Pattern library
A pattern is not a person. It's what happens between two people when their reactions echo each other – usually as a loop, where one person's move triggers the other's, and vice versa. Here we collect the dynamics that most often show up in couples, between parent and teenager, and between siblings.
SAMRUM describes dynamics and tendencies, not types. You are not a pattern – you can have one, and you can influence it.
Written by Thomas Silkjær, founder of SAMRUMLast updated
Patterns
This is a selection. In a SAMRUM report we look for more than 70 patterns in your relationships – here we've gathered some of the most recognizable ones.
Couples
Pursue-Withdraw
One reaches out more for conversation and contact, the other more often holds back first. Both reactions reinforce each other.
Research term: Pursue–Withdraw / Demand–Withdraw
Unequal Load
One partner sticks with daily tasks longer, the other lets go more quickly. This can create resentment in the more persistent one and guilt in the other.
Research term: Mental load imbalance (Second Shift)
Intimacy Gap
A difference in need for closeness and contact. One may feel crowded by contact, the other less met.
Research term: Attachment-based intimacy gap (EFT)
Frozen Conflict
When no one initiates repair, conflicts can 'freeze' and leave unresolved tensions.
Research term: Gridlocked / perpetual problems (frozen conflict)
You find your way back to each other
Both partners are active in repairing after disagreement. It's not that you never fight – it's that you both reach out afterwards. That gives the relationship somewhere to land, even after a hard conversation.
Research term: Repair attempts (strength)
Parent & teenager
Quick Escalation
When both teen and parent react quickly and intensely, and at least one struggles to stay calm, small disagreements escalate fast.
Research term: Negative reciprocity / escalation
Autonomy Struggle
Teenagers need to develop independence. Can create an entrenched struggle if parent experiences it as rejection.
Research term: Autonomy development (social-cognitive domain theory)
Communication Gap
Parent and teen have opposite needs for contact. The parent typically seeks more direct conversation, while the teenager withdraws. The more the conversation is pushed, the less voluntary sharing may happen.
Research term: Disclosure > solicitation (communication gap)
Closeness Withdrawal
Parent seeks closeness, teen pulls away. Parent experiences it as rejection, teen experiences it as invasion of their independence.
Research term: Pursue–Withdraw (parent–teen)
Different Volumes
Parent and teenager react with different force – one quickly and intensely, the other more subdued. The subdued one can come across as indifferent, and the intense one as too much, without either being true.
Research term: Intensity mismatch in adolescence (Goodness of fit)
Parents & children
Two Parenting Lines
You have notably different needs for structure and frames around the children. One leans toward fixed agreements and clear rules; the other toward flexibility and case-by-case judgment. This can make it hard for the children to know what applies, and for you to feel like a team.
Research term: Coparenting agreement (childrearing)
Structure Clash
Parent and child have different needs for structure. Daily transitions often become friction points because the frame doesn't match on both sides.
Research term: Structure mismatch / scaffolding (ZPD)
A Secure Base
Parent and child both show high levels of warmth and contact-seeking. The child can return to the parent for security and feels safe moving away to explore.
Research term: Secure base (attachment)
Siblings
Fairness Battle
Siblings with a high fairness filter often notice whether things feel 'fair'.
Research term: Sibling rivalry / fairness
Sibling Escalation Loop
When one sibling escalates, the other answers back, and the conflict gains speed. Small disagreements quickly turn into a mutual escalation that is hard to stop once it is underway.
Research term: Coercion cycle (Patterson)
Blended family
Blended Family Roles
In blended families, roles often need time to settle. The biological parent usually stands more naturally in authority, while the stepparent can more easily end up at the edge of the relationship (Papernow).
Research term: Insider–outsider (stepfamily roles)
Clashing Rule Sets
Step-parent and stepchild have different expectations for structure and rules. The child has internalized rules from another home.
Research term: Authority/loyalty conflict (stepfamily rules)
The Bond You Built
You both bring warmth and contact-seeking to the relationship – in a family form where that bond doesn't come by itself but is built over time. With you, it has worked.
Research term: Stepfamily affinity-building
Is this you?
A library can give you the language. Whether a pattern is running between you – and where to start if it is – only your own answers can show. It starts with the free test.