The Four Behaviours That Damage Relationships

In this episode I explore the deeper nature of relationship and the patterns that can quietly erode connection over time.

We are always in relationship, all the time - with others, with ourselves, and with life itself, and the quality of our relationships is deeply connected to the relationship we have within ourselves.

Relationship can act as a mirror, reflecting back aspects of ourselves we may not otherwise see, and in intimate relationships, this reflection becomes even clearer,  sometimes revealing patterns, expectations, and unconscious behaviours that can create tension and disconnection.

In this episode, I share one of the most practical and transformative insights in relationship work - the four behaviours identified by John Gottman that can damage connection if left unexamined.

These are - Criticism Defensiveness Contempt and Stonewalling

Through reflection and real-life insight, I explore how these patterns show up, why they arise, and how awareness of them can begin to transform the way we relate.

Because ultimately, the most powerful shift we can make in any relationship is not trying to change the other person,  but becoming aware of what we bring into the space between us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Bodhisattva Conversations. My name is Julia Carly, and this podcast explores the practice of being so that we can live with greater presence, awareness, and freedom and experience the truth of who we are. Today I'm going to talk about relationship because essentially my work with people is all about relationship. It always has and always is, whether it's relationship with others, relationship with ourselves, because really we're always, always, always in relationship. We're in relationship with one another, but we're in relationship with everything that is. And we can't not be in relationship. If I've often said this, but if consciousness is like the ocean, then we're like the waves. We're individual expressions of something much, much larger. But we are all one, we are all connected, and that's something that's so vital to remember all the time in relationship that we are all part of each other, we're all connected to each other, we are all affected by each other's actions and each other's thoughts, and therefore the better our relationship with ourselves, the difference that makes to our relationships with others. And also, I was brought up as a Christian, and certain teachings of Jesus have completely and utterly always stayed with me. I'm I'm not in the I'm not a practicing Christian as such now. I I move from organized religion, but I recognize that all the religions, all the teachings, all essentially come back to the same thing, which is love others as yourself. And that was something that was I resonated with me right from when I was going to church as a little girl. And what we do to another, we do to ourselves, and that really, really struck me from way back. And as I said, I think that all essentially the core of all religions is that that it's all within us. Love is all there is, and all that is we all want. In terms of relationship, I think everybody wants to be loved and accepted and connect with each other, and that's central to our humanity. And I've always, always personally always been curious about relationships. So I recognized those teachings when I was young, but I was always someone who was interested in relationships, always falling in love with people and interested in reading about Write for him when I when I could learn to read. And when I was reading books, I was fascinated. And I remember our English teachers, one English teacher particularly, um, I can't remember her name. You know how you often do remember the names of teachers, and this one I can see her, but she said, you know, we learn about people when we read, we learn about people by what other people say about them, but by what we think about them, but by what they say about themselves. And I was always curious, always interested. And I remember my mum describing me as nosy because we had a neighbour and she was writing her memoirs, her kind of life story, and there were longhand written pages at home because she was a friend of my mother's and she was you know sharing what she'd written. I was fascinated. I was must have been 10 or 11, fascinated, reading all these things I didn't know anything about, like menopause. I didn't know what that was, but I can remember that word. I can remember at 10 the um the lady who was writing her memoirs, writing about it and writing the challenges of it and all of the things, and I didn't know what that even was, obviously. Not obviously, but I didn't. Um anyway, I was curious, nosy slash, and when when I went and trained as a um therapist, uh you know, in the beginning first session, I remember the tutor saying, Um, have any of you been described as nosy? And I think all 12 of us put our hands up, and she says, Well, it's curiosity. So I've always been curious, curious slash nosy, and fascinated and interested. And I've I've had a lot, I've been in relationships, lots of lots and lots of relationships my whole life. Um, I've had lots of intimate relationships, I've had all sorts of experience, and I've learned my own lessons. I remember years ago in my 30s, I was in a very a relationship I was finding very difficult, and I, my supervisor at the time, um, all our supervision sessions on my work with clients, I spent investigating my own relationship. And she said to me, Are you sure you want to spend your time on your own