Why Marriages Do Not Work

Originally contributed by Nick Perri.

The question of why marriages fail has occupied psychologists, sociologists, theologians, and divorce lawyers for as long as marriage has existed. What half a century of research suggests is that the reasons are more predictable — and more preventable — than most people realize when they are in the middle of a failing relationship.

The short answer: Psychologist John Gottman's research identified four communication patterns — contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling — that predict divorce. But beneath the communication breakdowns, most failing marriages share a deeper problem: incompatible values and life visions that were never made explicit.

What are Gottman's "Four Horsemen"?

Through longitudinal research on married couples, Gottman identified four patterns that predict divorce with unusual accuracy:

• Contempt — treating a partner as inferior or beneath consideration
• Criticism — attacking character rather than behavior
• Defensiveness — refusing to accept any responsibility
• Stonewalling — withdrawing emotionally from conflict

Of the four, Gottman found contempt the single most corrosive — and the most predictive of eventual dissolution. Contempt communicates a fundamental disrespect that erodes the emotional safety on which intimate partnership depends.

Is bad communication the real cause?

The mechanics of communication are downstream of something more fundamental: whether two people share compatible values and life visions, and whether they have made those values explicit rather than assumed. Many marriages fail not because the people involved don't love each other, but because they have fundamentally different ideas about how life should be lived — ideas they never fully articulated before committing.

Who is most at risk?

Research on the timing of marriages finds that couples who marry very young, who have not developed stable individual identities, or who are marrying to escape unhappy circumstances rather than toward a positive future together, divorce at significantly higher rates.

What's the uncomfortable implication?

That many divorces are predictable from the wedding day — which suggests that what is most needed is not better divorce law or better couples therapy, but better preparation before commitment.

Frequently asked questions

Can a marriage recover once contempt sets in? It is the hardest of the four patterns to reverse, because contempt reflects a settled negative story about the partner. Recovery requires rebuilding respect first — which is why Gottman treats it as the reddest of flags.

Does this apply to non-marital relationships too? The research studied married couples, but the four patterns corrode any intimate partnership — contempt doesn't check your marital status.