Episode 13 – How Contempt and Stonewalling Damage Your Relationship
In this episode of Love Isn’t Enough, we’re diving deep into the final two of Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—contempt and stonewalling—and exploring why these are the most damaging dynamics in relationships. We break down what they look like, why they show up, and how they silently erode connection, intimacy, and trust over time.
If you’ve ever felt dismissed, shut out, belittled, or emotionally abandoned by your partner—or maybe you’ve done it yourself—this episode will help you recognize these harmful patterns and start shifting toward repair, emotional safety and reconnection.
Tune in to learn the antidotes to contempt and stonewalling, and take one step closer to having a relationship based on the ultimate goal – emotional safety!
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Connect with Joree Rose, LMFT:
• Website: www.joreerose.com
• Instagram: @joreerose
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How Contempt and Stonewalling Damage Your Relationship w/ Dr. John Schinnerer and Joree Rose, LMFT – Transcript
Dr. John Schinnerer: Hello, intrepid listener. This is Dr. John Schinnerer, back with another episode of Love Isn’t Enough podcast, and I’m here with my beautiful and wise partner, Joree Rose. And we are here today to talk about the other four horsemen of the apocalypse, a la John and Julie Gottman. And so last week we covered, let’s see, criticism and defensiveness, and this week we’re covering contempt and stonewalling.
Joree Rose, LMFT: So if you haven’t listened to last week, I highly encourage you go check that out. But maybe before we jump into contempt of stone stonewalling, we can give a little brief introduction to the challenges. Criticism and defensiveness. I can’t get all of ’em straight. I know. Now
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: they’re out of order.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Orinda CA: We can give just a little brief overview of criticism and defensiveness in case you didn’t listen to last week before we jump into the last two.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Pleasant Hill CA: Do you wanna give us a start on that?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Berkeley CA: Sure. Criticism is when you attack your partner’s whole being verbally. So [00:01:00] instead of saying something about how come you didn’t empty the dishwasher like you said you were going to be, it’s, you’re so lazy. Why don’t you ever empty the dishwasher? And so that phrase of you are lazy is an attack on their whole being.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapist: That is a criticism. It’s a charact versus speaking. Yeah. Versus speaking directly to the behavior that you’re having a problem with.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor: I was chuckling to myself as you gave that example A, because I knew that was gonna be the example you gave, and B is dear, there’s that damn dishwasher again. Why is the dishwasher so hard for a couple?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Berkeley CA Danville CA: It’s the black hole of conflict in couples
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Pleasant Hill CA: defensiveness is I think something we’ve struggled with in our relationship and something we see so many couples not having an inability to get out of that pattern. And that usually shows up when your partner shares something perhaps vulnerably how I’m feeling, and the response is [00:02:00] not openhearted and.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Concord CA: Not always acknowledging the other person’s feelings, but defending your own actions, defending what you were thinking. It can shut down my vulnerability if you respond to me defensively.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist Danville CA: Yeah. And, defensiveness really ranges from coming at the person in anger all the way to calmly explaining what you were trying to do or what your thoughts were or what your intentions were.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor San Francisco CA: And it, that was a big aha for me, that, oh, even that. It can be defensiveness. And so to really lay that aside and maybe table that for another conversation to explain what my intentions were, and rather, the first step is simply to validate how your partner is feeling.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Concord CA: One of my favorite phrases you’ve gotten so good at, and thank you by the way, is when you can respond to me with a simple thank you for sharing.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Concord CA: That in and of itself is so healing and so validating for whatever I might be sharing, feeling, experiencing. And if I come to you and share [00:03:00] that, says to me, you hear me you’re, doing your best to understand where I’m coming from. And like you said, and I love the phrase you always use as the difference between an excuse and an explanation, but there is a time and place for me to understand what was underneath, maybe what you did that might have hurt my feelings, but in that moment.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy San Francisco CA: To defend your actions is not the time when you’re trying to create deeper connection, when you’re trying to create emotional safety. And one of the things we talk a lot about on this podcast, a secure attachment.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor San Francisco CA Danville CA: Yeah. And I think the first step, whenever your partner’s angry, is always, or upset or sad, or whatever they’re feeling is always to validate how they’re feeling.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist San Ramon CA: So you can demonstrate to them that you’re hearing them, that you’re feeling them, that their emotions matter. So I’m always trying to read between the lines to figure out. What is joy feeling right now? So that I can speak to that rather than explain myself, defend myself, and it, just doesn’t work as well to do that first.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Counselor San Ramon CA: Usually you get stuck in who’s right, [00:04:00] who’s, if you defend yourself first
