Love conquers all?

~ Love conquers only if you tackle the vicious cycle of communication

As proposed by Dr. John Gottman, the four ways of communication that negatively impact a couple’s relationship were criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. It is understandable that criticism would be the forerunner of the other three types of communication. When you start criticizing your partner long enough, you would gradually develop contempt towards him/her, which in turn cause your partner to become defensive and before long he/she would give up communication and start stonewalling with avoidance. When the communication enters the stage of stonewalling like in cold war, the relationship has gone to a point of no return, where both partners experience the worst loneliness and would try to find a way out. If you can identify criticism as the start of vicious cycle of communication, there is still chances for you to stop the vicious cycle.

In order to stop the vicious cycle, many partners would instinctively refrain from making any criticizing comment or try to use I-messages to express only feelings. For example, when your partner comes home and falls asleep on the couch without saying hi to you and putting thing s in place, you would start feeling irritated and your criticizing thoughts start to formulate, “What a lazy bun! Why can you be more respectful!” First you refrain from saying anything in fear of going into the vicious cycle. But you would often burst with anger, so before long you learn that you should express your feeling in the form of I-messages. You start by saying “I am angry and sad when you ignore me like that. It is very possible that your partner would still feel blamed and respond by saying, “you are so sensitive,” or “Can’t you see how tired I was from work!” Now one partner feels mistreated because he/she tries to express the feeling but gets denied by the other. Both thus compete for their own feelings to be heard first, and when the expectation is not met, both get tired and frustrated. Now the contempt toward your partner develops within and you start putting negative labels onto your partner.

As the above example reveals, criticism is about assessing blame. Blame will always bring out defensiveness, because no one wants to feel guilty of something or in debt to someone. When you sense the defensiveness by your partner, try to smell if there is blame in the air. You need to reframe the blame into some problem you and your partner mutually shared. For example, instead of saying “I feel angry and sad, because I am respected,” you may say “I see how tired you can be, but I also want to know you have missed me when you come home. Can we do something about it?” Then you two have a chance to work on the solution together instead of competing for each other’s first attention. Of course, timing for such communication is also important and requires consensus.

You and your partner may grow from two very different backgrounds, sometime even with conflicting values or habits. If you have become partners because of love, let love help you conquer vicious cycle. There should no room for criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling in love. On the other hand, don’t let criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling erode your love.

Reference:

Gottman, John & Silver, Nan (2013) What Makes Love Last? How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal, Reprint, NY: Simon & Schuster.