The Vallottons have delved into the intricate dynamics of relationships, pondering the reasons behind the fading spark and the drifting apart of once inseparable couples. They peel back the curtain on common relationship woes, attributing them to the subtle erosion of connection and communication. In a heartfelt discussion that is both intimate and informative, the Vallottons not only share their personal journey but also impart insights gained from the trenches of love and war.
Central to their conversation is the concept of the 'Four Horsemen,' a term coined by the Gottman Institute, and for good reason. The Vallottons emphasize that behaviors like criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling can sabotage even the strongest bonds if left unchecked. Their exploration goes beyond identification, tackling these relationship adversaries head-on by providing relatable scenarios and actionable advice. The focus is on taking ownership of communication patterns and transforming them into supportive, nurturing exchanges that strengthen relationships against inevitable storms.
The Vallottons then hone in on the silent but deadly practice of stonewalling and its corrosive effects on partnerships. They guide listeners through the fine line between needing space and building walls, offering strategies for breaking negative cycles and creating a blueprint for conflict resolution. The goal is to empower listeners to turn squabbles into opportunities for growth. Whether navigating the complexities of marriage or seeking to deepen connections, this episode serves as an invaluable resource for fostering healthier, more resilient relationships.
The Vallottons have delved into the intricate dynamics of relationships, pondering the reasons behind the fading spark and the drifting apart of once inseparable couples. They peel back the curtain on common relationship woes, attributing them to the subtle erosion of connection and communication. In a heartfelt discussion that is both intimate and informative, the Vallottons not only share their personal journey but also impart insights gained from the trenches of love and war.
Central to their conversation is the concept of the 'Four Horsemen,' a term coined by the Gottman Institute, and for good reason. The Vallottons emphasize that behaviors like criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling can sabotage even the strongest bonds if left unchecked. Their exploration goes beyond identification, tackling these relationship adversaries head-on by providing relatable scenarios and actionable advice. The focus is on taking ownership of communication patterns and transforming them into supportive, nurturing exchanges that strengthen relationships against inevitable storms.
The Vallottons then hone in on the silent but deadly practice of stonewalling and its corrosive effects on partnerships. They guide listeners through the fine line between needing space and building walls, offering strategies for breaking negative cycles and creating a blueprint for conflict resolution. The goal is to empower listeners to turn squabbles into opportunities for growth. Whether navigating the complexities of marriage or seeking to deepen connections, this episode serves as an invaluable resource for fostering healthier, more resilient relationships.
We're the Valentines and we are passionate about people.
Speaker 1:
Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.
Speaker 2:
But that's not always what comes easiest.
Speaker 1:
We know this because of our wide range of personal experience, as well as our years of working with people.
Speaker 2:
So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Speaker 1:
All right, babe, here we are back again.
Speaker 2:
Welcome back to Dates, mates and Babies with the Valentines everybody. We are here on a Wednesday morning to talk about some really important concepts. It's just going to be a shorter podcast today, just Jay and I, and actually we're going to talk about a topic that we're both really passionate about, which is healthy communication and conflict resolution in the context of fostering healthy connections.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I'm excited. I saw this quote the other day and I thought I mean, I just thought it was awesome and really true, and so I just wanted to start here and then we're going to dive into it a bit. But the quote is relationships don't fail because people fall out of love. They fail because of a loss of connection. And we know that that's true. Right, like the world would have this idea and people would say I don't know, our marriage just ended or relationship ended because you know we just fell out of love or we just grew apart.