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Oakland CA: or who’s hurt more.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Online Marriage Counselor : Yeah.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Oakland CA: And we see that as a lot in patterns and again, something that we’ve been working on that in our own relationship. And the reason all this matters today, we’re gonna go into the contempt and stonewalling of the other two patterns that the Gottman’s find.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Berkeley CA: And they call this the, these, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Because when these four experiences are patterns are consistently present in a couple, they are accurate predictors for the Gottman’s research of divorce.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counselor San Ramon CA: Or breakup.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Berkeley CA: And to be able to identify these four things in your own relationship, as I always say, you can’t change what you’re not aware of.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Berkeley CA: So we’re hoping that this episodes gives you insight with self-compassion, ideally not with a lot of self-judgment or judgment on your partner. ’cause the goal here is to learn, to grow, to be open-minded so that you can work on changing these patterns. And we’re the first to say. Some of these are fucking hard to get out of, [00:05:00] and I think we’ve done an incredible job.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Virtual Marriage Counselor Pleasanton CA: I think we’ve done really well and it’s taken us some practice. It’s taken us some time and it, they didn’t all come at once either.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Berkeley CA: No, and depending on mood or sleep or our own stuff going on, it might be harder to engage in some of these, and that’s okay too. The ideal thing is to identify where am I getting stuck right now?
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Berkeley CA: And what could I do to step towards or turn towards my partners so that they feel more safe coming to me in vulnerability, in expressing themselves and in sharing what they need from me.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Counselor for Men Pleasanton CA: So let’s move to contempt. Okay. Let’s start there. How do you define contempt for your clients?
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Oakland CA: Disgust. Looking down upon having a one ups man, I’m better than I, I really see this a lot in which.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Oakland CA: That experience of disgust comes up, and I think it’s a result of an accumulation of resentments built over time that [00:06:00] makes it really hard to see through anything other than a negative lens.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Counselor for Men: Yeah I’m on the same page. I would define it as anger, mixed with judgment or disgust where you feel you are in a one-up position.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapist for Men Pleasanton CA: You feel you are better than, smarter than wiser than your partner. And so you’re looking down at them thinking, I know better than you. You should listen to me. And disgust is a big part of that.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women San Francisco CA: And. This power dynamic is never gonna lend itself towards feeling safe and secure. If you’re feeling better than your partner or that your partner is unworthy or incapable of being with you in relationship or incapable of being open to even learning these tools that can lead to contempt of, I can’t even believe you’re not even seeing the pattern going on here.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women San Francisco CA: How could you, it’s it shows up I think, in very subtle ways. Also can be in very explicit ways.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapist for Men Lafayette CA: And it’s, also the most damning and the most damaging [00:07:00] of the four. This is what John Gottman and Julie Gottman would target, or they talk about thin slicing, where they looked for one specific thing and they would look at the first five minutes of an argument between couples and they looked at hundreds and thousands of different interactions between couples, and they found that if they saw signs of contempt in one partner towards another, in the first five minutes of a video.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist for Men: There was like a 95% chance that relationship was doomed within the next five years.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women San Francisco CA: So let’s get some real examples and maybe some of our work with clients or what you have seen in your clients of what that might really look and sound like in an everyday argument or everyday experiences.
Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor: So couples who are listening right now might be able to identify maybe perhaps some of the language that it might sound like.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist for Men Lafayette CA: Yeah, I think one of the ones that I look for is something like, I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe you’ve dot. The other one is anytime you’re evoking shame [00:08:00] and, we do this to our kids too, which it I’m not a fan of at all, but you should be ashamed of yourself or you ought to know better.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor for Men Dublin CA: And, part of it’s gonna be tone of voice too, I would argue. Sure. That disdainful tone of voice, the contemptuous tone of voice. What do you have?