relationship? Don't you want to talk about your relationships with you know what's going on with your clients? And I said, if I can't work out my own life, how can I help anyone else? And so I was very aware that it was important that I worked myself out and I worked out what was going on, and that I was the common denominator in all these relationships, and that I needed to investigate me to be able to work in the lives of others and to be a very clean mirror for them to see what was going on, and to yeah, essentially work out what was going on within me. So, really, my my whole life has been an exploration of relationship. And actually, later on, that was in my 30s when I was um working with my supervisor, and then in my 40s, late 40s, I remember one of my clients describing me as the Victorian explorer of relationship. And he said, Why wouldn't we come to Julia for help? She's the Victorian explorer of relationship. So I think the most important thing I've learned is that the relationship we have with others is deeply, deeply connected to the relationship we have with ourselves. And I can remember another time going to my main supervisor, um Roz, um, and I was going to go with a uh the a man I was in a relationship with, and in the end he didn't want to come. And I went and she said to me, Well, of course, really, relationships about you, whatever's going on in your relationship with the other, we can work on you because it's all to do with you, and it's everything's to do with you. And if we go from that perspective, we recognize that we can discover ourselves through the mirror of others. It is a it is a mirror, everything is reflected back at us, and if we like it, that's great. If we don't like it, that's also great because we can do something about it. Relationship is a mirror for us to learn and grow and clear stuff within us and understand stuff, and of course, intimacy is you know a magnifying glass, we see things much more, which is um you know, everyday relationships are reflecting us all the time. And if we all the time recognize that if we are the word triggered's used quite a lot now, um, but if we are reactive, we're triggered, if something somebody annoys us, irritates us, upsets us, um delights us, everything is a reflection of something to do with us, and intimate relationships do tend to amplify everything because when two people come together, there's often such hope and there's so much love and there's so much possibility, but it often doesn't take an awful lot of time before subtle power struggles can arise, or really big power struggles, some great impasses can happen. I've worked in relationship with other, you know, couple relationship, friend friends finding it difficult, um, managers, CEOs, or corporately, just any relationships, mothers and children, fathers and children, and all all sorts, different types of relating. And really, the things that the power struggles come is about, you know, projected expectations onto another or unmet needs, unconscious patterns that are playing out because people go into relationship not really recognising that there is a need for understanding and awareness and knowing ourselves and what we're bringing and our unresolved wounds, all these things. Um I remember when I was first when I was 23 and I was in my first marriage, and I I had an eating disorder at the time, and I did say I did have the awareness because as I say, I've always been um trying to work it all out, and I do remember saying to my to be husband when he found out about my eating disorder, because I'd kind of kept it kept it under wraps for a while, and um anyway, it came out of the shadows, fortunately, really. But I did say to him, Look, if I can't work this out, I don't expect you to have to be with me if I'm this unresolved. I've got to I've got to work this out, and I remember saying that to him early on. But you know, we can bring unresolved childhood wounds and challenges and all the things, and in many ways, um, bringing two people together is is like bringing two tribes together with all different tribal customs, and that can really, really cause problems in relationship because you know, one tribe might have got up in the morning, and the kind of tribal rule of that family was everybody made their beds once they leapt out of bed, and that was fine. Whereas the other tribe might go, Oh, we all get up, we have showers, we have some breakfast, then we go up and make our beds, and even things as simple and small as that can create conflict because people don't work out that they've got to make up their own new family rules together. So that again power struggles can happen. Also, very common is that each person would like the other to change. If that person would change, then everything would be okay. If they would do it the way I do it, all those things. I've I've heard that so often that people just want the other to change. And in reality, we can only change ourselves. That that doesn't mean that we won't be able to have conscious um intentional dialogue, conscious conversations about you know aspects we'd like someone to do differently. I'm not saying there isn't a whole space, well, the space between us where we can work things out, but that's a different thing to projecting that we want somebody to change. But if we know that we can change ourselves, so we can respond differently. So, say something our partner or our friend or anybody or colleague or somebody does really, really we do irritates us, triggers us. We can change our response to it, and when we do that, something really, really can shift when