Want Your Relationship to Last? Eliminate This Habit First

So, What Is Contempt, Exactly?

If you’ve ever found yourself wishing for a magic 8 ball or a time machine (destination: Happily Ever After), you’re not alone. Whether in the early stages of dating or clawing through a particularly rough patch, many of us find ourselves wanting some definitive proof that our relationship is a sure bet, set to last for the long haul. While it may not be quite so That’s So Raven, relationship researchers have identified one potential clue: the presence—or absence—of contempt.

Beginning in the 1980s, world-renowned psychologist John Gottman, PhD, and his colleagues brought hundreds of couples into their relationship research labs, recorded them navigating real-life disagreements, and meticulously coded their interactions. The research team followed the couples for years to see whose relationships lasted and whose ended in divorce.

More specifically, “we compared the patterns we observed among couples who remained happily together, those who remained together but unhappy, and those who eventually separated or divorced,” relationship expert and creator of the Triangular Theory of Love, John Gottman tells Cosmopolitan. Across this body of research, contempt emerged as a particularly corrosive relationship behavior.

Today, the Gottman Institute calls it the number one predictor of relationship demise and divorce. A little deep dive on what contempt actually is, and it's pretty easy to see why it's such a relationship killer.

In essence, “contempt is a feeling of superiority over one’s partner,” Stacy Hubbard, LMFT, an EMDR-certified trauma therapist and certified Gottman therapist and Gottman master trainer based in Ashland, Oregon, tells Cosmopolitan. It is fueled by the belief that you are better than them and manifests as an attack on their character, she says.

Verbally, contempt shows up in comments that humiliate, degrade, or communicate disgust and disdain, says Hubbard. While it would be understandable for a partner to be frustrated with another if they were late for an anniversary dinner, a contemptuous partner, for example, might say: ‘Are you ever going to learn how to tell time? I learned when I was 5,’ says Hubbard. Similarly, if, after not seeing each other all day, one partner says to the other, ‘I’d ask you about your day, but I know you didn’t do anything’ or ‘Tell me about your day. I know it won’t take you long,’ that’s contempt, she says.

If you’ve ever been sneered at, you know that body language can communicate an air of superiority without someone’s mouth uttering a damn word. In addition to sneering, contempt can be communicated non-verbally through eye-rolling, smirking, and scoffing, to name just a few. Even tilting your head back as if scrutinizing your partner or turning your body away from them can communicate contempt, depending on the context, says Hubbard.

Where Does Contempt Actually Come From?

Contempt does not have a single origin story. It can emerge slowly over time from unmet needs, accumulated hurt, or conflicts that never quite get resolved, licensed clinical psychologists John and Julie Gottman tell Cosmopolitan. “When any of these painful interactions remain unprocessed and misunderstood, contempt may increase.”

Contempt can also emerge as a direct response to betrayal. “Not just affairs, either,” the Gottmans tell Cosmopolitan. “Financial deceit, hidden addictions, and other patterns of repeated lies” can lead to feelings of betrayal that start a domino effect of contempt.

“Another pattern that yields contempt is extreme rigidity of a partner, where the other partner has no influence over anything the couple is deciding, which leads the other partner to feel powerless,” the Gottmans say. Basically, complaints about never getting a say can slowly devolve into a sentiment like, ‘I can’t freaking stand you,’ they explain.

Here’s the thing: Not all contempt begins with the relationship itself. Some people may be more prone to contemptuous behavior across all of their relationships, according to Hubbard. “It could be something that is part of the person’s personality,” she says. Someone who tends to be more antagonistic or entitled, for instance, may communicate contempt toward friends, family members, coworkers, and, of course, their romantic partner(s), she says.

In some cases, a propensity for contemptuous behavior may stem, at least in part, from the relationships we witnessed and were a part of in childhood, as well as childhood trauma. The relationship dynamics we grow up seeing—and participating in—shape our “internal working model of relationships,” says Hubbard.

So, if you grow up in a household where contempt is as commonplace as, say, a kiss on the head or a shared meal, you may internalize the idea that this is simply how people interact with those they love, she says. Over time, that contempt can become an automatic way of relating to other people.

Does Contempt Always Signal Relationship Doom?

Not necessarily. “A relationship that harbors contempt is not necessarily doomed,” the Gottmans tell Cosmopolitan. In fact, the Gottmans say nearly all the couples they see in therapy have experienced at least some contempt.