Speaker 1:
And the truth is like you don't fall into love and you don't fall out of love. You get to a place in your relationship where you get hurt over and over again or it's not working because you're never connected. And when you're living in a relationship full of disconnection, you know everything else seems better, the grass seems greener, and it's not easy to foster deep connection with somebody. Over the years. It's really easy to get into a relationship and let the hard things of life erode and tear down your connection, especially without knowing that man. Our connection is slowly deteriorating, and so I do. I think that. I think that how we engage in conflict, how we engage in communication, how we handle the tough things of life matters so much that if we, if I think, if people understood that, yeah, this concept, that they could take a look at their life and really evaluate like, how are we doing inside of conflict and so yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:
I think that we say all the time that communication is the lifeblood of connection, and communication skills are skills that a lot of people have to work really hard at sharpening over the years as you become an adult, because most people weren't actually taught really healthy, helpful communication styles when they were young. You just kind of do what you saw your parents do, or you do what gets you the results that you need, and when you're young and you're not actually consciously aiming yourself at building connection in your relationships, you're actually most concerned about yourself in an appropriate way, like when you're really young, you're concerned most about yourself, so you'll communicate, however you need to communicate to get what you need, and then when you get older, you realize, oh wow, those mechanisms either did or didn't work for me in regards to actually building connection inside my relationships, whether it's friendship or relationships with family members, or maybe you're in a dating relationship, or maybe you're married and you're discovering like okay, there's a breakdown here, like something's not working. We know that communication is the lifeblood of your connection. So I think we want to strip away some of the mystery around why relationships fail, whether it's like a dating relationship or a marriage, or even I'm thinking of even parent-child relationships, like adults who have strained relationships with parents because there's so much conflict and they're not speaking the same language when it comes to communication or nobody ever feels really understood or valued. And so I think there's some mystery sometimes around, like why relationships suffer inside of communication and conflict.
Speaker 2:
But, like Jay said at the beginning, I think people don't just fall out of love. Over time your connection wears down. So if we want to talk about how to proactively like bolster up connection so that you don't just find yourself mysteriously quote fallen out of love down the road or in those kinds of relationships that just feel impossible, then there's a lot of things we can aim ourselves at, a lot of tools we can aim ourselves at sharpening that really make connection possible, even inside of conflict, because we know that conflict is just a part of two people trying to have a meaningful connection. It's going to happen, and so along those lines, what we're going to talk about today actually it kind of feels it might seem like a like anti what we're trying to go after here, cause what we're saying is you have to be able to build connection inside of of communication and even inside of conflict in order to do.
Speaker 2:
Well, what we're going to talk about today is some of the behavior that people engage in inside of conflict that does the opposite, actually breaks down connection. Um, because we know that conflict itself like we always say, conflict itself isn't what destroys a relationship. It's actually your behavior inside the conflict. So today, you guys, we're actually going to talk about something. It's not our concept. Um, I'll let you explain the Gottman Institute, babe. But basically, dr John Gottman is the one who we got this content from and he talks about four specific types of behavior inside of conflict that destroy connection. So we'll tell you a little bit about him and what he does. We've mentioned him before on the podcast, but, babe, do you want to kind of explain the Gottman Institute?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean the Gottman Institute is. They're pretty incredible. They're like the foremost you know, uh researchers.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Researchers on marriage and relationships and so they spent so much time building out this what they call a love lab. Um, uh, you know, like 30 years ago, 20, 25, 30 years ago, what they did was they put couples in a um lab uh laboratory that basically looked like um, like a home environment, but they have a monitor, and so they watch them, connect, they watch them argue, they watch them, just do normal life, and from there they were able to actually begin to determine what things really break relationship, what things really build. And his kind of famous thing is that he can predict divorce with like 90% accuracy after three minutes of watching couples uh, connect and and argue and fight and what they do. And so the four horsemen is is basically, he basically says the four horsemen are what, what he predicts divorce based upon.
Speaker 2:
And so the behavior inside of conflict that he uses to predict the viability of a marriage.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so he's, he's basically going like, hey, if, if, yeah, the the better you are at eradicating these poor behaviors, the more connected, uh, the healthier, the happier life you have. And so we, we just find it so helpful to talk through and really pinpoint, like, what are those behaviors that are eroding relationship? Because you have to take ownership for them, Because, honestly, there are a lot of bad habits, just a bunch of really bad habits that people bring in from you know, growing up in a home where this was happening a lot or whatever. And so being able to to just dive in and and take a look at what do I do when I'm in conflict, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Do you want to start with the first one, babe?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Um, this list of four is is kind of like the what not to do in conflict. It's a list and the first one's criticism. Can I? I'm just going to list them all off and then we can go back.
