Common Communication Mistakes Couples Make:
Insights from Gottman’s Four Horsemen and Research
Dr. Robert Solley
Every relationship, no matter how loving or enduring, faces its share of communication hurdles. Dr. John Gottman is perhaps the most prolific and foundational researcher of couples relationships, studying hundreds of couples over decades. Gottman revealed specific patterns of interaction that can predict the health and longevity of a relationship. His work offers couples a roadmap for understanding where their communication suffers and how they can get back on track.
Dr. Gottman began his work in the 1970s, meticulously studying thousands of couples in both observational “Love Lab” settings and long-term studies. Unlike polls or correlational studies, the latter are what allowed Gottman
and his associates to definitively determine factors that strengthen or weaken relationships. Using a scientific approach — replete with physiological monitoring, detailed video analysis, and in-depth interviews — Gottman identified key behaviors that could predict with astonishing accuracy whether a couple would stay together or break up.
The “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” as Gottman calls them, are four common communication patterns most destructive to relationships: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling. These patterns, rooted in self-protection, were found to be consistent predictors of marital dissatisfaction and divorce.
Gottman’s Four Horsemen Explained
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Criticism: Criticism is an attack on a partner’s character or personality. For example, “You never clean up — you’re so lazy.” Criticism is harmful because it often makes the recipient feel assaulted, rejected, and hurt, which can set off a cycle of escalating negativity.
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Antidote: What Gottman refers to as “complaint” focuses on a specific issue and expresses unhappiness without being personal. E.g., “I wish you’d help with the dishes more often,” or even, “It makes me unhappy when I see dishes in the sink.”
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Contempt: Considered the most poisonous of the four, contempt involves speaking to a partner with disrespect, mockery, sarcasm, or eye-rolling. This pattern conveys disgust and superiority, eroding the foundation of respect and admiration on which healthy relationships are built. Gottman’s research has shown that contempt is the single best predictor of divorce, as it conveys an air of moral superiority that is interpersonally corrosive.
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Antidote: Cultivating fondness and appreciation, and noticing your partner’s good qualities. Gottman developed a specific practice called the seven-week course, which provides prompts each weekday for seven weeks to activate those positive appreciations.
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Defensiveness: When feeling attacked or blamed, people often respond defensively. The common element to all defensiveness is deflection of responsibility, but it can take different forms, such as making excuses, denying responsibility, or counter-attacking. Defensiveness may seem like a reasonable self-protection strategy, but it actually amplifies conflict, as it communicates to partners that their concerns are not being heard or taken seriously.
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Antidote: Taking responsibility. A starting point is expressing that you are feeling defensive rather than being defensive. And then even better is to find some part of the accusation or blame that you can take responsibility for and commit to improving.
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Stonewalling: The fourth horseman, stonewalling, occurs when one partner withdraws from interaction, shuts down emotionally, or refuses to engage in communication. This often happens when someone feels overwhelmed or physiologically flooded and can neither listen nor respond constructively. Over time, stonewalling creates distance and a sense of abandonment.
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Antidote: Being able to name what is happening with you, since at least that starts to break the cycle of non-responsiveness. For example, “I’m feeling flooded,” or “I’m starting to shut down.”
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Beyond the Four Horsemen: Other Common Communication Mistakes
While the Four Horsemen are the most researched and predictive patterns, couples frequently fall into additional communication traps that erode connection and intimacy:
1. Mind Reading and Assumptions
Rather than articulating needs or feelings, partners sometimes assume that their significant other should “just know” what they want or feel. This leads to misunderstandings, resentment, and frustration. This is often based on “negativity bias,” in which people assume negative intent and then tell their partner things like “You don’t care” or “You don’t like me.” That compounds matters: misrepresenting partners can cause them to feel hurt and then to potentially lash back.
2. Passive-Aggressive Behavior
Instead of expressing frustration or disappointment directly, one partner might use sarcasm, subtle digs, or other indirect behavior to communicate dissatisfaction or unhappiness. This makes it hard for couples to address underlying issues, fosters mistrust, and sustains a negative cycle of hurt and counter-hurt.
3. Overgeneralization
Arguments may escalate quickly when partners use generalized, absolute language such as “always” or “never.” People do this when they are frustrated in an effort to get their point across by exaggerating. However, such statements intensify conflict by provoking the partner to correct the record with counterexamples: “It’s not true that I never take out the trash! I took it out last Thursday!”
