'Relationship death' is the radical therapy technique that can save a failing marriage.

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A woman sits across the breakfast table and stares at her husband of eight years, watching him scroll through his phone as he mechanically eats cereal.

The silence between them is heavy. It's loaded with years of unspoken frustrations, unmet needs, and the bitter residue of arguments that never quite get resolved.

She wants to tell him about a new job she's considering applying for after seeing a listing online, but something stops her.

'Why bother?'

He'll probably just grunt and keep scrolling, just like he did when she suggested they book that weekend away.

This is what resentment looks like in real time. It's not an explosive fight, but the slow, suffocating death of curiosity about one another.

According to counselling psychotherapist, Dr Karen Phillip, similar scenarios play out in countless Australian homes every day.

"Communication issues" breed resentment cycles, she explained, because they begin when one or both partners don't feel their needs are being met — and more crucially, don't feel heard when they try to express those needs.

The sad truth is, most couples don't even realise they're drowning until they're already underwater.

"If a couple don't remain connected and communicate what they're wanting, needing and going through, and the other person listens with curiosity to be able to correctly understand that — that's when we find the division growing wider and longer," she told Mamamia.

Phillip said that being stuck in a cycle of resentment typically signifies the "beginning of the end" of a relationship.

"It's as simple as that," she said. "If one person feels as if their needs aren't being met emotionally, or is feeling unappreciated, dismissed; if their boundaries are being violated, or they argue a lot — the same things repeat, over and over again — then they are not growing, they are not learning. Nothing is going forward.

"I normally describe it as you're stuck in a deep, dark hole and neither of you have found a ladder to climb out of it. So they crawl and scratch their way around — usually at each other."

"Relationship death" is a radical therapy theory that can be used to save a failing romance that's fallen victim to resentment.

The key to whether the technique will work lies in one simple question, Phillip noted.

"The first question you will always ask a couple is, 'Do you want to stay in this relationship?', or, 'Is this relationship worth rescuing here?'

"Often we will get a partner who says yes, and the other person occasionally says no, or will say, 'I don't know,' so they're partially at the building, but the door is opened," she said.

Once it's been ascertained that both partners are willing to move forward, the "relationship death" theory can come into play.

This is the concept of letting the idea of past selves, and preconceived experiences with the "old" relationship, go.

If a resentment cycle is about a lack of growth, relationship death acknowledges the old relationship has gone; morphed into something else.

"Relationships, like people, change and evolve over time," Phillip said. "Say they were 25 (when they met) and they're 35 now. Are you the same person at 25 (as you are) at 35? Oh god no, so why do you expect your relationship to be exactly the same (as it was) when you were 25, now (that) you're 35? It isn't. It can't be, because we evolve."

It's about meeting your partner at the life stage you're at now.

"It's a matter of understanding how we have each evolved, how our relationship has evolved, where we're at now," Phillip said, adding that couples should be mindful of the expectations being placed on each partner. "You're still both individual human beings that have desires, needs, requirements, fulfilments, satisfactions — you can't get all of that with one person. It's impossible."

Phillip said that most individuals need to let go of the idea that one person can meet every single desire and requirement of theirs, and instead turn their gaze inward.

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"The thing we work on is what each person feels is missing in their life from the other person. Often you will hear, 'They haven't done this; they haven't done that; they're not fulfilling this; they're not fulfilling that'. Great, we listen to that. Then I stop it (and ask), 'But what do you need as a person to feel fulfilled?' That's what is usually missing," she explained.

"

And if there's one tip Phillip has to keep a spark alive once the hard work of rebuilding has been done, it's to have "curiosity" about your partner.

"Be curious," she said. "So (they) say, 'I've had a shocking day today'… be curious. What do they mean by 'bad day'? Was it just eh, annoying or devastating? The words we use don't necessarily describe what the other person understands, so we have to really be curious (AND ask), 'What do you mean by that? What's the reason you feel that?'"

Feature image: Getty.