Speaker 2:
So they're criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. And you know if we're teaching this, if we're teaching on conflict to premarried couples or even couples that have been married for a short time, um, or couples who are dating like these. If these are showing up early on in your relationship, holy smokes, red flag like stop, stop right now stop the bus.
Speaker 2:
You've got some serious like reevaluation to do, because if you're in a relationship where there's loads of criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling at the very beginning like eject, um, you know, of course, dating your marriage, if this is family or whatever, then again like huge red flags, you're not going to get very far.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
So most of these uh, really bad habits would show up over time Like this it would take time to get to a place where we're so bad at engaging in good resolution when it comes to conflict that these are. It's like we're grasping for any attempt at feeling powerful in our conflict with each other. We're like we're we've gotten so far down the road of bad communication skills that we're at this place of criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling, um, but as we kind of describe what each of these look like, you might find yourself like, wow, in a certain mood. I actually do do that thing, yeah, even though I would say even for you and I, babe, like I feel like we have pretty good communication and conflict resolution skills in marriage. On a bad day, I can totally slip into criticism, yeah, and, and I rely on you to be like whoa, that feels really critical, let's back up the train and try that again, cause that's actually not our standard. Yeah, um. So anyways, again, that that's just more context.
Speaker 2:
But again, the first one would be criticism. So criticism, um the Gottman Institute would define as, or Webster's dictionary would define as like dealing with problems through harsh blaming or hurtful expressions of judgment or dis disapproval. So inside of that kind of communication the focus is on person, like perceived personal flaws in the other person, rather than changeable behaviors. And um, an example of this would be like you know, jason comes in the door from work, wears his muddy boots into my kitchen, our kitchen, but the critical person calls it my kitchen, you know um, jason wears his muddy boots into my kitchen and I go oh, wow, okay, mud all over your boots.
Speaker 2:
You are such a slob like thanks a lot for bringing your muddy boots into the house. You always do that. That's just such like it's just loaded with criticism judgment.
Speaker 1:
We're going to be fighting, yeah.
Speaker 2:
We are not going to be okay if I say something like that when he walks through the door. But if we're honest, you know, especially over years of poor communication habits and not feeling heard from one another, feeling, uh, believing that the communication in your marriage will go nowhere, you resort to things like being super critical, attacking your partner's character, instead of focusing on the behavior or the feelings involved.
Speaker 1:
Shaming them.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, ouch.
Speaker 1:
Okay, the next one defensiveness.
Speaker 2:
So, and I'll say like yeah criticism is also is often met with defensiveness. Oh yeah, so like if I come at you with loads of criticism, it wouldn't be uncommon to find yourself then also engaging in the second of the four horsemen, which would be defensiveness.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, um, and really all of them.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Um so, defensiveness, right, deflecting responsibility for your own mistakes and behaviors, or refusing to accept feedback? Um, which is going to be like making excuses, uh, for your behavior, or shifting blame? To your partner, you know so. Defensiveness, it like completely um takes you, it takes away all personal responsibility. And when somebody begins to get defensive, it's like there's no resolve, there's there's no ownership, there's no ability to to reconcile, because well, how do you reconcile when there is no actual ownership?
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And so defensiveness. Defensiveness can sound like this isn't my fault. You know um. Whatever, you're the one that yelled at me first, or?
Speaker 2:
um, anytime you go, you're the one that it's.
Speaker 1:
Just you know you're late, not me, right. Like it's not my fault, I yelled You're the. You're the one that that started blaming me in, and you know you're the cause of my anger or you're the cause of of my pain.
