The Four Horsemen of Relationships
You might have heard of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, a biblical reference signaling the end of times. In his research on long-term satisfying relationships, John Gottman and the Gottman Institute identified four unhealthy communication styles that signaled the end times for a romantic relationship. Those are the 4 horsemen we’ll explore here.
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The four horsemen are: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. Let’s look at each of them more closely.
Criticism
Criticism is defined as attacking your partner’s personality or character. This is usually done with the intent of making someone right (you) and someone wrong (them).
Criticism can sound like: “you always,” “you never,” “you’re the type of person who,” “why are you so…”.
Contempt
Contempt has been described by John Gottman as “sulfuric acid for your relationship.” Holding contempt is harmful to yourself, your partner, and the relationship future, because it signals unexpressed emotions and needs. A contemptuous act is an attack to your partner’s sense of self with the intention to insult or psychologically harm/abuse them.
Contempt is experienced as resentment, and includes disgust or body language conveying disgust. Passive aggressive communication is also a type of contempt. It might surprise you to know that contempt includes insults, name-calling, hostile humor, sarcasm or mockery, body language, and tone of voice.
Examples of contempt:
Insults and name-calling: bitch, bastard, wind, stupid, slob, lazy, etc…
Hostile humour, sarcasm or mockery: Dark humour with poor timing & veiled threats, backhanded comments, mimicking or parroting your partner in a high pitched tone and copying their mannerisms, expressions like “here we go again.”
Body language & tone of voice: sneering, rolling your eyes, curling your upper lip, conveying disgust, heavy sighing, inappropriate laughter, high or mocking pitch, mock crying, using a baby voice
Defensiveness
Defensiveness is almost always a signal that the other partner is being critical—or is perceived as being critical by the defensive partner. When a person is being defensive, they see themselves as a victim, or may be warding off of perceived attack. The purpose of defensiveness is to deny blame, and sometimes it’s to deflect responsibility or counter-attack.
Examples of defensiveness:
Making excuses, such as blaming external circumstances beyond one’s control, and denial of responsibility or behaviour
Cross-complaining: meeting your partner’s complaint or criticism with a complaint of your own and ignoring what your partner has said
Disagreeing and then cross-complaining: as denying and then rationalizing or blaming the other person
Yes butting: starting off by agreeing, but ending up disagreeing: “yes, but…” This is a type of rationalizing.
Repeating yourself without paying attention to what the other person is saying. This can also come across as contemptuous/resentful
Whining “it’s not fair” when you’re met with a complaint or other opportunity to take accountability
Stonewalling
Stonewalling is the withdrawal from the relationship as a way to avoid conflict. Often, a partner will think that they are withdrawing to be neutral, but sometimes it is used as punishment. Stonewalling conveys disapproval or icy distance. This creates a sense of insecurity, separation, disconnection for the other partner, and can come across as being smug.
Examples of stonewalling:
Stony silence, monotone mutterings, changing the subject, physically removing yourself from the situation, giving the silent treatment
Important Note
Experiencing any of these are exactly as unpleasant as they sound. There are some important points to make about these different types of unhealthy communication.
First, your style of communication during relationship conflict is often going to be similar to what you experienced in your family home. If indirect communication was often used, in childhood you might be more prone to passive aggression or even submissiveness in conflict. From a biological standpoint, male bodied people are more likely to demonstrate stonewalling than female body people, and this relates to sociological factors and biological factors (further described in the Gottman research).
Resolving Conflict
There are plenty of ways to resolve conflict, including taking a communicated break at the first signs of temper rising, and practicing self-soothing through progressive muscle relaxation, visualization, breathing techniques, and physical exercises.
These are the official antidotes to each of the four horsemen to cure unhealthy communication:
Criticism: Complain without blaming.
Learn to state your needs using “I” statements. Make a specific complaint and clear request without blaming your partner or using the word “you.”
Contempt: Express your feelings and needs.
Learn to identify your emotion and share this with your partner. This can be pretty hard for some people for many reasons. Learning about emotional awareness and emotional intelligence can be pursued in counselling or with an EQ coach.
You can also protect your relationship from resentment by building a culture of appreciation and gratitude. Understanding what helps your partner to feel loved by you (their “love language”) can be helpful here.
Defensiveness: Take responsibility.
Even if you fully believe you are not to blame, it can help your relationship to take responsibility for even 5% of your contribution to the conflict.* Apologize for raising your voice, rationalizing, denying responsibility or cross-complaining. Don’t apologize in anticipation of your partner taking responsibility in turn, because that’s not guaranteed. The goal of taking responsibility is to begin to repair, and they might still hurt even after an apology.
*Habitual conflict, criticism and resentment can indicate a verbally abusive relationship. If you experience frequent conflict, speak with a neutral third-party with your partner. This could be a couples therapist, a pastor or priest, or a mutual close friend. These relationship patterns have an opportunity to be resolved if you are both willing to work on the relationship and make some changes.
Stonewalling: Do physiological self-soothing.
Go for a walk, do an intentionally relaxing activity, engage in exercise to burn off adrenaline, play with a pet. Make a list of your favourite relaxing activities that you can use when you need to self-soothe.
Resources:
The Gottman Institute
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