Often, the belief about whether a relationship is good or bad is an overall feeling or sentiment. What are the things that contribute to this overall feeling? Doctors John and Julie Gottman have done some remarkable research on intimate relationships and have identified some patterns that can be particularly unhelpful and helpful in relationships and thus characterise their sentiment. John Gottman calls these unhelpful patterns of behaviour the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and their helpful alternatives Antidotes.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:
Criticism
Criticism is a negative statement about a partner’s character and often takes the form of blame. What John Gottman’s research has shown is that even if someone receiving criticism appears to react well on the outside, inside they still feel hurt, and this negative feeling impacts their ability to really hear what the other person is saying. Often though, the natural response to criticism is defensiveness. The antidote to criticism is to talk about how you feel about a situation and identify a positive need (what you do want). This is the difference between a criticism and a complaint. A complaint is a helpful way of expressing needs in a relationship so your partner is able to hear what you’re saying and help meet your needs.
Defensiveness
Defensiveness is indignation or playing the victim and is an indirect way of turning blame back to your partner. This might look like ‘well you’re not perfect either’, or ‘but I couldn’t help it’. The antidote to defensiveness is to take some responsibility, even if it’s only a small part of a situation.
Criticism and defensiveness often become cyclical. If one partner, without realising it, expresses a need through criticism, the other partner, possibly without realising it, feels defensive and has difficulty hearing the need within what their partner is saying. Communication gets stuck. The first partner generally feels unheard and frustrated and the second partner feels blamed and frustrated. If you’re finding yourself often feeling unheard in conversations with your partner, it could be worth reflecting on how these needs are communicated. And if you find that your partner is often coming to you with similar concerns, it might be worth giving some consideration to what the deep need they are trying to express may be.
Contempt
Contempt is putting yourself in a position of superiority over your partner. This might include sarcasm, name-calling, belittling or eye-rolling. Contempt is extremely damaging to a relationship and is the number one predictor of divorce and separation. The antidote is to build a culture of appreciation and respect. This can be done by noticing what you do like about your partner, and when expressing a need, focusing on what you would like rather than what you’re unhappy about. Contempt induces feelings of shame in the receiving partner, and we know from Brené Brown and Kristin Neff’s research that shame makes is very difficult, almost impossible to make positive behaviour change, including meeting a partner’s request. It is important to remember that contempt is rarely intended to cause harm, rather it is usually a behaviour learned from caregivers in childhood and can be quite a difficult habit to break. However, it is extremely important to change as relationships rarely survive this Horseman.
Stonewalling
Stonewalling happens when the negativity of the other three Horsemen accumulates and one or both partners withdraw from communication without reaching any resolution around one or more topics. It can become a habit of avoiding difficult conversations altogether. The antidote is to, when you start to feel overwhelmed, take a break, self-soothe, and come back to the conversation, usually after about 20-30 minutes. The trick here is three-fold, firstly to identify that a break is needed (if you have a smart watch, you might set an alarm for when your heart rates goes above 100bpm), second to both agree to take a break, and third to come back to the conversation within 24 hours as longer than this will contribute to the cycle of avoidance.
Practicing the antidotes is a helpful way to foster a happy relationship. If you’re noticing the Four Horsemen creeping into your relationship and you’re having difficulty practicing the antidotes or finding that communication is still getting stuck contact Bonnie Ingram Psychology to make an appointment.
