Negative Patterns in a Marriage that Lead to Divorce

This is something that I read in the site by Anderson Cooper and I want to share it with you. Although divorce is not common in the Philippines and there is a greater percentage of people who would rather stick it out with their spouses till the end, these four negative patterns contribute to unhappy and unproductive marriages.

Read through this list and ask yourself if any one or all of these patterns are present in your fights within your marriage. Then please, do something about these so that you will not end up as another divorce or broken family statistic.

1. Criticism. There are positive and negative criticisms. I think that we should always bear in mind to give criticisms that could affect positive changes on our spouses. But this should be done in a loving manner–never demeaning. And it should also be done in private because spouses are usually shamed when the criticism is done in public.

2. Contempt. Respect is necessary to fuel the marriage. And contempt is just the opposite. Build love and respect towards each other.

3. Defensiveness. I, too, am guilty of this. I can be very defensive with Dennis. But this should not be the case. Our spouses should be our allies, not our enemies.

4. Silent treatment, which is also known as stonewalling. I have the tendency to stone wall but this is really to calm myself down or to avoid a big argument that could lead to ugly exchanges. But most of the time, stonewalling just makes things worse because the anger of the other party just escalates.

This list is according to Dr. John Gottman, a famous researcher on marriages. Let us check our marriages if any or one of these negative patterns are present in our fights. And let us always remember that our spouse is our ally and friend.

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