One minute you are grounded and reasonable, and the next minute some internal part grabs the strings and starts running the show. You snap at your partner, procrastinate for the fifth hour in a row, eat an entire bag of chips, doom-scroll into the wee hours, or make grand plans to completely turn your life around starting tomorrow. Then another part of you wakes up the next morning and wants to know what on earth you were thinking.

When there is enough goodwill in a relationship, we tend to give each other the benefit of the doubt. We may see our partner through something closer to rose-colored glasses. When hurt and distance have been accumulating, the lens can darken, and even neutral interactions can start looking suspicious.