Joree Rose, Marriage Expert: Yeah. One of the things that I, one of the things that I’m thinking about there is the challenge when one partner feels like they’re working harder in the relationship than the other, and that might give an implication of, I care more.
Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor: You don’t care as much as I do. You’re not as interested in this as I am. And because that to me gives a one up positioned
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor for Men Dublin CA: The other one that just strikes my fancy. Your
Joree Rose, Relationship Expert: It’s,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: yeah, gets my attention is we talk a lot about the anxious avoidant trap in terms of attachment styles, and we know that the anxious attachment style typically is the one that is doing a lot of reading about self-help books and how to be better in relationship and seeing a counselor.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Counselor for Men: And the avoidant attachment style isn’t generally doing that, and so I think it’s. Slightly easier for [00:09:00] the anxious attachment style to gradually grow contemptuous over time as they see, hey, I’m doing all the work here and you’re not doing shit
Joree Rose, Relationship Expert: because that’s where I’ve jokingly argued that even the skills in an anxious attachment style are not.
Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor: Necessarily skillful, but it can feel on the surface, more relational. I’m working for, you’re not doing anything here. And that’s actually not true. And as we would talk about in that interest avoidant pattern, the avoidant ideally is working really hard to get out of that pattern to be able to turn towards, it just might take longer or look different.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Counselor for Men Near Me Dublin CA: Yeah, no. To what extent do one of the things we talk about is that the lens through which you view your partner. Going from all good to all or mostly bad over time due to the accumulation of those paper cuts, the hurts, the resentments, the annoyances, the late for dinner, that kind of thing. To what extent do you think that has a major impact on contempt developing?
Joree Rose, Relationship Guru: Oh, I think huge. [00:10:00] I, think that those accumulation of paper cut definitely lead to the contemptuous view of one’s partner. And
Dr. John Schinnerer, Counselor for Men Near Me Dublin CA: so how would you combat that?
Joree Rose, Relationship Guru: As one of the things that I’m always trying to teach and practice is through that lens of mindfulness, of present moment, and nothing is ever gonna go good when we use words like always or never.
Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor: And that kitchen sinking, that seeing your lens, think through the lens of all good or all bad, gives no room for small nuances, gives no room to even hear explanations. And I think one of the ways to get out of that is to stay really present and try to observe what are you seeing right now in this moment?
Joree Rose, Marriage Guru: Now the heart of the tender thing, right? And if we feel hurt, we’re gonna perhaps anticipate more hurt, or we’re gonna see through the lens of nothing’s ever gonna change. And I hear that for a lot of clients of, it’s not gonna matter. Nothing’s ever gonna change anyway. Why should I [00:11:00] even bother? And that’s also very real.
Joree Rose, Marriage Guru: So it’s gonna be hard to get out of that view of contempt if there is no effort from the other partner to grow, to learn, to be more aware of their contribution. ’cause everything’s a co-creation, no, nothing is in a silo of one person who’s all good or all bad. And we’re also in a co-creation with our past, with our transgenerational trauma, with our wiring.
Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor: There’s so many fucking layers that go in to all of this. But I think that accumulation of hurts. One of the best ways to say how can I get out of that lens is, let me just look at this moment.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men Near Me Fremont CA: Yeah. And I would, there’s two things that come to my mind. One is being aware of that dynamic that over time due to repeated hurts and being ignored and annoyances, that our perception of our partner does change.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men Near Me Fremont CA: And so we want to speak to that. We wanna have conversations about that with our partner and say, Hey [00:12:00] I’m, Getting the sense that we’re both getting a little bit negative in our perception of one another. How about if we both make a concerted effort to assume positive intent of one another?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men By Me: Again, because we did that at the beginning of the relationship and I think we’ve gotten a little bit away from it. And would you be willing to join me on that? I think that’s always a good idea. The other thing that comes, yeah,
Joree Rose, Wife Whisperer: just mean that last part and you said it quickly, but I wanna highlight it because part of what I think we’re here to teach couples is the language to stay in use.
Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor: Are you willing to join me in that? That was really beautiful language because it’s an invitation. That invitation is inherently not a contempt statement. It’s do what I’m telling you to do because I know better. It’s Can we join in this together?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men Around Me: Yeah. It’s an invitation. It’s
Joree Rose, Marriage Counsellor Near Me: an invitation. So I just wanted to highlight that.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counsellor Near Me: Thank you. Because that was really beautiful
Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Coach for Men Around Me Fremont CA: And the other thing I see, like I was talking to a couple yesterday. And one of the people in the relationship was harboring anger over something that happened over 23 years ago. [00:13:00] That doesn’t serve the relationship at all. And it, I think it’s one of the biggest things that leads to contempt is this holding onto grudges long term.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Coach for Men : Like something bad happened at the beginning of the relationship or a couple years in and we don’t let go of it. And, so to me, learning how to practice forgiveness as a skill is a huge tool that we need to learn and practice on the daily.
Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor: I, I just had this thought of, looking at how these horsemen play together and how many couples do we know who will hold on to resentment either from the wedding or the birth of their first child.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Near Me: Yep. So that accumulation of that long-term grudge. Now here’s where the criticism and the defensiveness comes up that continues to lead to contempt is if, let’s say I’m holding onto something from a birth of my first child. Now we don’t have children, [00:14:00] biological children together. So this is not an example at all about you and I, but I’ve seen this many times.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Near Me: If I were to come to you and say, I can’t believe you, do not respect my boundary when I was giving birth. If the partner says something like, I can’t believe you’re still talking about that’s defense and criticism tied together in that one statement.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist By Me: Which can then lead to that first partner me in this example saying, yep.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist By Me: He’s never gonna be willing to even be open to seeing it, because as soon as I bring up something that I’m trying to let go of, if it’s met with that defensiveness, how often and we used to get stuck in this part. Like really we’re talking about this again. That’s a criticism to my need or desire to want to repair.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor By Me: It’s, I’m fine with it. Why aren’t you? Which actually could also be a contemptuous response.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Coach for Men Walnut Creek CA: Because the implication is you should be fine with it.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy By Me: You should be fine with it. Defensiveness of, we dealt with this. Why are we going back to this again? I don’t wanna deal [00:15:00] with this. And I love what our, therapist, Charlie and Linda Bloom had said if I’m not resolved or complete, we are not complete.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy By Me: And that’s the lens to get out of these first minutes to understand. We are a team, we are ideally in service of wanting our partner to feel good. But that defensiveness, that criticism is, I’m uncomfortable. I don’t want to go there.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Emotion Expert for Men Walnut Creek CA: And the defensiveness is about, I wanna show that I’m right.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Emotion Expert for Men : And I, think it’s a big it, was a big mindset shift for me to realize it’s not about being right in a relationship. It’s about where is my partner emotionally, and how can I best support them in their emotions?
Joree Rose, Relationship Therapy By Me: This idea of continuing to not build resentment requires ongoing work to check in with each other.
Joree Rose, Relationship Therapy By Me: And you and I all the time, I think are, we’re so dedicated to the health of this relationship. [00:16:00] We prioritize emotional safety, security, and we talk quite frequently and open about where are we at, how are we doing, making sure that there’s no those small paper cuts or even big ones from the past coming to the surface.
Joree Rose, Relationship Counseling By Me: And that can be really hard for many couples because the more you go and check in, the more the fear there is of rocking the boat of, oh shit, what if there is a resentment that’s building? Am I capable of talking through that right now, in this moment?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Rerlationship Expert for Men Walnut Creek CA: Yeah. There’s one other facet of contempt that I wanna bring up and I think it one of the things we talk about is.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Expert for Men Near Me: Is this trigger about us right now in the present moment? Is it about a past relationship perhaps, or is it about childhood? And one of the things I’ve seen with couples that we work with is that there’s a wound that happened in a prior relationship. Say someone got cheated on by their husband, right?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Expert for Men Near Me: And so then this woman gets divorced and then gets into a new relationship. [00:17:00] And now I would argue that there is a hurt there which often gets over generalized to. I can’t trust men. Something like that. And then that gets, that bleeds over into how she perceives her current husband. And contempt can start from that as well. And I think that’s something to be aware of. And again, it goes back to have you dealt with your past trauma? Have you dealt with that past? Have you put it to bed? Does it trigger you when it comes up still?
