At a glance
The four horsemen are criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling, the habits couples researchers use to describe relationships in trouble. Each habit has an antidote that you practise deliberately. The model shows what an argument looked like and leaves out what each of you was protecting.
Clinical insights from 20+ years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 20+ years in practice.
- Names used as weapons. When couples arrive already using the four horsemen on each other, I take the names away for a session.
- Stonewalling is misread. The partner behind the wall is rarely indifferent, and having that person say so out loud changes what the other one does next.
- One horseman each. The couples who get most from this model each pick their own horseman.
Clinical notes: These observations are anonymous and compounded from session notes since 2004.
What are the four horsemen?
The four horsemen are criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling, 4 ways of talking the Gottman Institute uses to describe relationships in trouble.
- Criticism. One partner attacks the other at the core of their character, where a complaint would address what they did.
- Contempt. Disrespect arrives through sarcasm, mockery, name calling or the eye roll, and the Institute calls it the greatest predictor of divorce.
- Defensiveness. The reflex is to find an excuse and play the innocent victim, usually in answer to criticism.
- Stonewalling. The listener withdraws, shuts down and no longer responds, most often because their body is overwhelmed.
Read more about what contempt sounds like and why a partner goes silent in an argument.
How do the four horsemen feed each other?
Each habit invites the next, and once the sequence runs the subject of the argument stops mattering.
- The usual order. Criticism invites defensiveness, defensiveness invites contempt, and contempt drives the other person behind a wall.
- No fixed rule. Plenty of couples run it in a different order, or only ever use 2 of the habits.
- What each protects. Naming a behaviour tells you what happened and nothing about why, and each of these habits is usually protecting something.
Read more about why the same argument keeps coming back.
What is the antidote to each of the four horsemen?
The Gottman Institute gives one antidote for each habit.
- Against criticism. A gentle start-up, built on 2 questions: what do I feel, and what do I need?
- Against contempt. Appreciation and respect, expressed often enough to outweigh the negative.
- Against defensiveness. Accept responsibility, even if only for part of the conflict.
- Against stonewalling. A timeout of at least 20 minutes, spent on something calming and never on rehearsing your case.
Do the four horsemen predict divorce?
The famous accuracy figure is real, and far narrower than it sounds.
- The study. Carrere, Buehlman, Gottman, Coan and Ruckstuhl followed 95 newlywed couples for about 9 years.
- What was measured. The prediction came from an interview in which a couple tell the story of their own marriage, coded for fondness, togetherness and disappointment; the four horsemen were never counted.
- The figures. The interview predicted with 87,4 per cent accuracy at 4 to 6 years and 81 per cent at 7 to 9.
- The cautions. The authors state that only 16 of the 95 couples divorced, that couples who dropped out differed from those who stayed, and that accuracy fell with time.
No therapist watches your Sunday argument and tells you whether you last. Read more about where the Gottman method stops being reliable.
What do the four horsemen miss?
The model misses context, power and fear.
- Strain. Ross, Karney, Nguyen and Bradbury found that for couples under real socioeconomic strain, a husband withdrawing from his wife’s demands went with her satisfaction holding steady.
- Withdrawal. Where a problem will not be solved by talking about it again tonight, stepping back is sensible.
- Power. The model says nothing about who started it, or whether both people have equal power.
- Fear. If you are frightened of your partner, no antidote on this page is the right first step.
A list of behaviours treats a conversation as symmetrical, and plenty are lopsided. Read more about what gaslighting looks like in a relationship.
How do you stop the four horsemen in your relationship?
Use the names on your own behaviour, pick one horseman and practise its antidote.
- Name your own. “That came out as criticism, let me try again” moves a conversation, where “that was contempt” across a kitchen is a new weapon with a citation attached.
- Pick one. Most couples have a signature pattern, and working on the habit that starts the sequence changes more than tackling them all.
- Agree the break now. Agree the break while nobody is angry, and agree the time you come back, because a pause without a return time is an exit.
- Practise. Treat the antidotes as skills: taking the break badly on a Tuesday, and coming back when you said you would, changes the next argument.
These steps fail when the names have become a way of scoring each other, or when every attempt at an antidote turns into the same fight. That is what the session is for.
Questions people ask
Which of the four horsemen is the worst?
Contempt, according to the research behind the model, because it comes from superiority. The others describe difficult conversations, and contempt is a verdict about the other person.
Does a relationship with all four horsemen survive?
Many do, because the four horsemen say the conversations are going badly and nothing about whether the relationship is over. How long change takes varies a great deal, and anyone offering you a timetable is guessing.
Is the divorce prediction figure real?
The published figures are real and come from one study of newlywed couples. They measure an interview about the couple’s own history, and the authors name the limits themselves.
My partner says I am stonewalling. Am I?
If you go quiet because your body has stopped coping, that is stonewalling as the model describes it. The answer is a break with a return time.
Do I need couples therapy to work on the four horsemen?
No, the antidotes are practisable at home and plenty of couples manage alone. Therapy earns its place when one attempt keeps turning into the same fight.
You may also find these helpful
Sources
- The Gottman Institute, The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling
- 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
- 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. 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.
