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 Welcome back to another episode of the Road of Life podcast with Meredith and Craig. Last episode we started the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse discussion and we led with criticism. And now this episode we're going to talk about the second of the four, which is Contempt.

Quick recap, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. come from John and Julie Gottman's research, they're like the gold standard of research into relationships. And these four horsemen of the apocalypse are four behaviors that are toxic to our relationship, that are big predictors of relationship failure.

And it's criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. And so we talked about criticism last week. If you didn't listen to it, Go back and listen to it because contempt builds on criticism. So we're going to start talking about criticism in this episode. So it helps to have the contempt, sorry, contempt and help us have the criticism background before this month.

And contempt is like the criticism on steroids a little bit. It's like , it's criticism with like an air of superiority, like a nose in the air. , yeah, for sure. It's the criticism like leveled up several levels. Yeah. It's criticism that's designed to make the other person feel inferior.

Yeah. Feel less than. In fact, it is the number one predictor of divorce. If there was one horseman, it would be contempt. Correct. Yeah. If the one, the worst one of them all. Is contempt. Contempt. This one. Which is scary, but also Kind of awesome that we know that, so that we can work on it.

Yeah, exactly. So we can head it off at the past. So, examples of contempt.

Oh good, another great idea from the peanut gallery. Sarcasm. I mean, sarcasm sometimes has its place, but not when it's directed at your spouse in a derogatory way. Yeah. I think another big thing for contempt is the eye rolling and sneering and the ugh, ugh.

Another great The dismiss. The like, yeah, the dismissiveness of it. Like, ugh, the eye roll and the like, ugh, my god, enough, like, what a stupid idea. Like, ugh, are you really bringing that up again? Like, ugh, like that type of Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which You see a lot in especially teenage girls in my, experience lately, you see a little more of that.

Well, it's what we talked about last episode with criticism is it's a learn behavior. It's something that you probably grew up with, with your friends as teenagers. And it's something you just carry with you into your other relationships as an adult. And it's terrible. You got to get rid of it. But to your point, contempt, no different.

You, Probably experienced it and did it with your friends growing up. Yeah, it certainly gives me a vibe of familiarity As a teenage girl for sure like I have a judge Judy level eye roll that I deploy sometimes that can confirm Need to harness in and I think the third way that contempt shows up is name calling I think name calling is another way that we bring You That horseman we bring contempt into our relationships and we've said it before in the, you know, disagreeing productively episode that we've done that.

There's no place ever, ever, ever, ever for name calling in your relationship. Like literally ever. Never. It's, it's destructive. It's completely toxic. There's no reason to ever refer to your spouse or partner by anything other than their name. Unless it's something like babe or like a loving, endearing term, but they're comfortable with.

Yeah. Of course. But like name calling is just a no go zone. It's never going to serve you or your relationship. So Keeping an eye on the sneaky ways that contempt slides in is sarcasm, name calling, and that eye roll slash dismissiveness, pfft, sneer vibe. So those are the three ways that contempt is sneaking into your relationship.

Yep. . And contempt is so toxic because the person who receives it, it's so belittling. Makes them feel so unworthy and we talked about this last episode too. Is that there's already an Epidemic of unworthiness in this world. Like we're all already battling this the one place where we shouldn't have to Feel like it's an unsafe spaces with our spouse.

We should at least feel like we're worthy They're if we know where else yeah there and when contempt comes into it. You don't even have it there. No It makes you feel less than even in your relationship. Yeah. So like belittled unworthy and, just disrespected. There's no. Respect when there's contempt and when there's no respect in your relationship It's in very serious trouble like that's the one thing We say is like your relationship has to have at least a foundation of respect and to your point contempt means that there is no foundation.

There is no respect. And when there's no respect, you are on a very, very shaky ground. Yeah. It's interesting. I've had this conversation with Sharon Lecter, who we actually, I think mentioned in the last episode, very successful, famous author. And she's been married. Her and her husband had been married for, I'm 40 something years.

Yeah. Like multiple decades, like a very, very long time. And I asked her about what was the secret for their relationship. And she has. Two secrets to their relationship. The first one is kind of funny, but still true, and it's separate bathrooms. And I, can totally get that with all the little gingerbeards.

And the second one is respect. You don't have to like each other, but you have to respect each other. She firmly believes that Respect. In the moment. You don't have to like each other every moment. There might be disagreements where you feel like, oh. I want to wring this person's neck, but there's always a base level of respect.

Yeah. So when there's no respect left in your relationship, if the contempt has eroded your respect, you were on very shaky ground. Yeah.