Joree Rose, Relationship Counseling By Me: And depending on the, root and the depth of that trauma I think that times it may always come up again.
Joree Rose, Relationship Counseling Near Me: It’s never but a hundred percent put to rest. I think about some of my wounds that I know stem from my early childhood, that even when you are not activating it, there are times that I can still perceive that wound of mine is present. And that’s hard.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Expert for Men : And we need to have awareness of that internally.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Expert for Men Near Me: That, that’s all about self-awareness, I would argue, [00:18:00]
Joree Rose, Relationship Counseling Near Me for Women: and the freedom to talk about it without defensiveness without the criticism. Anything more you wanna say on contempt?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist Near Me: It’s damaging. Yeah. There’s more. But I, think that’s good for now.
Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist for Women: Yeah. It’s really a damaging communication style, belief system lens to work through.
Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist for Women: And if you’re listening to this and you’re like, oh shit, I do that. Let’s just talk through what someone might be able to do if they recognize they are having contempt for their partner. How can they begin to get out of that?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist By Me: As I said, I think forgiveness is a big first step and, learning how to let go of past hurts, past angers, and settle the waters there emotionally.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist By Me: I think the other thing that just crossed my mind is I could even argue that. Constant lecturing of another person is contemptuous because it’s, I believe I know better than you and you should do, as I say, because I’m smarter than you. [00:19:00] And so it, that’s an interesting one too, just to be aware of how much am I lecturing other people?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist Around Me: How much do I think I know better than others?
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist for Women: Put in that one, that position. Yeah. Yeah. And the last thing I wanna say is with the contempt piece. Is in addition to the awareness, where can we enter into compassion? Compassion for the other, and compassion for self, compassion for the other is what might be going on for this other, for your partner, for the other person in which they are showing up the way they are right now.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist for Women: Can I have some grace around? Maybe if it’s a mood, if it’s an experience that was recently had for sleep, irritability, family death in the family. There’s so many factors and I think grace and compassion. Often go out the window when we are in that contemptuous place.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counseling Near Me: And the contempt isn’t just about the other partner changing their behaviors.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counseling Near Me: It’s about you being open to shifting. How can I see them? And I’ve worked with women who [00:20:00] recognize that they’re having contempt for their partner. We know in research that couples often wait at least six years to get into therapy, and at that point they’re not even open to getting rid of the contempt.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women: They’re looking to just get outta the relationship. And that’s okay too, but it is one of those root markers to really be aware of, yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist Around Me: Alright, so you wanna turn the page and move on to stonewalling.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women: Stonewalling.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Around Me: This is when I really excelled in this is my go-to
Joree Rose, Marriage Counseling Around Me: I fucking hate stonewalling for
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: several years, many years, in fact, most of my life.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And, what would happen for me is stonewalling is basically withdrawing from the conversation unilaterally. So it’s shutting down the conversation. You withdraw from communication. Emotionally, you go away, you could physically go away. But basically, I think for most of us that stonewall, it’s about being flooded emotionally and we can’t deal with it anymore.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Around Me: And so internally the rationalization is, oh I’m just gonna shut down. I’m gonna stop talking because I’m getting angry and I don’t wanna say anything that’s gonna hurt my partner. [00:21:00] So internalize internally it’s well rationalized.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women: Rational. Yeah. And to some degree it could feel loving.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Near Me: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Near Me: And, then I realized, oh shit, like yes, I’m doing that. And simultaneously I’m also stonewalling, which we know is one of the four horsemen. And as soon as I had that realization, I was like, oh shit I gotta address this.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Danville CA: I so appreciate your work around.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Danville CA: I think for the past few years that we’ve been really healing and growing in our relationship to truly be the best partners we can be for each other, given who we knew each other to be.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Around Me: What was so hard for me when you would do that stonewalling, was it activated my deepest core fear and wound, which was abandonment. And this was the crux of our anxious avoidant dance. We would get stuck in that. My need for connection, especially during conflict, was in contrast to your need to self-protect during conflict.