Contempt is the worst of the four horsemen. It is the most destructive negative behavior in relationships. In Dr. John Gottman’s four decades of research, he has found it to be the number one predictor of divorce. According to Malcolm Gladwell in his bestselling book, Blink:

“If Gottman observes one or both partners in a marriage showing contempt toward the other, he considers it the most important sign that a marriage is in trouble.”

When you communicate with contempt, the results can be cruel. Treating others with disrespect and mocking them with sarcasm and condescension are forms of contempt. So are hostile humor, name-calling, mimicking, and body language such as eye-rolling and sneering. In whatever form, contempt is poisonous to a relationship because it conveys disgust and superiority, especially moral, ethical, or characterological.

Contempt, simply put, says, “I’m better than you. And you are lesser than me.”

Why contempt is so destructive and dangerous

Contempt is fueled by long-simmering negative thoughts about one’s partner, and it arises in the form of an attack on someone’s sense of self. Inevitably, contempt leads to more conflict—particularly dangerous and destructive forms of conflict—rather than to reconciliation. It’s virtually impossible to resolve a problem when your partner is getting the message that you’re disgusted with them and that you’re condescending and acting as their superior.

Take a look at this couple. One partner has a need always to be on time, even early, yet the other partner seems to have difficulty keeping up and being ready to go when their partner needs them to be. Here’s a form of contempt that the punctual partner might dish out:

“Look, I learned how to tell time when I was five years old. When are you ever gonna learn?”

Or this couple, who have a recurring fight about sex:

“We haven’t had sex in months. What, are you too busy flirting with that guy at work? Why don’t you just marry him instead?”

The research found that couples who are contemptuous of each other are more likely to suffer from infectious illness (colds, the flu, etc.) than couples who are not contemptuous. Contempt is the most poisonous of all relationship killers. We cannot emphasize that enough. Contempt destroys psychological, emotional, and physical health.

Anderson Cooper of CNN reacts to Dr. John Gottman’s findings on contempt, particularly about how emotionally and physically destructive it can be, in this short clip:

Fortunately, like all of the four horsemen, there is an effective antidote to contempt, and it comes in two forms.

The antidotes to contempt

Short-term: Describe your feelings and needs

If you’re experiencing contempt in your relationship, there are proven antidotes to combat it and turn conflict into positive growth. The first way to do that is to start small and describe your own feelings and needs about any given issue. Try to avoid using “you” statements, which can make your partner feel blamed or attacked.

“I’m feeling neglected sexually, and I need physical connection. Can we talk about how to make that happen so it works for both of us?”

Or, in terms of being punctual:

“It’s very important to me to be on time. Can you please help me with that?”

Short-term measures like that are the best place to start, but to create long-term immunity, you will need to think about the greater context of your relationship.

Long-term: Build a culture of fondness and admiration

The best antidote to contempt is to build a culture of fondness and admiration for each other, which, metaphorically, strengths your relationship’s immune system. It is the second level of our Sound Relationship House.

Fondness and admiration aren’t built overnight, but if you intentionally work to do small, positive things for your partner every day, then you can create that system. Once you’ve created it, it will act as a consistent bulwark against contempt.

The best test to measure the strength of your fondness and admiration system is to focus on how you view your relationship’s history. In the research, couples who have a positive view of their past through oral history interviews are much more likely to be happy in their relationships. But if your relationship is in deep trouble, you’re unlikely to elicit much praise from each other, and you’ll likely have difficulty remembering the good times.

Talking about the happy events of the past, however, helps many couples reconnect. Remember the good times, and also remember the tough times where, together, you pushed through and succeeded, which is when couples “glorify the struggle,” and it helps to build solidarity in your relationship. Focus on offering daily gestures and expressions of appreciation, kindness, support, and love. These can be as simple as a six-second kiss, a stress-reducing conversation, or spending five minutes to thank each other for how you support each other.

Although happy couples will feel frustrated at times by their partner’s personality flaws, they still feel that their partner is worthy of honor and respect. Even though sharing fondness and admiration is crucial in a relationship, these positive sentiments often dwindle overtime through conflict, resentment, or simply the absentmindedness that can come as a result of life’s many distractions.

