Interpersonal relationships are a fundamental part of life. Whether it's your friends, your family or your partner, you constantly interact with other people on a daily basis, and most of the time, you do so through communication. Any healthy relationship worth its salt will be built using communication. as a basis because, let's face it, lack of communication is one of the worst poisons for relationships.
However, Not all communication is good. The researcher John Gottmantogether with the psychologist Julie Gottmanhis wife, have devoted much of their lives to studying relationships. John Gottman has extensively studied the characteristics of relationships to find Four predictors of divorce that have become known as “Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”These four horsemen poison relationships through communication, to the point that their habitual presence causes divorce in the vast majority of cases.
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Gottman's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: These are the worst problems in a relationship
Not only physical violence can harm your partner, although it is the most serious situation that can occur in a relationship. Through your words, you can cause deep wounds that are difficult to heal in the person you chose as a life partner. What's more, poor communication has the power to wear down trust and affection to the point of no return and if you don't put a stop to it you could end up facing a divorce.
For Gottman, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Relationships are Criticism, contempt, defensiveness and evasiveness.
All relationships suffer from misunderstandingsIt's completely normal: when you do something, you act based on your own feelings and thoughts and, on many occasions, you don't even think about how your actions could affect the people you love.
When you and your partner have misunderstandings, you may resort to criticism, but this is a serious mistake. Pointing out your partner's flaws in every argument will make him or her feel insecure. and can even make him believe that you no longer love him.
That doesn't mean that when something has upset you, you should stay silent. Instead, try to put the focus of your words on the real problemin that act that has annoyed you. Don't say «you always make a mess in the kitchen because you are inconsiderate and don't care about the work I do to clean it up» and try saying instead «having to clean the kitchen again is a huge effort and takes up valuable time. Please try to clean up after yourself.»
Numerous studies place contempt as One of the biggest causes of divorce and breakupsIt is not surprising, because contempt is a sign of lack of affection that puts the other in a position of inferiority.
Contempt can be expressed in many ways, either by belittling the other directly or by doing so through irony or gestures of displeasure.
As in the previous case, the solution is to invoke tranquility and express what bothers you in a calm mannerwithout making the other feel attacked.
When your partner tells you something that bothers him, perhaps something that you find difficult to understand, your first impulse may be to become defensive about what you sense as a stroke.
However, getting defensive will not solve anything: it will only will fan the flames of discussion and will make the other person feel that you do not bother to understand what they feel, increasing the distance between the two of you.
Instead of justifying yourself or responding by reminding him of the things he does wrong, Listen carefully to what he tells you and take the blameasking for forgiveness for having made him feel bad. Let him know through words that you understand what he means and ask him how you could do it next time to prevent him from feeling bad.
In contrast to the defensive attitude, we find the evasive attitude: the one you put into action when you try to to flee from the conflict without having solved the problem.
What your partner may see as a way to ignore them is actually your body's response to large amounts of stress that the argument is causing you. When faced with danger, your body prepares to flee and you may even suffer an anxiety attack.
Although it is certainly an unpleasant situation, you cannot leave your partner hanging: Try to explain to him how you feel, so he can stop the argument.. Then, try to relax.
If you are unable to improve communication no matter how hard you try, our psychologists can help you solve your relationship problems.
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