What not to do in your relationships: Gottman's "four horsemen of the apocalypse"

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The last time you got into a fight with someone close to you, what emotions did you feel? How did you act? Did you criticize the other person, call them names, or roll your eyes as you sat in stony silence? Did you get defensive when they tried to explain what was wrong? Or maybe you were able to joke around and lighten the mood. Although everyone fights, people differ in how they deal with conflict. And it turns out that how we deal with conflict says a lot about the future of our relationships.

By watching couples fight, researcher John Gottman figured out what not to do if you want to make your relationship last. Last week I started a series of posts examining how to hold onto happiness in your relationships, and this week I want to talk about some of the seminal research in this area that looks at what behaviors to avoid if you want a happy ending. Specifically, Gottman discovered that there are four behaviors that are particularly detrimental to relationships. These behaviors are so detrimental that Gottman termed the “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” So who are these four horsemen?

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