we know that we can make we can be the change, we can yeah, um, be the change you want to see. I mean, that is it is the truth. These things that are said are the truth, but of course, the work to do them is yeah, it's a commitment, and but if we begin to respond differently, if we decide we're the ones that can change, transformation can happen within the relationship or conscious separation without conflict, where there's a there's not a battleground or a power struggle between two people, there's space to properly investigate, and this can be done with awareness, and so really it is about awareness, it's always about awareness and knowing what we're putting into the space. And I say this often. Um, also, I have shared this before, but it can't really be shared too much. I think the amazing work of John Gottman. John Gottman is um he's a relationship researcher, he's a psychologist, he's a therapist, and he identified what he called the four horsemen of the apocalypse in relation to in relationship. And they're these four patterns that that when they're repeated, they can they can deeply, deeply damage connection, they really can. And um I have as I say, I've shared this before, but I think it's really a valuable thing to for us to really think about and um be aware of in our daily life that we don't do them basically. So the first is criticism, and this isn't the same as expressing a need or or even requesting a behaviour change, but it's you know, although there is in criticism that is always a need, so therefore, if we could express the need rather than attack somebody, because the trouble with criticism is that it is an attack, it attacks the person, um, and it doesn't say you know, doesn't look at the behavior, so it is the usual kind of things uh which go on in relationship a lot are you always do this or you never do that, rather than actually saying, you know, I'd really feel heard if when I asked you to um you know fold the washing, um, you you did it, I'd feel loved, I'd feel celebrated, I'd feel important, um, or you know, um I find it I'd find it such an incredible thing in our relationship if um you made me a cup of tea in the morning, all sorts of these simple, well they're not simple, they're big things in relationship. But um when a person's attacked, like you always do that, you you always leave the washing unfolded, or you never bring me a cup of tea in the morning, of course. Immediately there's an attack, and what happens is then that creates distance and defensiveness, and the next behavior that so criticism's the first one, the second one is defensiveness, and they kind of go hand in hand because when when we're criticized, we'll often defend, and then the moment we're defending, we're not listening, so communication's just gone. So there's you end up justifying, blaming back, but mainly just not listening. The moment there's a kind of an attack, everything shuts down in us. So those two they're really um bad for relationships, they're bad for all everything, and so that's to keep an eye on, and then contempt, which is really not good, it's really damaging to be sarcastic with somebody, to feel go into a superior position, to roll roll your eyes, um, be dismissive. Um, it really erodes relationship, it erodes connection very, very deeply, and respect of the other, and the the space gets very damaged with contempt. And then, of course, the stonewalling that's the fourth. So there's criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling. And that's when somebody just shuts down, they withdraw, the silence, they don't respond. There's an emotional disconnection with that. Now, often that response is because the person's overwhelmed, but it still creates distance and it still is damaging to the relationship. So the key to this, as I said, is awareness, and um it's it's not going for perfection, although, of course, perfection is the perfect thing to go and make sure that we never ever do those things. However, those things do happen, and the the most important thing is that the moment, the moment that we notice it, we do have a choice. We have a choice to pull back from it, we have a choice to, if it's happened, say we're really sorry, we have a choice to make the space safe and growthful and harmonious and full of possibility. And this is where when we are in in charge, or I say in charge of ourselves, but when we're aware, um then the relationship becomes a path of growth. Because really, if something has triggered us and we're feeling um out of centre, there is the opportunity for further growth for us because every reactivity is an arrow to a wound in us. So we have an opportunity to breathe the love into us, to breathe love into that part that doesn't feel good. Because when we cut off love to someone else through reactivity, it's really because there's a place in us where we've cut off love to ourselves. So basically, you know, the wonderful thing about relationship, it's a path of growth, and it becomes not just about being with somebody else, but it is a way of getting to know ourselves really, really, really deeply. And then the more aware of what we bring and what we put in the space between us, then the more connection can grow, more love can grow. So we get more connection, we get more understanding. The love just is limitless and um expands all the time. And so, really and truly, what we bring into relationship is what we experience within it. Thank you for listening to Baby Sat for Conversations. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I look forward to being with you again next time.