COMM227 Chapter 5: CH 5 Gottman Book Notes - Marriage, Divorce, and Your Child's Emotional Health
1 Jun 2018
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CH 5: Marriage, Divorce, and Your Child’s Emotional Health
Avoid the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Criticism
● Making negative remarks about your partner’s personality, usually in a way that assigns
blame
● Attacks a person’s character
● Often expressed in global terms (“never”,”always”)
● How to avoid: address conflicts and problems as they arise, keep anger directed at your
partner’s actions not personality, try not to place blame, focus on the present
Contempt
● Like criticism but taken to a farther extreme
● Actually intending to insult or psychologically wound spouse
● Often comes from feeling disgusted or fed up with your spouse
● Insults, name calling, hostile forms of humor
● How to avoid: listening to the internal script each of us carries in our minds, try to let go
of the idea that you need to win arguments, generate more positive and loving thoughts
about your spouse
Defensiveness
● Denying responsibility or making excuses
● Cross complaining is another common form of defensiveness
● Can be expressed with tone of voice or body language
● How to avoid: hear you partner’s words not as an attack but as useful info that is being
expressed in very strong terms
Stonewalling
● When one partner simply shuts down bc the conversation has become too intense
● One partner becomes like a stone wall, offering no indication that he hears and
understands what the other partner is saying
● 85% of stonewallers were men
● How to avoid: make a conscious effort to give your spouse more feedback during
discussions, explore new ways to stay calm while discussing hot topics with partners
Manage Your Marital Conflict
● Don’t use your children as weapons in marital conflict
● Don’t allow your kids to get in the middle
● Let your kids know when conflicts are resolved
● Establish networks of emotional support for your children
● Use emotion coaching to talk about marital conflicts
● Stay engaged in the details of your children’s everyday lives
Document Summary
Ch 5: marriage, divorce, and your child"s emotional health. Making negative remarks about your partner"s personality, usually in a way that assigns blame. How to avoid: address conflicts and problems as they arise, keep anger directed at your partner"s actions not personality, try not to place blame, focus on the present. Like criticism but taken to a farther extreme. Actually intending to insult or psychologically wound spouse. Often comes from feeling disgusted or fed up with your spouse. Insults, name calling, hostile forms of humor. How to avoid: listening to the internal script each of us carries in our minds, try to let go of the idea that you need to win arguments, generate more positive and loving thoughts about your spouse. Cross complaining is another common form of defensiveness. Can be expressed with tone of voice or body language.
