Contempt in relationships: how to hear it and undo it

What does contempt in relationships sound like?

Contempt sounds like a reasonable sentence turned into an insult by the tone.

• The forms. The Gottman Institute lists sarcasm, condescension, hostile humour, name calling, mimicking, eye rolling and sneering.
• The message. Contempt says: I am better than you, and you are lesser than me.
• An ordinary example. A partner who is late again is told that the other learned to tell the time as a child; the subject is punctuality and the message is that the late one is less.
• The small signs. A small laugh in the wrong place, or the eye roll your partner thinks you did not see.

Why is contempt worse than anger?

Anger keeps you level with your partner, and contempt puts you above them.

• Anger. An angry sentence says you have hurt me, which is a complaint about something that happened.
• Contempt. A contemptuous sentence says you are beneath me, and nobody negotiates with a verdict.
• The research. John Gottman describes contempt as the greatest predictor of divorce.
• What that means. It is an average across many couples and no prophecy about yours.

Read more about the four horsemen in relationships.

Where does contempt come from?

Contempt is what long-swallowed hurt turns into when it has nowhere else to go.

• Simmering thoughts. The Gottman Institute says contempt is fuelled by long-simmering negative thoughts about one’s partner.
• The unheard request. It arrives after months or years of asking for something and not getting it.
• Why it sounds rehearsed. The person saying it has run the argument in their head many times, and by the time it reaches the kitchen it has hardened into a summary of the other person.
• An explanation, no excuse. Where contempt came from does not make the person on the receiving end responsible for having been looked down on.

Once that happens the surface subject stops mattering. Read more about why the same argument keeps coming back.

What does contempt do to a couple over time?

A climate of negativity, with contempt in it, goes with more separation and more strain on the body.

• The study. Gottman and Levenson followed 73 married couples for 4 years, sorted by how negative their conversations were overall, so the findings describe a negative climate and not contempt alone.
• Thoughts of separating. In the group dominated by negativity, 71 per cent had considered separating, against 33 per cent of the others.
• Divorce. Divorce ran at 19 per cent against 7,1 per cent.
• The body. Wives in the negative group had faster heart rates and more constricted blood vessels, and both partners in that group reported worse health.
• Being braced. Where somebody is regularly looked down on, at least one nervous system is braced much of the time, which people describe as being tired without knowing why.

If the partner on the receiving end has stopped answering, read more about what the silence in an argument is doing.

How do you stop contempt in a relationship?

The person using contempt says so and stops, and then you both rebuild respect out loud.

• Name it and stop. Say that you have been doing it, without explaining it or balancing it against something your partner did.
• Apologise once, specifically. An apology that names the specific thing is worth more than a month of noticing out loud what you admire.
• Catch the tone. When you hear it in your own voice, finish a different sentence: “I am upset about something, and I have not said it properly yet.”
• Describe your own feeling. The Gottman Institute names 2 antidotes, and the first is to say “I am worried about being late” in place of a lesson about clocks.
• Build fondness. The second is to notice out loud what you still respect about your partner, often, and when nothing is wrong.
• One-way contempt. If the contempt goes one way only, say so plainly; working on how you both speak does not make the damage equal.

Where contempt comes with being frightened or controlled, joint work is the wrong place to start.

These steps fail when the person using contempt believes it is deserved, or when the hurt underneath has gone unsaid for so long that neither of you finds it. That is what the session is for.

Questions people ask

Is an eye roll really that serious?

One eye roll is nothing, and a habit of them is serious. The habit repeats one message: your partner is not worth a straight answer.

Does a relationship recover from contempt?

Contempt is a habit, and habits change when the person using it hears that they are. A relationship where somebody thinks the contempt is deserved does not change.

What is the difference between contempt and honesty?

Honesty is about what happened and how it landed, and contempt is about what the other person is. Most people feel the difference at once.

My partner says I am too sensitive when I mention the tone. What then?

The tone is real whether or not your partner agrees. Describe the specific moment, because a pattern invites a debate and a moment invites an answer.

Does couples therapy work when there is contempt?

Contempt responds to being named, and a session is where it gets named. It needs both people in the room and some willingness to look at the hurt underneath.

Sources

• Gottman, J. M. and Levenson, R. W., Marital Processes Predictive of Later Dissolution: Behavior, Physiology, and Health, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1992
• The Gottman Institute, The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling

How this article was written. I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. Nothing is published until I have read it, corrected it and stood behind every clinical statement in it. The professional and clinical judgement is mine and mine alone.