So, why do we let contempt in? If it's so toxic, it's the number one predictor of divorce, , how do we let it in? Why? Yeah. Yeah. Most of the time, or a lot of the time, it's because we've had these needs that have gone unmet for so long. Like, we're just drained and we're not feeling as though we're heard or respected in our relationship, so we lash out and we disrespect and, you know, put it out to the other person.

Yeah, and that often comes, I think, from my perspective and my experience, I'm a very conflict averse person. I wasn't always, but I have been for most of my adult life. Very conflict averse. And that hasn't served me. Because I would avoid conflict in the moment, but let my resentment simmer under the surface.

And We don't do that. , we've gotten rid of that in me and our relationship, but , I have to fight my natural instinct all the time to address things in a timely manner, in a functional, constructive way, even when it's uncomfortable. And , I've seen it in, the past, how I don't wanna cause trouble.

I don't wanna cause a fight. I don't wanna get into a disagreement, so I'm just gonna let that go. And little do you know that it's actually the worst thing you can do because it's going to cause a way bigger issue down the line. Correct. Because you're going to then start to feel resentment towards that person.

You're going to start to roll your eyes at that person. Yeah. You're going to start to be like, like again, again, like, are we, have we not, are we serious with this? Right. Yeah. Contempt. Yeah. Relationship doomed. Correct. Yeah. And so that's a hard lesson. And I've had to learn that I still have to logically.

Get myself there every time that let's have this conversation, even though I'm uncomfortable, even though I don't want to, because I don't want the downstream impacts of contempt bubbling up. The resentment bubbling up inside of me because I wasn't willing to be a little bit uncomfortable and have a conversation.

And one way that that really clicked for me was because I'm a natural peacemaker in my family and everywhere that the question to ask is. Whose peace am I keeping in those situations when I'm being a peacemaker and I don't want to cause trouble Whose peace am I keeping and it the way the resentment builds and builds.

It's not mine I'm, not keeping peace inside of me and you're not keeping peace Like in the moment you are but down the line it's going to come out correct And so you're not actually, you're keeping the piece for the, for a moment, but down longterm, you're not. And it's, really a really great example of short term discomfort for long term Comfort.

Short term discomfort instead of long term dysfunction. Thank you. That's what I was trying to Yeah. Yeah. Short term discomfort for long term dysfunction. I think another way that sometimes we let contempt in or why we let contempt in is because we grew up with it, to your point earlier, whether it was in our friend group or in our family or maybe in a toxic work culture, you know, it's if we've learned that along the way, then it becomes one of our modes of communication and we don't even realize.

that it is as toxic as it is because we've just accepted it as normal. Yeah. And , it's a function of feeling frustrated. It's when we're frustrated, that's how we a lot of times deal with it is through acts of contempt and, making sure that we feel seen or heard in, , because, You know the way we have been doing it.

I feel unseen or undervalued So i'm going to change tactics here and i'm going to get contemptuous and Be seen or be valued but in the long run. It's just it's destructive. It's not yeah, The contempt comes out in a moment of trying to make yourself feel better feel good enough feel respected value You've seen so if you can talk down to someone else you must be Up higher than them and it just doesn't work and the thing is like you do that because you feel unseen Unheard undervalued.

So in other words, it's not really a safe space for you. So you do it this way, but now You're actually destroying it for ever being a safe space like you're making it An unsafer space if that makes any sense like it's counterproductive to what you really want. You want to , feel seen, heard, valued.

In other words, you want a safe space, but by showing contempt for the other person, the eye rolls, the name calling, all those things, you're actually making it so much worse. It's a much unsafer space that the other person's going to. And we talked about it last episode. You stack on top of each other.

When you feel contempt from someone, you want to lash out , cause you feel hurt and you want to lash out. Your, default mode is like, Oh, I feel hurt. I want to lash back out and feel hurt. I want them to feel hurt. Yeah. And you pile on. Yeah. And it escalates and it's a vicious cycle. Yeah. And it's number one reason.

It's that's why it's the number one cause of divorce. Exactly. Yeah.

, the other thing that we haven't really touched on is, that the relationship issues, but not only that, but the health, the health concern that something like this can bring to you. So yes, it is devastating to your relationship. It's also not good for your personal health, your actual physical and mental health.

. Yeah. If you're on the receiving end of contempt, stress, you're stressed out. We already know what stress can do. Increase in stress, lack of sleep. You're going to eat your feelings probably like it's just knock on effects that and then you're weakened immune system.