4. Poor Listening Skills
True listening is active and empathic. Many couples, however, are working on their rebuttals while half-listening, rather than temporarily putting aside their own grievances and working to truly understand their partner’s perspective. This results in each person talking past the other and butting heads in a power struggle, as they repeat themselves in an effort to be heard.
5. Failure to Repair
Gottman’s research shows that effective couples make frequent “repair attempts” during conflict — gestures or
statements intended to de-escalate tension or reconnect. In fact, he found that what he calls the “master couples” have five positive interactions for every one negative, even during conflictual conversations. During non-conflictual conversations, the ratio is 20 positives to every negative. Examples of positive gestures could include showing some understanding, validating your partner, or maintaining a gentle tone.
6. Bottling Up Emotions or Overexpressing
Suppressing feelings to “keep the peace” often backfires, as confined emotions eventually surface — sometimes explosively. This tends to happen most often with “people pleasers” who, out of their fear of conflict, do not talk about the little irritations or wishes until they reach the breaking point.
On the other hand, another losing strategy — according to couples therapist Terry Real — is “unbridled expression,” which involves blasting your partner with your emotions, especially anger, frustration, or disappointment. Partners may justify doing so as being “honest.” While this may jolt a passive partner into temporary activity, in the long run, it may cause a partner to be even more cautious and withdrawn.
7. Bringing Up the Past
Dragging old grievances into current disagreements undermines trust and slows resolution. While this is an indication that past hurts have not been adequately repaired and may be continuing in the present, it usually has the unwanted effect of rubbing salt into the wound of the current situation. Even though they’re connected, it’s best to deal with the past and the present separately. Set aside time for addressing particular past hurts one at a time and in a calmer, deliberate fashion.
8. Lack of Appreciation
Expressing gratitude and appreciation is essential for relationship health and for offsetting negativity bias. As Gottman puts it, master couples make a habit of noticing, savoring, and expressing the good things in their relationship and their partners.
How to Counteract Communication Mistakes: Research-Backed Solutions
Gottman’s work not only identifies what goes wrong but also offers strategies for improving communication and fostering lasting relationships:
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Soft Start-Up: Begin conversations without blame or criticism. Use “I” statements and focus on feelings and needs rather than character flaws (“I feel overwhelmed when the kitchen is left messy” instead of “You’re so irresponsible”). It’s important with “I” statements to actually name your emotions (“overwhelmed” in the above example) rather than simply starting with “I feel” and then stating an opinion or belief.
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Build a Culture of Appreciation: Regularly express gratitude and admiration for your partner. Small acknowledgments go a long way in creating a positive atmosphere.
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Turn Toward, Not Away: Respond to your partner’s bids for attention, affection, or support, however small. Over time, these moments of connection build trust and intimacy.
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Practice Active Listening: Reflect back what your partner says, validate their feelings, and ask open-ended questions. Be curious about your partner’s positive intentions; question your own assumptions or attributions of negative intent. Make it clear you are truly listening and care about your partner’s experience.
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Self-Soothing: When emotions run high, take a break to calm down before returning to the discussion. This reduces the likelihood of stonewalling or saying things you’ll later regret. Have a phrase or word that uniquely and positively cues the break and designate the person who calls the break as the one to initiate all follow-up so that the conversation doesn’t get dropped.
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Effective Repair Attempts: Drop your pride and make peace offerings. Apologize, use humor, empathize, validate, suggest a break. These are vital for restoring connection during and after conflict.
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Seek Professional Help when Needed: Communication is complex; it’s hard to have perspective on yourself/selves; and entrenched patterns can require the guidance of a trained therapist or counselor. There is no shame in seeking help to improve communication and strengthen your relationship. Couples therapy should be viewed not as a last resort but as a first step towards feeling better together.
Strong communication is the lifeblood of a healthy relationship, yet even the most devoted couples may stumble into common pitfalls. Gottman’s Four Horsemen framework — grounded in decades of research — provides some lenses for recognizing destructive patterns and making intentional changes. By cultivating self-awareness, learning skills towards more productive dialogue, and practicing empathy and appreciation, couples can navigate inevitable conflict with resilience and build lasting relationships.