Relationships

By Kristen Manieri When my kids were younger, one of our favorite summer activities was to have leaf races in the rushing streams near our North Carolina

By Ellie Lisitsa, The Gottman Institute All relationships, even the most successful ones, have conflict. It is unavoidable. Fortunately, our research shows that it’s not the appearance

By Ellie Lisitsa, The Gottman Institute The last, but certainly not least, of the Four Horsemen is stonewalling. Stonewalling is, well, what it sounds like. In a discussion or

By Ellie Lisitsa, The Gottman Institute The third horsemen in the Four Horsemen is a common one: defensiveness, which is defined as self-protection in the form of righteous indignation

By Ellie Lisitsa, The Gottman Institute Contempt is the worst of the four horsemen. It is the most destructive negative behavior in relationships. In Dr. Gottman’s four decades

By Ellie Lisitsa, The Gottman Institute The first of the Four Horsemen, and likely the most common, is criticism. It is a natural human behavior for people to

This article originally appeared in The Washington Post, co-authored by Christopher Dollard and John Gottman. Marriage is one of the oldest social, economic, religious and legal institutions in