The Four Horsemen in Marriage

This weeks reading in my marriage class was really interesting to me. I could actually relate to some of it. I found Gottman’s (2015) Four Horsemen – criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling - especially intriguing and helpful. My husband and I go through the Four Horsemen on occasion. It happens only about once in a blue moon when we’ve been pent-up about something but it does happen. My husband and I will end up going through the four stages where in the end we’re both stonewalling. For different reasons though. He does it because he wants to end a conversation that he feels is going nowhere and doesn’t want to fight. I stonewall because I am afraid of making him upset and I feel like there’s no point in continuing since he doesn’t seem to understand how I’m feeling. However, we made a promise that we would never go to bed angry with each other. So we manage to peacefully talk it out right before we go to sleep. We’re usually always laughing by the end of it. Doing that has really helped our relationship. Doing what Gottman said and not letting the Four Horsemen permanently stay. 

In Goddard’s (2007) book, I really like how he used the story of the Good Samaritan and how it so easily can be applied to marriages. As the Good Samaritan, we need to be prepared for and seek opportunities that become available to us to serve our spouse. When we have the same mindset as the Samaritan, then we are less likely to focus on the negative aspects of marriage. We look for those opportunities to help strengthen our marriage and focus on the positive aspects. By focusing on the positive aspects, it helps us prevent from focusing on the few negative things and from dwelling on them that in turn, ends up destroying the marriage. If we truly love our spouse, then we will do whatever it takes to make sure that we don’t lose that person.