How to Fight Right
Beware the Four Horsemen
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
If the future of your committed relationship could be predicted with 90% accuracy within 15 minutes based on the presence or absence of four factors when you fight, wouldn’t that be helpful to know? Based on well over 20 years of research, Drs. Julie and John Gottman of the renowned Gottman Institute have identified what they call
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- behaviors 90% of couples who break up demonstrate when engaging in conflict
:
- Criticism
Blaming the problem on a personality flaw of the partner.
- Contempt, the #1 predictor of divorce
Contempt comes from a place of superiority and often involves disrespectful behaviors like mocking, sarcasm, condescension, sneering and eye rolling.
- Defensiveness
Self-protection in the form of righteous indignation or innocent victimhood to ward off a perceived attack.
- Stonewalling
Tuning out, turning away, avoiding, shutting out and down, being unresponsive.
Two crucial points that matter deeply when having a disagreement:
- How you start off
Leading with criticism is a very bad idea, as 96% of the time what happens in the first three minutes not only sets the direction of the fight but also determines if that couple will still be together in six years.
- The number of positive to negative behaviors or “bids” for connection
The bids can be small – as small as nodding your head in understanding – but there needs to be five times more positive bids than negatives.
How to Fight Right
Embedded in our fights is a set of underlying dreams, beliefs, values, and histories that informs each person’s position.
Ask your partner these questions to better understand what is influencing their reactions. Everything can change when this understanding takes place. Also, check out
Fight Right, the book or listen to
this podcast or
this podcast to become much better at love.
Happy Valentines Day! To loving relationships, whoever they may be with,
E
Bonus: also interesting to know…
- A major predictor of whether therapy will work for a couple is whether both are willing to accept some responsibility for where they are in the breakdown.
- No matter how hard it is to hear, there is always a valid second point of view.