Four Sure Signs Your Relationship is on the Rocks

In 1994, prominent couple psychologist John Gottman realised that there were four sure signs that a relationship was about to break down. Gottman is such an expert on relationship breakdown that he claims he can tell you whether a relationship will be ended within four years by observing just a couple of minutes of your time together. So take stock and strap in for the so-called ‘four horsemen of the Apocalypse’.

1. Complaining/criticising – you’re spending a lot of time complaining about your partner. ‘You never…’, ‘yes I do!’, ‘No you don’t and you always do …’. You also find yourself telling your partner ‘I don’t like the way you do this’, ‘I don’t like the way you dress’, ‘I don’t like how you’re always…’. Lots of ongoing, heavy complaining and criticising is the first sign a relationship is a sinking ship.
2. Defensiveness – you’re not looking to fix things anymore. Not asking for more information, not looking for the causes of complaints. Nope, it’s straight to the defensive and back to the attack; ‘no I don’t! Besides, you’re always doing…’.
3. Contempt – this is when it gets serious. Contempt isn’t usually a verbal sign. Mostly, this is communicated through the body language, the tone, the eye language (paralanguage). The eyerolling, the eyebrow raise, the gesture.  Remarks will be quite humiliating. It’s all about power. Contempt is a sign that they think they are superior to you and they can tell you what’s wrong with you. This sort of thing leads to what Suzanne Retzinger calls ‘shame-anger’ spirals. This is where after one party shames the other (you’re much uglier than your friend), the other person feels what’s called ‘humiliated fury’ and responds in kind (you think I’m ugly? Have you looked at yourself) and on it goes. These kind of shame spirals are very hard to recover from, such is their toxicity. Contempt is not a place you want to be in a relationship.
4. Finally we come to stonewalling, something we’ll mention a few times here. Now stonewalling in and of itself isn’t a problem. As we’ve said before, it can be a natural response in a relationship. It’s only when it follows the big one, contempt. In the face of an attempt to reason, to address the conflict you get a blank slate, a distanced partner.

“First comes criticism, then defensiveness, then the killer; contempt. The final nail in the coffin is stonewalling. These four elements in order mean there’s something seriously wrong.”

Gottman argues that these four elements occur in a cascading pattern. First the complaining, then the defensiveness, then the contempt and finally the stonewalling. When these things are all lined up, he’d call it game over. Hopefully you can now recognise the signs and go about repairing the damage that’s been created or maybe, simply moving on rather than following the path through more hurt and pain than either of you need to experience.
You know what else causes arguments in a relationship? Sex. Check out how men and women get turned on and turned off here. Or maybe it’s because you you’re hoping ‘love’ will fix it. If so, see how important love really is(n’t) here! Giving you the dirt on your search for understanding, psychological freedom and ‘the good life’ at The Dirt Psychology.