Gottman studied more than 2,000 married couples over two decades and found four attitudes that most predict the dissolution of a relationship, especially in combination. They are criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling — the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
The four behaviours are Blaming, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling. Relationship expert Dr John Gottman termed these "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" as they spell disaster for any personal or professional relationship.
The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling.
3 Relationship Killers: Contempt, Negativity, and Neglect.
Gottman and Silver have identified the four destroyers to a good relationship. They call them the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. So dangerous to a healthy, loving relationship are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
In addition to Dr. John Gottman's Four Horsemen that includes criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness, there are four other predictors of the dissolution of a relationship: resistance, resentment, rejection, and repression.
Healthy relationships involve honesty, trust, respect and open communication between partners and they take effort and compromise from both people.
1 thing that 'destroys' relationships, say researchers who studied couples for 50 years. As a psychologist and sexologist, we've been studying relationships for more than 50 years combined, and we've found that no matter how you slice it, most of them fail because of poor communication.
Blame and shame.
Aside from all-out abusive behavior, blaming and shaming may be the fastest way to kill your connection. Both behaviors communicate contempt for your partner, displaying that you view him or her as beneath you or deserving of scorn.
Relationship killer #1: Lack of communication
This is probably the biggest relationship killer out there. So many people make the mistake of assuming that their partner “should know” what they're thinking and feeling, without actually communicating what they need.
The most toxic relationship pattern is the demand/withdraw pattern, research finds. One partner — often, but not always the woman — makes demands, trying to pressure the other to change. The other partner — often, but not always the man — wants to avoid discussing the issue, so withdraws.
People often have the most toxic relationships with female members of their own family, research reveals. Wives, mothers and sisters were rated the most difficult to deal with in the study of over 12,000 relationships.
The Four Horsemen are four communication habits that increase the likelihood of divorce, according to research by psychologist and renowned marriage researcher John Gottman, Ph. D. Those four behaviors are criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt.
Behaviors such as blame-shifting, passive-aggressiveness, faking interest, and lack of empathy can be hard to see, but sometimes they are there, right under your nose, and they tell you a lot about someone.
Healthy relationships make you feel good about yourself — unhealthy relationships don't. Lying, cheating, jealousy, and disrespect are signs of an unhealthy relationship. So is trying to control a partner.
The most common reasons people break up usually involve a lack of emotional intimacy, sexual incompatibility, differences in life goals, and poor communication and conflict resolution skills. There are no wrong or good reasons to break up. However, some things in a relationship are just outrightly unacceptable.
The most common reasons people say they fall out of love are a loss of physical intimacy, a loss of trust, a loss of feeling loved, emotional pain, often driven by grief over feeling lonely, and negative views of oneself (poor self-image, feeling like a failure) driven by feeling rejected by a partner.
Using Power and Control. This is by far the most destructive force any human can bring to a marital relationship, and obviously includes the use of physical and sexual abuse or violence.
You don't trust
One is trusting your partner enough to know that s/he won't cheat on you or otherwise hurt you — and to know that he or she trusts you that way, too. The other is trusting them enough to know they won't leave you or stop loving you no matter what you do or say.
Why do people lose “the spark” anyways? Long distances, contradicting schedules, or growing resentment are all common reasons couples lose their spark—otherwise known as chemistry or a particularly strong connection. But the truth is that even in the best relationships, romance will dwindle if you're not working on it.
The 5-5-5 method is simple, according to Clarke. When a disagreement comes up, each partner will take 5 minutes to speak while the other simply listens, and then they use the final five minutes to talk it through.
"Half-your-age-plus-seven" rule
An often-asserted rule of thumb to determine whether an age difference is socially acceptable holds that a person should never date someone whose age is less than half their own plus seven years.
According to relationship researcher John Gottman, the magic ratio is 5 to 1. What does this mean? This means that for every one negative feeling or interaction between partners, there must be five positive feelings or interactions. Stable and happy couples share more positive feelings and actions than negative ones.