Marriage psychiatrist John Gottman is renowned for coming up with a theory of the "Four Horsemen" (Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley, Layden) of marriage, specifically four behaviors of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Evidently he's got statistical evidence that these behaviors predict marital failure better than anything else.
For a long time, I resisted this, because in my mind, it was more important about the "why" people might engage in criticism, contempt, and the like. Wasn't it important if someone was assaulting their spouse, or cheating on them, and the like?
Well, I don't change my opinion that the provocation matters, but upon looking at Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley, and Layden Gottman's definitions for criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, what I notice is that Gottman defines these behaviors as a rule in terms of attacking the person instead of addressing the behavior.
Or, in a nutshell, what he's done is to formulate family breakdown in terms, so to speak, of genetic fallacies in general and the ad hominem fallacy in particular. If you're willing to routinely attack your partner, more or less, don't be surprised when the relationship doesn't work out. And if you want to preserve relationships--marital or otherwise--it'll help a lot if you're addressing behaviors, not attacking a person.
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