But there’s a catch: Something—or, more accurately, somethings (plural)—has to change. “The relationship is only doomed if neither partner wants to change and instead keeps blaming the other partner for all of the relationship problems,” they say.

In sum, contempt is a relationship red flag, but it’s not necessarily a death certificate.

How to Eliminate Contempt From Your Relationship

The good news is that several interventions—what the Gottmans call “antidotes to contempt”—can stop contempt, and what's fueling it, in its tracks. Better yet, these strategies can help keep you moving and grooving in the right direction, even if you don’t currently have a capital-C Contempt Problem.

1. Press Pause When Needed

If you or your partner go fully feral or adopt a flat affect (a.k.a. stonewall) during conflict, you'll benefit from learning to take a time out. The Gottmans explain: Contempt may be especially common in relationships where one (or both) partners become “plagued by physiological flooding, or enter into a fight-or-flight-or-freeze state” during fights.

From this heightened nervous-system state, it becomes incredibly difficult to listen, empathize, problem-solve, or communicate clearly. As a result, attempts to resolve any issue in the heat of the moment may only make matters worse, leading to hurt and frustration that can compound and eventually “curdle into contempt,” they explain.

Taking a 20- to 30-minute time-out gives your nervous system a chance to come back down, so you can return to the conversation capable of actually hearing—and being heard by—your partner.

The key word here? Return! A time out isn't the same as storming off or giving the silent treatment. Rather, it's an intentional, mutually agreed-upon pause with an agreement to pause now and pick the conversation (read: not fight!) back up later at a specific time when you'll be better equipped to have it.

2. Learn How to Complain

Sometimes contempt comes out simply because we don’t know how else to communicate what we're feeling or needing. Unfortunately, Relationships 101 just isn’t a class most of us got to take in school. So, as the Gottmans put it, people sometimes resort to contempt because “they have never learned any other ways of conveying their feelings, resentments, and needs.”

When you have a specific complaint, they offer a specific formula: say what you feel, name the specific situation you're reacting to, and tell your partner clearly (but kindly!) what you need from them.

In practice, this means saying, I’m feeling stressed that the bills haven't been paid yet. Can you please pay them tonight? And not, for example, ‘You’re so irresponsible. Why can’t you ever pay the bills on time?’ While the latter is super contemptuous, the former keeps the focus on your feelings and offers a specific, actionable ask—all without attacking your partner’s character. Assuming it’s delivered with a respectful tone, that is.

3. Be Generous in Your Compliment Cadence

Even if your partner claims words of affirmation isn’t their primary love language, you may want to consider treating them as if they are. Regularly expressing admiration for your partner can help counter the underlying sense of superiority often at the heart of contempt, says Hubbard. Not to mention, it can remind you both what you actually like and respect about them, she says.

No doubt, it's nice for a partner to notice your good hair day or new manicure, or to wax poetic about the specks in your eyes or hard-earned shoulder striations. “But try not just to compliment their appearance, but also to compliment their behaviors,” say the Gottmans.

Assuming it's true, you might tell them that you thought what they said at the dinner party, wrote on social media, or said to your child was brilliant, they say. You might also acknowledge the effort they put into studying for the bar, the thoughtfulness of a birthday gift they picked out for a mutual friend, or the bounty of their green thumb.

4. Pay Attention

If your goal is to purge your relationship of contempt, the nice things you say shouldn’t start and stop with compliments. “One of the antidotes to contempt is to notice what your partner is doing right, and to thank them,” say the Gottmans. When contempt has taken root, it can become all too easy to notice everything your partner is doing “wrong,” while the things they're doing “right” barely register.

Whether it's filling up your bike tires without being asked, restocking the toilet paper, bearing dinner with your rents, or remembering to grab your favorite snack at the grocery store, toss them a gosh darn thank you. Day in, day out, those tiny acknowledgments can help keep contempt around what they're not doing from piling up, say the Gottmans.

5. Work With a Trained Therapist

Contempt is often fueled by subterranean feelings that need to be surfaced, expressed, and understood before they can be excavated, the Gottmans say. The thing is, for most couples, doing so on their own is about as difficult as mining for gold with your bare hands—which is to say, very difficult.

A trained therapist can help create a container for you to share those aforementioned resentments, ask questions that help you both become privy to feelings you may not even have known were there, and educate you on—and allow you to practice—healthier ways of communicating, says Hubbard.

In other words, a therapist can bring some actual mining equipment into the room, so you leave these convos with gold, rather than bruised egos and a whole lot of dirt under your fingernails.