Only four? What Dr. John Gottman refers to as the “Four Horseman of the Apolcalypse”, can predict the fate of marriages, based on marital conversation. Criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling are four different negative ways we communicate with our spouse or significant other in relationships. You can see all four of surface in friendship, extended family relationships, marriage, and sometimes business relationships. So do all four of these negative talk experiences hold the same value and potency in the relationship?
In order for us to get a better understanding of their potential destructiveness lets get a working definition of each.
1. 1. Criticism
a. A statement that implies there is something wrong with our partner
b. Sometimes a direct statement towards their character
c. These statements start with “you always” and “you never”
d. You can count on these statements causing the other person to become defensive
e. Complaint and criticism are different
f. Research indicates women are more likely to use criticism than men
2. 2. Defensiveness
a. Attempt to defend self from a perceived attack
b. Takes form of innocent bystander with potential whining
c. “Why are you picking on me”
d. Includes denying responsibility for the problem
e. Defect, divert, attack, defend
3. 3. Contempt
a. Verbal or nonverbal statement that puts person on higher plane than the partner
b. Husband may imitate his wife in a mocking tone of voice, responding to her complaint
c. Universal facial expression of contempt, the dimpler muscle pulls the lip corners to the side and creates a dimple in the cheek, but the dimple is not cute. (The Marriage Clinic, 1999)
d. Lonely husbands who marry contempt wives get sick more often
4. 4. Stonewalling
a. When listener withdraws from interaction
b. Often one spouse leaves for a period of time
c. Dance of non verbal behavior between speaker and listener
d. Look away and down, have stiff neck, don’t vocalize much
e. 85% of stonewallers were men
f. If a woman is stonewalling it is a huge predictor of divorce
g. Men stonewall when they have been physiologically over stimulated
In order to get rid of these four deadly strangers we have to repair our relationships and marriages. What do I mean by repair? When you ask someone if they are still mad and they refer to it happening so long ago they forgot, that would be a bad repair. Time does not repair in broken relationships, it only adds to the fire. Repair means specifically coming to each other and calling out what was happening, owning our mistakes, and seeking forgiveness and restitution where needed. Which one of these four horseman do you experience or you have seen play out in other peoples relationships.
I don’t know about you guys but for me all four of these come to play in my home occasionally. Could this be one of our battles we have to fight? Absolutely! Giving Satan a foothold in our marriage is one of his biggest attacks taking out as many people in the church as it is in the secular world. At times the beauty can be more perplexing than a 1000 piece jig saw puzzle of a solid color. Take notice men, do any of these ideas rear their ugly head in your home? Repent, ask forgiveness, stand in prayer! Do whatever you must to get these guys back out of your home. Don’t remain silent. As these build strength in your home they will be hard to get rid of. It will be for the good of your marriage, your wife, and your children.
Gottman, Dr. John. The Marriage Clinic. New York: W.M. Norton and Company, 1999.
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