Like it's just terrible for your overall, wellbeing for sure. Yeah. So what do we do about it? Stop doing it.

Okay. Yeah. What's the antidote to contempt? it's like we talked about in the last episode with criticism, the more you focus on the negative, the more negative you're going to get. The more you focus on positive, the more positive you're going to get.

The antidote to contempt is similar to what we talked about last episode with criticism and it's really about focusing on gratitude and appreciating the positive things that your partner does, the good that is in your relationship. If you're eye rolling or name calling, get that out of your system, , catch yourself doing it.

Stop doing that immediately. Get that out of your repertoire. And focus on appreciation and gratitude. What are the things that they do? Well, what are the things that you really love and appreciate about your partner and focus on the little things? Like it's all about finding the things to be grateful for and finding the things to appreciate.

So look for the little things to appreciate. There's a, million little things in the run of your day that you can appreciate for you and from your partner. So find the little things. Trying to find great big things to focus on becomes really challenging and overwhelming and you're probably already in an overwhelmed state if you're letting contempt sneak in.

So, try to focus on the tiny little things in your day and in your relationship that you can appreciate. So again, trying to catch yourself before your eyes roll, and replace that with kindness and respect. You have to have respect. Remember what we said earlier.

If there's contempt, there's no respect. We need to replace contempt with respect. There has to be that foundation of respect. So instead of rolling your eyes, instead of calling a name, instead of getting sarcastic, say something kind, just any, literally anything kind. Instead of, Oh, are you really talking about this again?

Like, you know what? That's a really great idea. Tell me more about it. Even if you don't necessarily feel that way in the moment, Leading with kindness. Chances are you've actually never really even put forward the time to actually listen to that idea. You've heard it several times and thought it was stupid from the outset and just dismissed it outright.

Right. But if you actually give it some time, they think that thing for a reason and they've brought it up several times for a reason. Maybe leading with curiosity and understanding where they're coming from a little bit more might change your outlook on what they're suggesting. Yeah. Like listening to actually understand them instead of just listening to respond with your sarcastic.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's just one very specific example that may or may not work for in every situation, but, it really is lead with kindness. Like there's not enough kindness in this world. Yeah. There's a kindness shortage for sure. So if you can find yourself in that moment, stopping yourself before the name calling, Say something kind, especially like in your relationship.

This is like, this is where we want you to have the safest of spaces, both of you. And so if there's no kindness, if there's no respect, then you have a very unsafe space. Like, what are we doing? This is supposed to be the place where you get kindness. And , because we talk about like the world is already, you know, up in turmoil and there's a There's a lot going on and, and some might say a general lack of kindness in a lot of places in the world right now.

That shouldn't be the case. Your relationship should be the one place where you can rely on kindness and respect and have a safe space. And so, instead of coming out with something like, Ugh, you're so clueless. Something, reframe, reframe the contempt. Oh my god, you're so full of clues! Not where I was going.

That still feels a bit sarcastic. Where I was gonna go was, we obviously, instead of you're so clueless, is, we obviously see this differently. Let's try and figure out some common ground here. Something pretty simple, really. Yeah.

And then lastly, we talked about how generally contempt is coming from an underlying frustration, resentment that we've let simmer under the surface, whether it's trying to be the peacemaker or being conflict averse or just trying to avoid that discomfort as long as we can. But that obviously, that resentment, that unmet need, that.

Frustration is coming out in a way that is super duper toxic in your relationship. Yeah. So, we need to look at what's going on under the surface and address that unmet need, or resolve that resentment or that frustration. What is causing that frustration and resentment inside of you? And then have a difficult conversation, an uncomfortable conversation.

And we'll link to our episode on having uncomfortable conversations. So, you've got The sort of guidelines and we'll be able to do it a little bit framework a little bit easier An easier button not an easy button because none of those conversations are easy But working on on those unmet needs and that underlying resentment, so it's not bubbling this contempt up inside of you Yeah so I think that's it for contempt And we're going to talk about defensiveness.

I believe in the next episode the third horseman of the apocalypse So stay tuned for that next week what's the one takeaway that you're gonna do now that you know, we've had this conversation We've talked a lot about contempt. What's one thing that you can take away and commit to doing in your relationship to?

Get rid of contempt and replace it with respect So we love having these conversations with you, but we have to do something We got to take some action after we have to do something and so share this episode another action step Besides your one action you're gonna take from it Another action step is sharing it.

Share this episode, share this message with someone who needs it. I don't know who that is for you, but you know who that is for you. Share it with someone who needs it. And we will see you next week and we'll talk all about defensiveness.

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