056: Minicast -The Four Horsemen Of Relationships - a podcast by Ali and Lynn

from 2021-03-31T12:00

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This week we go over the four horsemen of relationships, and antidotes to them to cultivate a more loving one.



The four horsemen are:



  1. Criticism


  2. Contempt


  3. Defensiveness


  4. Stone walling


Criticism: this is attacking your partner’s character and personality, and is different than expressing a complaint. For example, saying something like, “I feel like I’m not being heard” is a compliant, versus the sentence “you never listen to me and you always talk about yourself, that’s selfish” is criticism. An antidote to this is talking about your feelings using “I” statements and expressing a positive need. In this scenario, saying “I really need and appreciate feeling heard” is a better statement.



Contempt: this is going beyond criticism. Contempt is attacking your partner’s sense of self with an intent to insult or abuse. This is basically assuming a position of moral superiority over the other, treating them with disrespect, mocking them with sarcasm, or calling names. An example of this would be something like, “you’re tired? Cry me a river, bc I’ve been doing XYZ all day. You’re pathetic”. This kind of behavior is the single greatest predictor of divorce. Usually contempt is a build up of us focusing on negative qualities. An antidote to this would be to remind yourself of your partner’s positive qualities and find gratitude for positive actions.



Defensiveness: this is sometimes in response to criticism. Reversing blame and throwing the criticism on the other person who is doing the criticizing. An example of this would your partner criticizing you for forgetting to pick up groceries on the way home, and you responding with a “you knew how busy I would be today, why didn’t you just do it?”. An antidote would be seeing your partner’s perspective and offering an apology for any wrongdoing. So the alternate response would be something like “Oops, I did forget to pick up the groceries, I should have asked you since I knew my day would be busy. That’s my fault. I’ll go ahead and pick them up now.”  Although is it difficult to not defend yourself when you feel you’re getting blamed, Defensiveness only escalates conflict if your criticizing partner does not back down or apologize.



Stone walling: this is usually in response to contempt. This is basically withdrawing, ghosting and not interacting with the person out of anger. An antidote to this would be to self-soothe aka take a break and do something that mellows you out.



If you feel like you’re stonewalling during a conflict, stop the discussion and ask your partner to take a break:



“I’m feeling too angry to keep talking about this. Can we please take a break and come back to it in a bit? It’ll be easier to work through this after I’ve calmed down.”



Golden relationship



Ratio of 1 of the four horsemen instances to 5 of these golden relationship attributes (At the very least)



  • Show interest in partner


  • Show them they matter (care when they are upset or excited about something)


  • Intentional compliments (how they look, treated you, or something they did/accomplished)


  • Find opportunities of agreement


  • Empathize (acknowledge and validate their feelings)


  • Make jokes/find humor and joy


  • The ratio of 1 disempowering/negative interaction to at least 5 uplifting/positive interactions



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