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Walnut Creek CA: And no one’s wrong [00:22:00] there, but if it’s consistent, and I think there was a period of time where if I would bring something up, it was quickly met with defensiveness and then stonewalling and therefore I didn’t feel safe. That didn’t bring anything up.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Right.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women San Ramon CA: And there’s no way we can create safety if we can’t be vulnerable.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women San Ramon CA: So to practice getting outta stonewalling, self-regulation comes to mind as one of starting with awareness that we’re doing this right, but self-regulation and the self-coaching of Breathe. I can get through this. I love my partner. It’s just an emotion. It’s just in this moment. I don’t have to leave physically, but maybe I can ask for a few moments of time.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Danville CA: And we do know in the Gottman’s research that taking a break. Is one of the best ways to get through, especially an argument so that we can regulate and come back without these behaviors taking over.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor By Me: Yeah and it’s interesting because we tried that strategy and it didn’t work for us. I got to the point where I could [00:23:00] say, I need a timeout.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: I’ll be back. I just need to calm down, and it didn’t work. And that because my
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women San Ramon CA: anxiety was too high in those moments.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Walnut Creek CA: Yeah. We figured out that it was because not only was it an anxious attachment style you were dealing with, there was also trauma on top of that. And so once I realized that it was an anxious attachment style squared.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Walnut Creek CA: I was like, oh crap. Like I’ve gotta put Jo’s emotions first, at least at times. At times. And I don’t think I had done that before. I think when I was in the midst of an argument or disagreement, my own emotions were so powerful that I would get overwhelmed by my own stuff and couldn’t look out outside myself.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Pleasanton CA: And that self-awareness is really hard when you are flooded.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Pleasanton CA: Part of the, self-awareness practice is to practice these skills when you are not flooded. So you can build the foundation, understand what it means to self-regulate so you can access them. You do begin to get flooded
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And, I think there’s always awareness is the first [00:24:00] step.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Walnut Creek CA: So just being aware of the fact that I do stonewall and then being aware of I’m stonewalling while I’m stonewalling in the mo in the present moment. Oh shit, I’m stonewalling right now. I need to really work on that and address that right now. And so one of the things could be timeout. It could be deep breathing, it could be self-soothing, relax. You’re okay. You’re safe. But the other thing I did to get outta that stonewalling was deal with my own shame, which was coming up in these disagreements. ’cause I realized there was times when I would go to thoughts like I guess I’m just no good in this relationship thing. Or she’d be better off without me, which is shame in the sense of, it was a belief that I was unworthy of love, connection, and belonging.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Danville CA: And so to do that I had to do some internal family systems work with the four or 5-year-old John and get him to let go of that role of protecting us with shame.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Danville CA: And and I’m happy for you to correct me if this is not your experience of me, but [00:25:00] I think for me, I would say one of the strongest ones I would get fucking with this was defensiveness.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Pleasanton CA: And would you agree that?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Danville CA: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Dublin CA: Yeah. I think that’s where, and the hardest part for me of getting stuck in defensiveness, I couldn’t see it. And that’s part of the problem with all of these horsemen and when we’re so in it, we can’t see it. And then to have it pointed out, only magnifies it
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: and gets you get more defensive.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Dublin CA: Right.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Dublin CA: About your defensiveness.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Dublin CA: I, I was certainly ironic defensiveness, and I think for me, what was coming up in my defensiveness. Was such an absolute fear of abandonment, of being told I was too much, and I felt the need to always explain myself without honoring what you were actually feeling.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah, and I think one of the ways I would describe that, or try to describe it to you was it felt to me like your thinking was rigid.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Pleasanton CA: There wasn’t any room to look at this. There wasn’t any room to think differently. That might be another way for you, the listener, [00:26:00] to think about this. Yeah, because I’m a big fan of cognitive flexibility or flexible thinking and it’s a hallmark of mental health and the more rigid we get in our thinking, the more trouble we have in life and in relationship.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Dublin CA: Both got stuck in that. Oh
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Pleasanton CA: yeah. I.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Fremont CA: Our desire to truly break the patterns knowing I don’t wanna not be in this relationship, was worth it for us. And, but it bes an interesting question of what if I’m not convinced my partner is worth it to work on these things?
