By Ashley McIlwain Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? Mark 8:18 “You hurt me so badly! I am devastated!” says the wife. “Well, you hurt me too, and you don’t know what I’m up against at work,” replies the husband. “You don’t care at all about me!”
The fourth and final of the Four Horsemen is stonewalling. In his book The Marriage Clinic, Gottman defines stonewalling as occurring "when the listener withdraws from the interaction" (p.46). In other terms, stonewalling is when one person shuts down and closes himself/herself off from the other. It is a lack of responsiveness to your spouse
The third of the Four Horsemen is contempt. Contempt is defined by Gottman in The Marriage Clinic as "any statement or nonverbal behavior that puts oneself on a higher plane than one's partner" (p.45). More simply stated – it's an "I'm better than you" attitude. Contempt is viewed as the most dangerous of the Four
The second of the Four Horsemen is defensiveness. Gottman defines defensiveness in The Marriage Clinic as "any attempt to defend oneself from a perceived attack" (p.44). A more practical definition I like to use is placing the blame on the other person and not accepting personal responsibility. As I mentioned in The Four Horsemen:
There is a very renowned author by the name of John M. Gottman, Ph.D. who has written many books and done extensive research on couples. From his studies, one of his best known concepts that has been utilized to help many couples is what he calls The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He says that
