The Four Horsemen

Marriage is hard and it is a lot of work but even the most successful relationships are not free from conflict. In John Gottmans book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” he discusses the Four Horsemen who are the apocalypse in a marriage. They are Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt, and Stonewalling. It’s very common to find these in most relationships however healthy relationships very rarely use them and when they do they are able to repair them when they are used. I found two really good websites listed below that go into better detail of how these horsemen can have a negative effect on your marriage and the antidotes in which they offer to help you correct those negative behaviors.

Criticism: A complaint focuses on a specific behavior, while a criticism attacks the character of the person. 

Antidote: “make a direct complaint that is not an attack on your spouse.” I like the saying I saw which was “complain without blame.”

Contempt: “rises from a sense of superiority over one’s partner. It is a form of disrespect” This can lead to divorce if not corrected.

Antidote: “work on building appreciation for the small and large things in your spouse.”

Defensiveness: “Many people become defensive when they are being criticized, but the problem is that being defensive never helps to solve the problem at hand. Defensiveness is really a way of blaming your partner.”

Antidote: “listen to your spouse and try to take responsibility for part of the problem that is being presented.”

Stonewalling: Stonewalling occurs when the “discussions begin with a harsh start-up, where criticism and contempt lead to defensiveness and eventually one partner tunes out.

Antidote: “practice physiological self-soothing. The first step of physiological self-soothing is to stop the conflict discussion…recognize when you or your spouse might be getting overwhelmed and decide to take a break and then later resume the issue.”

If these four negative influnces are not corrected they can have over time an everlasting affect on your marriage. These are all things that will lead you down the road towards divorce but at the same time they are cures for them. It will just take acknowledging the problem and hard work to overcome them.

Dr. John Gottman's "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" are Divorce Predictors. (n.d.). Retrieved February 01, 2017, from http://www.acouplesplace.com/Gottmans_Four_Horsemen_are_Divorce_Predictors.html

The Four Horsemen: The Antidotes. (2017, January 28). Retrieved February 01, 2017, from https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-the-antidotes/