That being said, sharing fondness and admiration in your relationship is not complicated, and can be done even if you think those positive feelings are buried too deep beneath recent conflicts. Positive thoughts invoke positive feelings, and the goal is to turn both into positive actions that help to heal and bring companionship back to your relationship. The more positivity you have in your relationship, the more you will create positive sentiment override, which is what successful couples rely on to stay connected.

If you revive fondness and admiration for each other, you are more likely to approach conflict resolution as a team. Fondness and admiration will expand your sense of “we-ness” and solidarity as a couple, and it will keep the two of you as connected as you felt when you first met.

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Why Do Couples Divorce?

Soft vs. Hard Reasons

There are several commonly reported contributors to divorce. Research reported in the Journal of Divorce and Remarriage distinguishes between “soft” reasons –  not being able to talk to each other, high levels of conflict and arguing, feeling lonely within the relationship – and ‘“hard” reasons such as abuse, addiction and infidelity.  Despite what you may think, the big dealbreaker issues are not the most common causes. All too often the couples report a variation of the soft theme of  “we just grew apart”.  Another study looked at the role of perceived happiness and beliefs about romantic love in the divorce decision making process. The ephemeral concept of being “in love” versus feeling more general love for a partner influences respondents’ attitudes toward the possibility of divorce in the future, as does whether a person believes it is important to work at both love and happiness within a relationship.

The Blame Game

Not surprisingly, most of the people surveyed blamed their spouse for the divorce, not themselves. Now think about that. If I feel like I’ve “fallen out of love” with my partner and I believe this means we are not compatible and that my happiness lies elsewhere, I may end a relationship and suffer the often devastating consequences.

What if, instead of taking this unexamined path, I were to learn that relationship fluctuations are natural and expected, that the bloom for lust and love do settle down, and that communication can be learned and the distance between us can be bridged? This is what I teach in my 12-week Become Passion couples program. Many of my couples tell me that they were filing for divorce and took my program as a last chance effort – and that they were shocked to realize how little they knew about the predictors of divorce and the prescription for long term relationship health. 

Impact of Divorce

Anyone who has been through a divorce or breakup of any committed romantic relationship knows the aftermath is rough. There is plenty of research detailing the dire effects of divorce, but all you really need to do is look at your friends and your own history. 

There can be significant negative impacts on everything from physical and mental health to finances to the effect on your children, family and social circle and much more. While few people leave a major relationship lightly, too many may do it for the wrong reasons, or for reasons that are valid but can be changed.

Now to be clear, sometimes a divorce is a wise solution to relationship troubles. I have no philosophical, moral, spiritual or clinical reason to be opposed to divorce – I myself was divorced two short years after the Mamma Mia wedding. But before you make a final decision, make sure to evaluate your motivations and consider the possibility that the two of you can create a more healthy and happy relationship together. This evaluation is very helpful whether or not or choose to stay or go, because clarity can help with your healing either way.

Signs You Are in Trouble – But Change is Possible  

Poor Communication

No matter how hard you try, it feels like every conversation turns into an argument. You are walking on eggshells or, in Gottman terms, are caught in negative sentiment override. There is a lot of criticism and the other horsemen have taken up residence in your living room. When you do have a more reasonable discussion it feels like your partner doesn’t understand you, which leaves you feeling frustrated and alone.

Loss of Connection

You are living separate lives, stuck in what I call Marriage Inc. – where you run your household and family like a business but there is little or no “us”, just joint CEO’s making sure the mortgage gets paid and the kids get to school on time. There is little or no emotional connection, cuddling, or sexuality. It’s the dreaded “roommates  not lovers”. 

Trust Betrayal

Whether your trust has been betrayed by a big event like infidelity or discovering your partner has spent all of your carefully accumulated savings behind your back, or trust has been slowly worn down by a cumulation of broken promises, lack of trust is a major problem that must be addressed.

If You’re Thinking of Leaving

You probably ask yourself questions like: 

“Should I get a divorce?”

“How can I get emotional clarity about whether to stay or go?”