Speaker 2:
Ultimately it feels pretty victim. Often defensiveness can feel really victim Me or um yeah, like you're trying to put blame back on the other person for whatever you did.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and it's really helpful to think through, like okay, when you get into, as we're reading these, like how do you engage in conflict? And think through too, not just your spouse, but it's also really helpful, like with your boss or even your kids. Like we've talked about this a lot. A lot of these show up with our kids way more than they even do with our spouse.
Speaker 2:
They do for me big time and we were actually teaching this the other day in our marriage intensive and or we were talking about conflict and, um, I actually said you know, jason and I we have relatively good communication skills and conflict resolution skills. We do a good job. We're very different, we've had to bridge a lot of gaps between each other, but we've gotten to a place where I I believe about our marriage that communication is a strength and one of the one of the ways you know you believe that communication is a strong suit for you, in whatever relationship you're in, is you feel powerful. In that relationship. Conversely, like in any relationship where you find yourself feeling really powerless, chances are you don't believe a lot of healthy identity statements about that relationship. And I noticed for myself Jay and I are way past the four horsemen in marriage most of the time, but where I saw myself grabbing for these really poor, really immature communication tactics was in my relationships with our older kids when they were teenagers and I.
Speaker 2:
And the reason is is because if you've ever raised teenagers or, lordy, been around a teenager before, you know that you can tend to feel, feel powerless sometimes in those relationships.
Speaker 2:
Like it's interesting having a child who is maturing and growing up and trying to become their own independent person, but you're the parent in the house and you still have needs and you're trying to raise this kid, although they are, you know, maybe they're even 18 years old and adult on paper, but you've still, you know, you're still in my house and we're still working this out together. Well, I discovered that that I could. I tend to feel really powerless sometimes in that dynamic and I noticed as we were learning about the four horsemen, initially whoa, especially the third one, which is contempt. I started feeling contempt in my communication with a couple of our kids at different times and I'd watch myself slip into this, like really these bad habits. So contempt is kind of expressing your disdain or your disapproval through like sarcasm or cynicism, the rolling of the eyes, like I will tell you I can remember that was mine I can remember being you know whatever.
Speaker 2:
It was probably over one of the boys cleaning their room or gosh. They've forgotten after the fifth time of me reminding them like you were supposed to take the trash out, or something like that, and I found I would find myself feeling so powerless in my communication that I would resort to this contempt like this. Well, of course, the eye rolls and the it's like it's criticism on steroids. It's like I'm feeling so critical of this person right now that I'm actually showing it trying to show it.
Speaker 2:
I feel so powerless to change them or to get my needs met through my communication that now I'm just going to like be sarcastic, roll my eyes. It's basically like a big fat disapproval message. Yeah, and it's bad tactic.
Speaker 1:
It is.
Speaker 2:
And it does not foster connection. So I had to really catch myself and get better at. Okay, we are not. You know, when it gets bad, like you're resorting to put downs and insults, you're acting superior to your partner or whoever you're in this relationship with. Maybe you're finding yourself like using mocking or a sarcastic tones. Those are just. That is a bad plan and Gottman would say it's the single greatest predictor of divorce. When you get to the spot in your marriage where you're contempt you're contempt for one another shows up, oof, like you're really pretty far down the road of of breakdown and it's not to say you can't repair right. There's absolutely repair possible. But you got to watch it when you start be engaging in those behaviors, cause it's really like poison to connection.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2:
Okay, the fourth one, babe.
Speaker 1:
Fourth one is stonewalling, which this would be my go to uh, because it feels, um, you feel more, more powerful without you feel like you're doing something that is acceptable. But basically stonewalling is emotionally withdrawing, shutting down or going silent during important discussions or whatever, or, uh, during during the actual conversation. Um, it's a response to feeling overwhelmed in right or hurt, right. So what would happen is we would get into conflict, I would get my feelings hurt and then I would just boom, you can't touch me anymore.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'm not going silent.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I'm going silent and I'm going to withdraw and I'm going to punish you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I was going to say it feels like punishment to the other person.