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Fremont CA: You might as well practice because the next relationship, I guarantee if you don’t have awareness and begin to heal these patterns, it’s gonna repeat.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Dublin CA: I, love what Julie Manano who on Instagram is the secure relationship, and her book recently came out in the past year, secure Love. She talks about identifying the pattern as the enemy versus the partner as the [00:27:00] enemy. And I think that is a really, key way to go. And breaking out of these for formen to identify with neutral language, something along the line of, oh, look, here’s that pattern again.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Pleasanton CA: Because if we need if we say that, there you go again, that’s gonna lead to defensiveness that comes from place of contemp. We gotta be really, mindful of the language in which we’re naming it. So I invite you to have you and your partner think of some neutral language that might begin to identify, oh look, there we are.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And the other two games in her book that I really appreciate, one is, who’s right? Are we playing the game? Who’s right? Which is pretty much inevitable if you’re in an argument, you’re trying to prove, I’m trying to prove I’m right and you’re wrong, which gets us nowhere. And the other one is who’s hurting more?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor San Ramon CA: And we mentioned this earlier, but I really that idea of we’re both in an argument trying to desperately to prove that I am hurting more. And therefore you should say you’re sorry first. [00:28:00] And if we can switch that lens to compassion to, oh. My partner’s hurting a lot right now too. Can I just listen to how she’s feeling?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor San Ramon CA: Can I be curious about how they’re doing? That’s a great way to go.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Walnut Creek CA: One of our favorite questions that we ask each other whenever stuff like this comes up is, how can I best support you right now? And that is a beautiful non-defensive response. It says, I hear you. I see you. I acknowledge you. And part of the challenge I see couples getting stuck in is when these things come up, is they don’t actually know what to do in that moment.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Walnut Creek CA: And they fumble and then they default to the old pattern, and then they’re back in the spiral of reactivity again. And now it’s we’re, never gonna get out of this. But what we’re, looking for ways to interrupt it in the moment so we can get a little bit more regulated. Then we can come back to point of connection.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Walnut Creek CA: And if you don’t know what to say, you know what, Lev, I’m not really sure what to say right now. That’s like a great response. That’s non-defensive. It’s authentic. That is [00:29:00] compassionate, that’s aware of, I’m trying to help, I’m trying to support, I don’t even know what that looks like. What is it that you might need right now?
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Pleasanton CA: And then be willing to step towards your partner and what they need. But if we have too much contempt, we’re gonna be like, fuck you. I’m messed up towards you.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: Yeah. That’s what
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Alamo CA: that’s gonna sound like.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Orinda CA: So those are the four horsemen of the apocalypse to be keenly aware of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapist: And if you have any one of those, I would put it at the top of the list as the issue to work on to improve your relationship.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Walnut Creek CA: And we will continue to have more episodes and talk about the how, because it all starts with the awareness. But the, execution is not always easy, and if you’re wanting to learn more in the how, one of the best tools that John and I have, aside from our individual work that we do with couples is our year long masterclass series.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Walnut Creek CA: This is where we’ve addressed 12 key areas that we see most causing disconnection. [00:30:00] And an inability to really feel safe and secure in their relationship. So you can go to the link in the show notes, check out the masterclass series. Even if you wanna sign up for just one that seems to spark your fancy or sign up for the whole year, no matter what point of the year you sign up, you get all the backlog of the classes for lifetime access.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Pleasant Hill CA: And
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Oakland CA: that is it for this episode of Love Isn’t Enough. Thank you so much for your time and attention and growth mindset as far as your relationship goes.
Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor for Women Pleasant Hill CA: And if this resonated. Please, we would be so, grateful If you were to give this episode a rating, a review, or share it with someone who you think might need to hear it today.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselor Oakland CA: That would be awesome.
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Lafayette CA: Thank you guys so much.