Why do our arguments always take the same shape?

What are the four horsemen?

The four horsemen are criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling, the 4 ways of talking the Gottman Institute named to describe a relationship in trouble.

You will recognise at least one of them from last week. Recognising it in your partner is the easy half.

• Criticism. The complaint stops being about what your partner did on Tuesday and becomes a statement about who your partner is. The words always and never arrive with it.
• Contempt. Sarcasm, mockery, name calling, the eye roll. The Institute¹ calls contempt the single greatest predictor of divorce, and it is the one that leaves the deepest mark in my room, because it tells your partner you have stopped treating them as an equal.
• Defensiveness. An answer that explains why the complaint is unfair. It protects your sense of being a decent person, and for some of my clients it was the only move anybody at home ever showed them.
• Stonewalling. One of you stops responding. The body gives up on the conversation before the mouth does.

Read more about what contempt sounds like and why a partner goes silent in an argument.

How does one habit pull in the next?

Each habit invites the next, and once the sequence is running the subject of the argument stops mattering to either of you.

It begins with hurt rather than with an opinion. Your partner names the thing you did not do, and what you feel first is the sting of being found wanting. Your chest tightens, your voice lifts a note, your hands look for something to hold. Only then does your mind hand you the sentence that proves this is unjust, and you say it out loud. Your partner hears a refusal to take them seriously. The next sentence comes back with an edge on it, and the edge is the part you will both still be carrying on Sunday.

The step that is easiest to miss is the one where going quiet does 2 things at once. It stops you saying the unforgivable thing, and it tells your partner you have left the room while standing in it. They raise their voice to reach you, which is the one move that guarantees you stay behind the wall. Neither of you is doing what you set out to do. In my experience the load is not shared evenly here: it sits heaviest on whoever cannot let the subject drop, because silence hands them nothing to work with and so they go on asking.

Read more about why the same argument keeps coming back.

What is the antidote to each of the four horsemen?

The Institute pairs each habit with a behaviour to practise in its place, and the practising works far better on an ordinary evening than in the middle of a row.

• Instead of criticism. Say what you feel, then what you want, in that order, and keep the sentence about this week rather than about your partner as a person.
• Instead of contempt. Say the thing you still respect out loud, and say it when nothing is wrong rather than only while you are repairing something.
• Instead of defensiveness. Find the part of the complaint that is true, even a small part, and say that first. The explanation will keep.
• Instead of stonewalling. Take the break, and spend it on something that settles your body rather than on rehearsing your case.

Say them badly and early rather than well and late. Read more about why the explanation arrives before the apology.

Do the four horsemen predict divorce?

The famous accuracy figures are real, and they did not come from counting these 4 habits.

Most people who read about the horsemen arrive at this question with some dread, as though a number existed somewhere that could tell them whether they last. What was actually measured was something much quieter than an argument.

• What was measured. Couples told the story of their own marriage, and the telling was coded for fondness, for how much they described themselves as a pair, and for negativity and disappointment. The 4 habits were not counted at all.
• The figures. Across 95 newlywed couples, that interview² sorted the still married from the divorced with 87 per cent accuracy at the first follow-up and 81 per cent 3 years later.
• Why the figures need care. Only 16 of those 95 couples had divorced by the end, which is a small number to build a percentage on, and the authors say so themselves. The couples who dropped out of the study also differed from the ones who stayed in it.

So nobody is watching your Sunday argument and scoring it. What the evidence supports is narrower than the headline: how 2 people tell the story of their shared past says something about where they are standing now. Read more about where the Gottman method stops being reliable.

What does the model leave out?

A list of behaviours records what an argument looked like. It says nothing about what either of you was protecting, and nothing about who holds the power in the room.

• Circumstance. Among couples living with real financial and social strain, a man stepping back from his partner’s requests for change went with her satisfaction holding steady, where in better resourced couples the same pattern went with her satisfaction falling³. Whether a habit is destructive depends partly on whether the change being asked for is available at all.
• Sensible withdrawal. Where going over it again tonight will change nothing, stepping back is judgement rather than a horseman.
• Power. The list treats a conversation as symmetrical. Plenty are not. It says nothing about who gets to end the conversation and who carries the cost afterwards.
• Fear. If you are frightened of your partner, or you spend your evenings managing their mood to keep the house calm, none of the antidotes on this page is the right first step.

Read more about what gaslighting looks like in a relationship.

How do you stop the four horsemen in your relationship?

Use the names on yourself, find the one habit that starts your sequence, and practise its replacement while nobody is angry.

• Name your own. That came out as criticism, let me try again, moves a conversation. That was contempt, said across a kitchen, is a new weapon with a citation attached.
• Pick one. Most couples have a signature opening move, and changing that one does more than working on all 4.
• Agree the break before you need it. Settle the length and the return time while nobody is angry, because a pause with no return time is an exit.
• Practise on small things. Taking the break badly on a Tuesday and still coming back when you said you would changes the next argument more than a perfect conversation about the model.

These steps are not enough when the names have become a scoring system, when every attempt at a replacement turns into the same argument inside a minute, or when one of you is doing all of the repair. They are the wrong instrument altogether if you are afraid at home, or if something has happened that neither of you has been able to say out loud yet. That is work for a room with a third person in it, either in a session or in the free 30-minute call.

Questions people ask

Do we need couples therapy to work on the four horsemen?

No, the antidotes are practisable at home, and plenty of couples change the pattern without me. Therapy earns its place when each attempt turns into the same argument, or when one of you is doing all the work.

What would a first couples session about our arguments involve?

I ask each of you to walk me through one recent argument in order, including what you hoped would happen when you opened your mouth. Most of the useful material sits in the first 2 minutes of the row rather than in the shouting that followed.

Will the therapist take sides if my partner criticises me in the room?

My job is to interrupt the sequence rather than to rule on who started it. Where the load sits unevenly I will say so, which is not the same as awarding blame.

Can I come on my own if my partner will not come?

Yes, and your own half of the pattern is the half you can actually change. It does not replace the conversation the 2 of you still have to have.

How do we choose a couples therapist when the models all sound the same?

Ask how the therapist works with conflict in the room rather than which model they trained in. Someone who can slow an argument down in front of you is worth more than the name on the certificate.

If your arguments follow a script you both know by heart, my communication masterclass gives you a different way to talk when it matters.

Sources

1. The Gottman Institute, The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling
2. Carrere, S., Buehlman, K. T., Gottman, J. M., Coan, J. A. and Ruckstuhl, L., Predicting Marital Stability and Divorce in Newlywed Couples, Journal of Family Psychology, 2000
3. Ross, J. M., Karney, B. R., Nguyen, T. P. and Bradbury, T. N., Communication That Is Maladaptive for Middle-Class Couples Is Adaptive for Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Couples, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2019

How this article was written: I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. I read the draft, correct and improve it and stand behind every clinical statement. The professional and clinical judgement is mine.