Speaker 1:
But it can appear as a boundary right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
But really, really, what's happening is I'm, I'm going inside of myself, and so you know the. The challenge with stonewalling obviously is it's just leads to a whole bunch of unresolved pain and unresolved conversations and I'm no longer in the conversation, I'm, I've left, I'm, I'm emotionally absent for you and so ends up in just a ton of disconnection and pain.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, interestingly, even as I'm looking at them now, I feel like the person who's prone to criticism might also be prone to contempt while the person prone to being defensive could also be prone to stonewalling.
Speaker 1:
Those seem to go hand to hand a little bit Um.
Speaker 2:
and then also we've talked before about how generally men are more prone to stonewalling, and I think that that has to do with, just naturally, the way that we're created.
Speaker 2:
Women have a tendency to use more words to flood to flood whoever they're in a communication or conflict with with just a lot of words, and men just have a lower tolerance generally for that kind of flooding feeling. So to stonewall and to shut down and to tune out and to disappear. It's not that women don't use that tactic, but I would say even in relationships that I know like I most of the relationships that I know that would be the dynamic in a marriage especially.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, 100% for sure. Um, so you know, like, obviously, if we're going over these and you're like, holy smokes, we have these, like you have to first break that agreement. Right, you have to go. You have to go back to I'm using this as a tool to try to get my need met and I'm no longer going to use it. I'm going to call myself out and reset the standard. We talk a lot about that and our marriage intensive and like actually going back and resetting the standard in your marriage, which means to take ownership. It means to make amends, apologize, recognize when you use it and make a better plan. Like actually make a really good plan and practice that plan Right, so that when you're in the middle of conflict and you starting to feel yourself whatever, getting upset, getting frustrated, that you'd resort back to okay, how do I want this to end? How do I want them to feel?
Speaker 1:
Where do I want our relationship to go, and you're able to thoughtfully, consciously, navigate your way through conflict and build connection, because we know that our conflicts should lead to connection, should lead to closeness, and so I really do. I think if people worked hard at recognizing and pinpointing and repenting from their bad behaviors inside a conflict man, we're all going to go through hard things.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
You know, we just got some bad news today. It's, it's, it's a frustration, right Like yeah. Oh, everyone, everyone, at certain points of life, are going to go through things that are challenging.
Speaker 2:
Yep.
Speaker 1:
How we navigate those challenges really decides whether we're connected or disconnected. Right, and trying to go through marriage and solve hard problems disconnected is so painful. Right, it's impossible. And so, yeah, I think being a steward of your relationship means taking ownership for these, these areas of your life.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 1:
You got anything else, babe.
Speaker 2:
No, I think that's going to wrap it up for today. I think this is just such an important topic that we'll probably circle back. I mean, you know we talk about different sorts of communication skills, things pertaining to healthy communication, often, but this feels like one of those. That's just. You know, pay attention, even if you're in a dating relationship, or you know you're early on in a relationship and you're kind of asking those really appropriate questions for whatever stage of the relationship you're in, you're wondering like how good are we at navigating hard things? That's one of the main reasons why we always say like you really shouldn't even consider marriage until you've gotten into some sort of kerfuffle with each other, because actually no.
Speaker 2:
I know, thank you. Knowing how your partner chooses to navigate stress or tension or conflict in a relationship is a really big deal, and you want to start asking yourself the questions like hmm, yeah, when, when I am hurt, do I jump straight to criticism or contempt, or do I actually have grace for my partner? When I do confront them, even in a healthy way, am I met with defensiveness, and do I do I tend to feel him or her retreat Like? These are just great questions. So there's a sliding scale here of where these four horsemen show up inside of conflict, and it is a great.
Speaker 2:
It's a great thing to become really self aware about and to figure out like what are my go to behaviors when the stakes feel high, when emotions are high, when stress is high, when the stakes feel high, what are my go to tactics? It's just a really good idea to become self aware of your tendencies.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's great. All right y'all? Well, hopefully you enjoyed this episode, Like always. If you leave us a comment, like and share it. That is so helpful. Otherwise, have an awesome time this week. We will see you next week.