Contempt is the third horseman of the marital apocalypse according to Dr. John Gottman, renowned clinical psychologist and expert on divorce prediction, marital stability, and relationship counseling.
According to Gottman, contempt is the arrogant disregard, dismissal, and denigration of another's concerns. In his over four decades of research, Gottman states that contempt is the #1 predictor of divorce. He adds that it is the most destructive negative behavior in relationships. Put another way, contempt is when we feel deep disdain and disrespect for someone to the point of despising even that which the other person holds as sacred. Talk about really "hating" on someone and all that they care most deeply about to an extreme level! Contempt cuts to the core of its targeted person's identity by communicating the following: "You disgust me. You are less than zero. I absolutely hate everything about you and anything you care about!" Yikes! That's about as low as anyone can go in the context of our relational dynamics with each other as human beings.
The irony here is that contempt is rarely discussed openly between two individuals whose marriage is genuinely in trouble. We know how to show it to each other with our sarcasm, name calling, scoffing, eye-rolling, harsh judgements, and never-ending accusations....but we rarely connect these destructive behaviors as arising out of a deep contempt for our partner. To be on the receiving end of someone's contempt often feels like a terrible mashup of feelings involving confusion, hurt, shame, anger, and guilt. We don't understand what we did to elicit such deep disrespect, yet we keep accepting it anyway. Which translates, of course, to taking it and hoping things will get better "one day". One day typically meaning when our offensive partner...you name it. Gets that job she's been working so hard for....when his ex wife stops receiving alimony in three months' time....when her father finally agrees to go into assisted living...when he quits drinking....blah blah blah. We all have our excuses to justify and/or minimize the abusive behaviors of others. That's our nature too.
I am reminded in this moment of a married couple I knew whose husband had a major chip on his shoulder. Not just for weeks or months, but for years. He had always been very quick to make a snarky remark about most anything to anybody, and typically at someone else's expense. Beyond the obvious disdain for his wife and adult children, his contempt was also generalized in nature. He literally functioned as his own On High Judge, Jury, and Executioner of All Humanity. He was especially hard on anyone who had a faith-based world view. "If you believe in fairy tales, why not pray to your magic daddy to make your life all better!" On one of the few occassions where I actually got to ask him "What happened to you?", he actually was not offended by my question. He launched into telling me about his biological father impregnating his biological mother at fifteen years old and then abandoning the girl completely for nearly two decades afterwards. When this guy reconnected with his dad after being promised a stake in the "family business", he found himself laboring like a mule for the next few years and ending up with nothing but the memories of how badly his father had treated him. Yes, it was a very tragic narrative and one I wouldn't wish on anybody. However, did this man learn from his extremely difficult relationships with both of his parents? No, he did not. He merely passed it on to his wives and children (because you know there was more than one wife in this man's marital history)....
Is or was this man redeemable? Yes, anyone is redeemable. It's a matter of whether or not a person wants and is willing to do his/her/their work to actually live in peace and not in pieces anymore. Nobody is perfect. That is a fact. Yet how sick are we when we dish out emotional abuse like a semi-automatic weapon....and/or keeping standing in the line of that fire like that's o.k. too? It's not o.k. It is very bad and nobody gets transformed into a better human as a result of all this abuse/sacrificial lamb relationship dynamic!
Grant it, I've worked with the couples who might as well join the MMA and do their thing inside a cage instead of inside their marital home. Not everyone functions as a sacrifical lamb when the couple has trained each other over time to hate each other with more passion than they ever believed they were capable of doing!
Which reminds me of another couple I knew from the way back....
In the end, contempt doesn't have to represent an ongoing relational dynamic present in anyone's marriage. Is it present in yours now? If so, maybe it is time for you to get started on your work in releasing yourself from this bondage that keeps you locked in to your status as a perpetrator of such abuse, a victim of such abuse, or a combination of the two.
Until next post....