four proven scientific ways why relationships fail after studying thousands of couples in the John Gutman Institute number one criticism defined as complaining about our partner without taking personal responsibility how our own actions could have contributed to the issue we are complaining about example you never help out around the house why are you so lazy on average women tend to use criticism more than men and as a result men often have a reactive response or a learned response even as well to Stonewall to protect themselves as a defense mechanism number two defensiveness you put your guard up and you protect yourself from being hurt by not taking any personal responsibility and put it on the other person it can't be your fault because if it's your fault that's painful that means if it's your fault you have to face the pain of failure or self- responsibility which you have learned over years to hurt and not be a positive thing but to be a negative ative thing one way through this is you must reframe and redesign your relationship with self-responsibility and that if everything can become almost your fault or your responsibility to fix then you gain the power and control over yourself your life and even the Dynamics and health of your relationship being your fault is not a bad thing because that is the opportunity to grow learn and bl let the relationship Blossom to another new level what can often happen in the heat of an argument or the heat of defensiveness and criticism is what's called flooding flooding is what happens when we get really heated our heart rate goes above 100 beats per minute and we start to lose control of our logic our our our front of our brain uh our frontal lobe and its ability to uh logically think through problems this is why anger and being overly emotional is a really problematic state to be in in an argument with somebody because if you even if you care about winning the argument you can't win the argument if you're too emotional because you can't think logically and emotion doesn't win arguments emotion wins fights often logic wins arguments but in a relationship you could argue that you don't want to win the argument because if you're the winner now that means you're living with to Loser the point is to come to a mutual understanding and a mutual respect of each other's points and having each party compromised to an extent to a Level Playing Field where both feel like there is some fairness and compromise being made if you're getting flooded you can become very contemptuous and critical or you may also withdraw completely from your environment to protect yourself if you're noticing you're getting FL blooded it's often better instead of going further into the attack and further into the argument is to withdraw from the environment go for a walk and distance yourself from the heat of the fire and then come back once both parties and both people are calmer and can then speak more compassionately and empathetically to one another if not then what can happen is What's called stonewalling the third Horseman of the relationship breakdowns Stone Walling as I've said before is much more common in men and as a result of continual criticism over and over again now this can make sense why a man or a person would want to Stonewall they might shut away from the conversation turn away physically with their body language say things like don't worry about it it doesn't matter forget about it these are common phrases people use when they want to when they are stonewalling this usually happens when people feel like the situation is hopeless they can't win and the conversation is unproductive to work around this it's often best to help understand why the person does what they do outside of the conflict itself so if your partner or someone you know is stonewalling it's best to engage with this in a calm rational State when the argument or conflict is not being had an example of how you may deal with this is outside of the conflict itself you would ask your partner hey I notice that when I say this you react like this have you noticed that and then ask why is that if done with the right tone and phrasing you create a safe space for the person to open up to you and say you know what every time I come home you get on me immediately about this problem and that problem and all I want to to do when I get home for the first 5 minutes is just relax and have a hug and have some affection from you but as soon as I come home I just get attacked and that makes me want to distance myself open honest communication and dialogue that is calm and empathetic is often a resolution to many of these problems if you're still unable to resolve these conflicts then the last Horseman of the relationship apocalypse is contempt John Gutman calls this suric acid for love he says that nothing erodes a relationship faster than contempt now contempt is when you can feel your partner or person is beneath consideration and even worthless to an extent another version of contempt is when you feel Superior to your partner in a judgmental way that you are better than them and this can exemplify itself in your body language and and verbal cues like eye rolling uh mock ER y verbally and physically contempt at its worst makes the person feel pathetic and it's just takes the legs out from underneath the person it's one of the most damaging things you can do in your relationship with your partner or friends and family if we're being honest with ourselves most people including me have engaged with all of these in relationships with friends family and romantic Partners the point isn't to completely eliminate them happening the point is to become aware of them to minimize their occurrences to a level of a 5:1 ratio this is a 5:1 positive to negative interaction ratio that the John gotman Institute after studying thousands of couples has found to be a predictable ratio for the healthiest most satisfied loving relationships so begin to note down how often you do these things in your relationship and start to bring together together uh some awareness and common communication around these issues and maybe even share this video with your partner or someone that you're interested in because if you can start your relationship on a healthy Foundation it can be the difference between getting married to somebody and spending the rest of their life with them or being in a continual cycle of breakups because you just can't seem to find the right person often the fastest way to find the right person is to become the right person H I think that was pretty good