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What happens when a relationship fails? How did you get here? How do you repair it?

By the time you start asking yourself these questions, you’ve become deeply imbedded in bad habits or negative patterns of interaction that are difficult to resolve. Statistics suggest that couples wait about seven years before they commit to addressing chronic problems in their relationship. And usually the motivation to seek help is either an affair or the realization that anger, sadness, and resentment have become so compelling that even the “smallest of things” escalates into huge arguments.

The first step to repairing what’s broken in your marriage is understanding the signs that signal relationship distress. In other words, in order to make your marriage better, you’ve got to understand how and why relationships fail. 

John and Julie Gottman, best known for over 40 years of research on marital stability, offer four predictors that strongly suggest you are headed down the path of divorce. Their studies of couples were able to predict divorce with 93.6 percent accuracy. Referred to as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, here are the signs your marriage is in trouble and what you can do about it.

Criticism

While your intention may not be to criticize, many times bids for attention or responsivity are heard as criticism. If I tell you that you’re always late and have no consideration for my time, that’s going to be heard as criticism. If I tell you that when you’re running late and you don’t call, I worry; because I care — that sounds very different. Awareness about how to stop pointing fingers using “you” statements to expressing underlying feelings using “I” statements can make a huge difference in how your need lands on your partner.

Defensiveness

If you’re feeling criticized, more than likely you’re hearing blame; and your knee-jerk response will be to deflect it or rationalize it away. But deflecting or rationalizing only results in an escalation of the issue. Defensiveness basically says, let’s put on the boxing gloves and get ready to spar! What’s needed here is that you take responsibility for your partner’s concern, validate it and own your part in it. The end result is that your partner will feel heard and the issue will resolve itself.

Contempt

Let’s be straight. This is one of the most difficult signs to overcome. Contemptuous behaviors are the really mean and hurtful things that are said during an argument. This behavior can be demonstrated with words or with actions. It can include eye rolling signaling dislike or disrespect, or the physical turning away to punish the other. Contempt causes a lot of emotional injury to a relationship and eventually the embittered party (one of you or both) is going to shut down, so as not to feel the pain any longer.

Contempt is difficult to overcome on your own. It requires diving deeper into the emotional issues that are creating the need to respond with anger and resentment. The antidote involves being able to express your underlying feelings in a safe and secure environment. This requires the presence of a third party so that they can help create a safe and secure place for you to explore what lies beneath the anger and resentment. This is where couples counseling or marital therapy becomes very important.

Stonewalling

And finally … when you no longer want to experience hurt and pain or when you feel emotionally flooded to the point you fear you’ll lose self-control, you simply stop responding. Your desire to connect flatlines because it’s no longer safe to share. Hope wanes and helplessness prevails, as you withdraw into your own world. To your partner, stonewalling feels like the ultimate rejection.  Because stonewalling suggests, “you’ve gone away from me, given up, lost faith in us. If I can’t reach you, that’s really scary!”

Asking for a little time to attend to all those heightened emotions is a good thing. But it’s important to let your partner know what you’re doing. Be mindful that your walking away or needing a break could be creating more anxiety for him or her. Let them know that you’re feeling overwhelmed and need a little time to settle down emotionally.

Secondly, it’s important that both partners respect the need for space. Like the turtle that withdraws into his shell when he feels it’s not safe, nothing productive is going to come out of trying to coax him out until he feels it’s safe to do so. Give each other a little bit of time to settle down and reflect. Once you are feeling less flooded in emotion, you’re more likely to see the situation differently.

Being able to identify the signs that your relationship may be in trouble is key to improving and enhancing your marriage. Each of the signs presented here and the antidotes for them suggest that couples work together in acceptance that both are part of the problem and thus both are part of resolving it. Doing this suggests empowerment for both and thus a more secure and satisfying relationship.

Dr. Laura Richter is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who works with individuals, couples, and families. Her specialties include managing anxiety and depression, surviving infidelity, improving communication, beginning again after divorce and effective co-parenting after divorce. She is also a trained mediator, qualified parenting coordinator and collaborative law mental health professional. For more information, please call or text us today at 561-715-6404 to schedule a consultation to see how we can help.