The trouble begins when you feel that your complaints go unheeded and your spouse repeats the offending habits. Over time, it becomes more and more likely that your complaints will pick up steam. With each successive complaint you're likely to throw in your inventory of prior, unresolved grievances. Eventually you begin blaming your partner and being critical of his or her personality rather than of a specific deed.
One common type of criticism is to bring up a long list of complaints. I call this "kitchen sinking": you throw in every negative thing you can think of. Another form is to accuse your partner of betraying you, of being untrustworthy: "I trusted you to balance the checkbook and you let me down! Your recklessness amazes me." In contrast, complaints don't necessarily finger the spouse as a culprit; they are more a direct expression of one's own dissatisfaction with a particular situation.
Criticisms also tend to be generalizations. A telltale sign that you've slipped from complaining to criticizing is if global phrases like "you never" or "you always" start punctuating your exchanges:
Complaint: "We don't go out as much as I'd like to."
Criticism: "You never take me anywhere."
Being critical can begin innocently enough and is often the expression of pentup, unresolved anger. It may be one of those natural self-destruct mechanisms inherent in all relationships. Problems occur when criticism becomes so pervasive that it corrodes the marriage. When that happens it heralds the arrival of the next horseman that can drag you toward marital difficulty.
THE SECOND HORSEMAN: CONTEMPT
By their first anniversary, Eric and Pamela still hadn't resolved their financial differences. Unfortunately, their fights were becoming more frequent and personal. Pamela was feeling disgusted with Eric. In the heat of one particularly nasty argument, she found herself shrieking: "Why are you so irresponsible?" Fed up and insulted, Eric retorted, "Oh, shut up. You're just a cheapskate. I don't know how I ended up with you anyway." The second horseman--contempt--had entered the scene.
What separates contempt from criticism is the intention to insult and psychologically abuse your partner. With your words and body language, you're lobbing insults right into the heart of your partner's sense of self. Fueling these contemptuous actions are negative thoughts about the partner--he or she is stupid, incompetent, a fool. In direct or subtle fashion, that message gets across along with the criticism.
When this happened, they ceased being able to remember why they had fallen in love in the first place. As a consequence, they rarely complimented each other anymore or expressed mutual admiration or attraction. The focal point of their relationship became abusiveness.
What Pamela and Eric experienced is hardly uncommon. When contempt begins to overwhelm your relationship, you tend to forget your partner's positive qualities, at least while you're feeling upset. You can't remember a single positive quality or act. This immediate decay of admiration is an important reason why contempt ought to be banned from marital interactions.
Recognizing when you or your spouse is expressing contempt is fairly easy. Among the most common signs are:
o Insults and name-calling
o Hostile humor
o Mockery
o Body language--including sneering, rolling your eyes, curling your upper lip.
It is easy to feel overly critical at times, and it is human to state criticism in a contemptuous way now and then, even in the best relationships. Yet if abusiveness seems to be a problem in your relationship, the best way to neutralize it is to stop seeing arguments with your spouse as a way to retaliate or exhibit your superior moral stance. Rather, your relationship will improve if you approach your spouse with precise complaints rather than attacking your partner's personality or character.
THE THIRD HORSEMAN: DEFENSIVENESS
Once contempt entered their home, Eric and Pamela's marriage went from bad to worse. When either of them acted contemptuously, the other responded defensively, which just made matters worse. Now they both felt victimized by the other--and neither was willing to take responsibility for setting things right. In effect, they both constantly pleaded innocent.
The fact that defensiveness is an understandable reaction to feeling besieged is one reason it is so destructive--the "victim" doesn't see anything wrong with being defensive. But defensive phrases, and the attitude they express, tend to escalate a conflict rather than resolve anything. If you are being defensive, you are adding to your marital troubles. Familiarize yourself with the signs of defensiveness so you can recognize them for what they truly are:
o Denying Responsibility. No matter what your partner charges, you insist in no uncertain terms that you are not to blame.
o Making Excuses. You claim that external circumstances beyond your control forced you to act in a certain way.
o Disagreeing with Negative Mind-Reading. Sometimes your spouse will make assumptions about your private feelings, behavior, or motives (in phrases such as "You think it's a waste of time" or "I know how you hate it"). When this "mind-reading" is delivered in a negative manner, it may trigger defensiveness in you.
o Cross-Complaining. You meet your partner's complaint (or criticism) with an immediate complaint of your own, totally ignoring what your partner has said.
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