participants using the chatbot reported improvements in several measures of relationship well-being, although the chatbot did not significantly outperform a reflective writing exercise on most outcomes. Researchers also identified limitations, including repetitive responses and difficulty consistently recognizing potential safety concerns (Vowels et al., 2025).
To me, these findings suggest that AI can sometimes provide a useful opportunity for reflection, while reminding us that reflecting on a relationship isn't the same thing as navigating it with another person.
Here's an example.
Imagine you've just had an argument and you're tempted to ask ChatGPT, "Why does my partner always make everything about them?"
You might receive a response explaining defensiveness, emotional immaturity, or other psychological concepts that seem to fit your experience. And perhaps some of that information is relevant.
But what if you asked something different?
I'm feeling really hurt after an argument with my partner. Can you help me understand what I'm feeling, what I might need, and how to start a conversation without assuming I know their intentions?
That question opens the door to something different. Rather than asking technology to explain or diagnose your partner, you're using it to better understand yourself and prepare for a conversation that still needs to happen between the two of you.
You might also ask, "What are some possible perspectives I haven't considered?" or "How can I express what I need in a way my partner might actually be able to hear?"
The goal isn't to excuse hurtful behavior or take responsibility for someone else's actions. It's to approach the conversation with more curiosity and less certainty that you've already figured everything out.
And sometimes, the most helpful thing you can do doesn't involve AI at all.
It might sound like, "I think we're both getting frustrated, and I don't want to keep having this conversation the same way. Can we try to understand what's happening between us?"
That doesn't guarantee your partner will respond perfectly. It doesn't resolve an unfair division of responsibility, rebuild broken trust, or make longstanding resentment disappear. But it creates an opportunity to approach a familiar conversation differently.
There are also important boundaries to consider when using AI. Be thoughtful about entering private or identifying information about your partner into these tools, particularly without their consent. Remember that AI-generated advice isn't always accurate and may not adequately recognize coercion, emotional abuse, or safety concerns.
Most importantly, pay attention to whether using AI is helping you move toward meaningful communication with your partner or becoming a way to avoid it.
Sometimes what we need isn't a better explanation of the problem. It's a different experience of talking about it.
What Couples Therapy Offers That Relationship Advice Can't
There's a common misconception that couples therapy is primarily about teaching people how to communicate better.
Communication is certainly part of the work, but meaningful couples counseling often goes much deeper than learning to use "I statements" or taking turns speaking.
When I think about the work of couples therapy, I'm less interested in who can make the more convincing argument and more interested in what happens between two people when things become difficult. What happens when one person expresses hurt? How does the other respond? Where does defensiveness begin? When does someone withdraw, and what might they be trying to protect themselves from in that moment?
By the time couples consider counseling, they may feel like they've already talked about everything. They've explained themselves over and over, apologized, promised to change, and tried to move forward, only to find themselves having the same argument again.
That can be exhausting. It can also create a sense of hopelessness, especially when both people care about the relationship and neither understands why their efforts don't seem to be working.
Part of the value of couples therapy is having someone help slow those familiar interactions down enough to recognize what's happening.
Sometimes that means making room for the hurt underneath someone's anger. Other times it means understanding why a partner shuts down during emotionally charged conversations, or why attempts to reconnect can unintentionally feel like pressure.
It also means recognizing that two people can remember the same experience differently without either person necessarily being dishonest or intentionally hurtful.
And importantly, it means being willing to challenge patterns that aren't helping the relationship.
This is something I care about in my approach to therapy. I believe people deserve compassion, curiosity, and the opportunity to feel understood. I also believe meaningful change sometimes requires us to look honestly at our own responses, including the ones that may be contributing to the very problems we're trying to resolve.
You can validate someone's feelings without agreeing with every interpretation they've made. You can have compassion for a partner's history without excusing behavior that causes harm. And you can care about both people in a relationship while still being honest about what needs to change.
I don't see couples therapy as a place where one person presents their case and waits for a therapist to declare a winner. I see it as an opportunity to understand the relationship more fully, including the things that can be difficult to recognize when you're caught in the middle of them.
And I don't believe there's one prescribed way a relationship should look. Every couple brings their own identities, histories, values, and experiences into the room. Understanding those differences, rather than making assumptions about them, is part of understanding the relationship itself.
There's meaningful research supporting this work. A 2020 meta-analysis of 58 studies involving more than 2,000 couples found that couples therapy was associated with improvements in relationship satisfaction, communication, emotional intimacy, and partner behaviors (Roddy et al., 2020). Additional reviews have found benefits from established approaches to couples counseling, while recognizing that outcomes vary and no single approach works for every relationship (Rathgeber et al., 2019; Joseph et al., 2025).
