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St. Cloud State University

St. Cloud State University

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  What Is Dysfunctional in Ailing Relationships?

Gottman (1999)

Gottman has conducted research on differences between couples who stay together and couples who divorce. He has interviewed and videotaped hundreds of newlywed couples and then followed them to find out the course of the relationship. He has found significant differences.

In the domain of interactive behavior:

  • More negativity than positivity: Stable couples were found to have 5 times as much positive as negative affects. The ratio for couples headed for divorce was 8.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

  1. Criticism: Any statement that implies that there is something globally wrong with one’s partner. Usually starts with “you always” or “you never”

    Ex. Of Criticism: “you talk about yourself all through dinner and didn’t ask me anything about my day. How can you treat me this way? What kind of self centered person are you?”

    When bringing up concerns, complaints are a much better approach.

    Ex. Of Complaint: “I’m upset that you talked about yourself all through dinner and you didn’t ask me anything about my day. That hurt my feelings.”

  2. Defensiveness: A general stance of warding off a perceived attack. Unfortunately, defensiveness usually includes denying responsibility for the problem, and this fuels the flames of conflict because it says the other person is the guilty party.

    Ex. “And you get so aggressive after a few drinks, that’s the part I don’t like, that’s the part I fear.” Response: “How about when you explode into a tantrum?”

  3. Contempt: Any statement or nonverbal behavior that puts oneself on a higher plane than one’s partner, i.e. mocking. Another example would be correcting someone’s grammar when he or she is angry with you. (There is a universal facial expression for contempt)

    ** Contempt was in a category of its own. The amount of contempt in stable, happy relationships was found to be essentially zero. Gottman calls contempt “the sulfuric acid of love.”

  4. Stonewalling: Occurs when the listener withdraws from the interaction. Stonewallers look away and down, maintain a stiff neck, vocalize hardly at all - in effect, convey the presence of an impassive stonewall.

Criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling were not zero in happy, stable relationships. The key difference was effective repair.

  • Failure of repair attempts: What is repair? Can be almost anything, a smile, use of humor, a comment on the communication itself, or some way that the couples find to support and smooth one another. Couples who were consistently unsuccessful at repair attempts were more likely to end the relationship.

  • Gottman found that the presence of the Four Horseman could allow his team to predict divorce with 85% accuracy. When they included whether repair attempts were successful, that went up to 97.5%!

    Gridlock verse dialogue with perpetual issues: Gottman found that in terms of areas of continuing disagreement, 69% of those involved a “perpetual problem.” These were problem that usually hade to do with differences in personality or needs that were fundamental to their definition of self. Gottman found that instead of solving perpetual problems, what was most important was whether or not a couple could talk about them, occasionally make some progress or making a situation better for a while until the problem reemerged. Inability to talk about perpetual problems led to gridlock, which in turn eventually lead to emotional disengagement.

  • Emotional disengagement: There is an absence of affect; partners are like passing ships in the night, leading parallel lives; they do not experience each other as friends; there is a lot of unacknowledged tension; there is little attempt on the part of either person to soothe the other.

  • Harsh start-up of conflict discussion: Gottman found that the way a topic of disagreement is broached is critically important in predicting relationship outcomes. In their re search, only 4% of negative interactions ever reversed course. So, diplomacy matters! Gottman found that harsh start up by the woman was associated with relationship instability and divorce. Women were found to be more likely to criticize than were men. Men, on the other hand, were consistently more likely to stonewall or withdraw emotionally than women.

    ** However, Gottman found that men’s negative affect in talking about events of the day was critical in predicting the woman’s affect, in both discussion of events of the day and in conflict discussions. So in terms of troubled relationships, both men and women have an important part.

  • The failure of men to accept influence from women: Negative affects reciprocity (which is the probability that a person’s emotion will be negative right after his or her partner has exhibited negativity) has been found to be present in both happy and unhappy marriages. An important difference that predicted divorce was the escalation of negativity by men, which turned out to be an index of the men’s refusal to accept influence from their partner. Gottman tested the hypothesis that marriages will work to the extent that men accept influence from, share power with, women. His prediction rate was 80%.

What was another important difference that was found in happy, stable relationships?

The Relationship “Poop Detector”

Gottman found that the threshold for negativity is set lower for newlywed couples whose marriages develop as stable and happy. Gottman found that in these stable relationships the women have a negative response to lower levels of negativity from their husbands (which he called the marital “poop detector”). In relationships that ended up being unhappy, the women adapted to and tried to accept this negativity, setting their threshold for response at a much higher (more negative level). Gottman found that adapting to negativity was dysfunctional.

In conclusion, the advice in Ephesians, “Don’t let the sun set on your wrath,” is usually taken to mean, “don’t go to bed angry.” In terms of avoiding decay in relationships, it is important to respond to lower levels of negativity in ways that lead to effective repair.

Taken from: Gottman, J.M. (1999). The Marriage Clinic. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.

  Ten Types of Intimacy

  1. Emotional Intimacy: The sharing of one’s self through self-disclosure and inviting self-disclosure of other(s), i.e., the opening of one’s deepest feelings to another person.
  2. Intellectual Intimacy: The sharing of any thoughts or experiences that stimulates a person such as something read, heard, or observed.
  3. Spiritual Intimacy: Simply stated, an individual’s sharing of his/her daily relationship with “God” or what ultimately gives life meaning.
  4. Recreational Intimacy: Sharing an activity requiring some form of recreational exertion, such as bicycling, jogging, playing tennis.
  5. Social Intimacy: The sharing that comes in any social setting, ranging from a dinner party to attending movies or athletic events.
  6. Genital Intimacy: Because the term “sex” has such wide connotations, "genital" specifies intimacy related to genital foreplay, intercourse, touching, etc.
  7. Economic Intimacy: All areas related to finances such as budgeting, property management, investments, speculations, etc.
  8. Parenting Intimacy: Any activity relating to children. Couples without children can relate this area of intimacy to their relationship to their own parents.
  9. Household Intimacy: The sharing development in the course of regular household chores or special home projects. This includes everything from grocery shopping to building an extra room.
  10. Vocational Intimacy: Approximately 40 hours of our week are spent at a job. This produces a great deal to share with a partner. For the homemaker, an equally extensive of one’s life that can be shared.

*From Couple Communication II by E. Nunnally, S. Miller, and D. Wackman.