“When is it time to let go of my relationship?”

The Cycle of Thoughts and Emotions

Perhaps you’ve been unhappy in your relationship for a long time. Maybe you feel like you are the only one lobbying for more. You don’t know whether to stay or go. You dream about future happiness, yet you know the emotional, financial and family toll that usually follows in the wake of divorce. This state of psychological ambivalence – feeling both pulled to stay AND pulled to leave – is extremely uncomfortable. Spending endless hours in a paralyzing cycle of pros and cons, fear and hope, doubt and temporary certainty is emotionally exhausting.

You want to get away from this person you believe doesn’t give you what you desire, this person who disappoints you, takes you for granted, and frankly annoys or angers you on a daily basis. You don’t like who you’ve become – critical, negative, clingy and demanding. All too often it feels like the right decision is to leave.

And yet…despite all these factors, leaving your relationship may not be the solution. It might surprise you to learn that the outcome does not always deliver the results you hope for. It is difficult to accurately quantify the percentage of partners who regret leaving a marriage, but a number of research surveys and studies indicate between 30-50% of respondents they feel they made a mistake and wish they’d tried harder to work things out. Why might that be?

Regret

For an interesting perspective on why so many people regret the decision to divorce we can look at the work of happiness researcher and Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert. After all, when we think about filing for divorce, we are at heart looking for a way to escape from unhappiness. We believe there are more negatives than positives in this relationship. We fantasize about a better future where we are either happy alone or are happy in a new, better, relationship (with a new, better person than the one we are with now).

However, as Gilbert points out, we humans are lousy at predicting our future happiness. We imagine the future WILL be better than this, but we have no data and no way to know if that will be so. This sort of “future happiness bias” can lead us to make a major, life changing decision based on no real evidence. 

Of course that doesn’t mean you should stay in an untenable situation. But given the regrets expressed by a significant percentage of divorced people – don’t rush into it. Consider the decision carefully and mindfully. It’s not as simple as getting rid of the person who you believe is causing your misery.  In my career, I’ve seen too many divorced individuals who left a marriage prematurely and unnecessarily – creating a permanent and devastating solution for a potentially temporary albeit very painful situation. I also see hundreds of couples each year that make major improvements by simply doing the work and getting the knowledge they need.

How to Re-Evaluate

If things are not going well, think about these questions:

• Are you in a temporary crisis that may change? Will you feel differently when these feelings settle or are you certain this is the end of your relationship?
• What are the best and worst things you feel will happen if you do stay together?
• What are the best and worst things you feel will happen if you divorce?
• What part do you play in the unhappiness of this marriage? Do you focus on making time for each other, planning romance, creating time for conversations? Are YOU being a great partner?
• Are you willing to seek professional help? Will your partner participate? If they will not, are you willing to seek help on your own to facilitate the possibility that you can learn to approach them in a manner that engages them in the relationship process?

Next Steps

In two words? Get Help. You need to be able to understand your issues, explore the causes, work on communication and connection, and strengthen what I call your Passion Triangle –  three key areas couples need to strengthen if they want a great relationship. You can take my free starter course to learn more about these. By actively working on these three areas, couples can build a stronger foundation for their relationship and significantly reduce the risk of divorce.

Take time. Slow down. You are likely in a stress crisis that may – or may not – be temporary. Because psychological ambivalence is so painful you may be tempted to resolve this ambivalence by making a firm decision. I encourage you to stay in the discomfort for a while longer while you evaluate your unique situation.

Take into account that people regret their decisions and future happiness is not guaranteed and there is significant clinical evidence that deeply troubled relationships can recover. Our perceptions are not always reality. Sometimes a temporary separation can help.  That’s what Howard and Karen – the couple I speak about in the video – did. They used the time apart to get professional help, then to take my program and learn what they simply didn’t know. Today they are happier than they’ve been in decades, going on wonderful trips to Europe, joining me and the other couples from my programs in Mexico for a fabulous workshop and couples celebration this year, planning surprises for each other and generally living their life to the fullest. 

That’s a huge improvement from throwing your wedding crowns into the sea.