Of course, not every relationship problem is simply a communication issue, and not every relationship should be preserved at all costs. When coercion, abuse, or fear is present, individual safety and specialized support need to come first.
But for couples who want to better understand each other and are willing to look at what's happening between them, counseling can offer a space to begin practicing something different.
At Tulip Tree Counseling, I work with couples navigating recurring conflict, communication difficulties, emotional disconnection, trust, and the complicated transitions that relationships go through. My approach is warm, direct, and collaborative. I want people to feel comfortable being honest about what's difficult, including the things they may not know how to say to each other yet.
You don't need to arrive with the right words or a perfectly agreed-upon version of what's wrong. Part of our work can be figuring that out together.
When to Consider Couples Counseling
One thing I wish more couples understood is that healthy relationships aren't defined by the absence of conflict. Even strong relationships experience misunderstandings, defensiveness, frustration, and seasons when connection takes more effort than it used to.
What matters isn't that you never get it wrong. It's whether you can recognize when you've missed each other, take responsibility for your part, and find ways to repair and reconnect.
And sometimes, you need support to figure out how to do that.
Maybe you and your partner have started feeling more like roommates than a couple. Maybe every conversation about parenting, money, responsibilities, or intimacy seems to end in frustration. Maybe you're trying to rebuild trust after something painful, or you're navigating a life transition that has changed the way you relate to each other.
Or maybe nothing particularly dramatic has happened. You just know that things don't feel the way they used to, and you're not sure how to find your way back to each other.
Sometimes both partners recognize that something isn't working. Other times one person has been feeling disconnected for a long time while the other is only beginning to understand how much the relationship has been affected.
You don't have to agree on every problem or have a shared explanation for what's gone wrong before reaching out. Part of the work can be learning how to understand each other's experiences in the first place.
I'm Aimee Keedy, LMFT, a licensed marriage and family therapist at Tulip Tree Counseling with 10 years of experience in the mental health field. I work with individuals and couples who want to better understand themselves, their relationships, and the patterns that keep leaving them feeling stuck.
My goal isn't to help you become a couple that never argues. It's to help you recognize what's happening when things get difficult, understand each other more fully, and develop different ways of responding.
I offer in-person couples counseling in Brentwood, Tennessee, and telehealth services across Tennessee, including Nashville and the surrounding communities.
If you're tired of having the same arguments and want to explore a different way forward, I'd love to help you take that next step.
Learn more about working with Aimee or schedule a couples counseling session through our client portal.
You don't have to communicate perfectly to begin. You just have to be willing to start somewhere.
References
Crenshaw, A. O., Leo, K., Christensen, A., Hogan, J. N., Baucom, K. J. W., & Baucom, B. R. W. (2021). Relative importance of conflict topics for within-couple tests: The case of demand/withdraw interaction. Journal of Family Psychology, 35(3), 377–387. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000782
Johnson, M. D., Horne, R. M., Hardy, N. R., & Anderson, J. R. (2018). Temporality of couple conflict and relationship perceptions. Journal of Family Psychology, 32(4), 445–455. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000398
Joseph, B., Joseph, V. K., & Rajan, S. K. (2025). Effectiveness of couple interventions in marital distress: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 54(1), 112–123. https://doi.org/10.18502/ijph.v54i1.17581
Lu, L., Wilder, S., & Prager, K. J. (2025). Intimacy reduces withdrawal after conflict in cohabiting couples. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 42(10), 2953–2977. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075251355074
Papp, L. M., Kouros, C. D., & Cummings, E. M. (2009). Demand-withdraw patterns in marital conflict in the home. Personal Relationships, 16(2), 285–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2009.01223.x
Paramount+. (2026, May 15). 503 (Season 5, Episode 3) [TV series episode]. In Couples therapy. https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/couples-therapy/episodes/
Rathgeber, M., Bürkner, P.-C., Schiller, E.-M., & Holling, H. (2019). The efficacy of emotionally focused couples therapy and behavioral couples therapy: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 45(3), 447–463. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12336
Roddy, M. K., Walsh, L. M., Rothman, K., Hatch, S. G., & Doss, B. D. (2020). Meta-analysis of couple therapy: Effects across outcomes, designs, timeframes, and other moderators. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 88(7), 583–596. https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000514
Tseng, E., & Liang, C. A. (2026). “Chat, should I leave him?” Risks, rewards, and roles for AI in relationship advice. In Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790739
Vowels, L. M., Vowels, M. J., Sweeney, S. K., Hatch, S. G., & Darwiche, J. (2025). The efficacy, feasibility, and technical outcomes of a GPT-4o-based chatbot Amanda for relationship support: A randomized controlled trial. PLOS Mental Health, 2(9), Article e0000411. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmen.0000411
