Through his research, John Gottman discovered four behaviors that lead to unmanaged conflict, anger, mistrust, and divorce. Let’s talk about each of them:

#1: Criticism: When one or both partners make critical statements by using “you” statements and by making negative comments about their partner’s behavior. Once one person becomes critical, it is nearly humanly impossible to avoid the next one…

#2: Defensiveness is used to combat criticism and hurtful comments. This leads to more criticism and more criticism leads to more defensiveness, and then you get...contempt. 

#3: Contempt is deadly to relationships and can actually cause people to become physically ill. A relationship filled with contempt will eventually lead to divorce. How do people respond to contempt? They respond with more criticism and contempt or...stonewalling.

#4: Stonewalling: The abrupt end of conflict. One partner, fed up with the criticism, defensiveness, and contempt, shuts down, silences, ignores, isolates, and refuses to talk. This can last hours or days until the conflict passes. The problem here is that partners are left feeling hurt, betrayed, and fearful, and never get to process the conflict. 

This cycle destroys intimacy and creates feelings of distance and isolation. 

If this sounds like your relationship, get help now. We at Ray Family Therapy are all trained in Gottman Method Couples Therapy and can help you get out of this destructive pattern. We help couples get back on track after weeks, months, or years of fighting.