What Keeps Couples Together: Conflict, Contempt and the Small Moments That Build Trust

Every couple argues. Decades of research suggest that the difference between relationships that last and relationships that end is not whether partners disagree, but how they handle the disagreements they will never fully settle, and how they treat each other in the ordinary moments in between. This article looks at what that research shows, where its limits are, and what couples can do with it.

Do Most Relationship Conflicts Ever Go Away?

According to the Gottman Institute, 69% of relationship conflict is about perpetual problems: disagreements rooted in fundamental differences in personality or lifestyle needs that come back again and again [1]. One partner is tidy and the other is not. One wants to save and the other wants to spend. One needs time with friends and the other needs time at home.

Happy couples do not make these problems disappear. They keep talking about them, with humor and affection, and they communicate acceptance of each other while reaching compromises they can live with for now. Couples who become gridlocked feel as if they are spinning their wheels, and their conversations turn into painful exchanges or icy silence [1]. Psychologist John Gottman describes these patterns, and the habits that help couples through them, in The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work [2].

How Do Happy Couples Argue?

Gottman and his colleague Robert Levenson recorded married couples discussing a conflict and then followed them over time. In one study of 73 couples followed for four years, couples whose conversations held less positive than negative emotion had more severe marital problems, lower satisfaction and poorer health at follow-up. Seventy-one percent of those couples had considered ending their marriage, compared with 33% of couples whose conversations stayed more positive [3].

From that work comes what the Gottman Institute calls the "magic ratio." During conflict, stable and happy couples have about five positive interactions, such as a joke, a touch, a nod or a moment of real interest, for every negative one. When the ratio falls to one to one or less, a couple is at serious risk of divorce [4].

One caution is worth knowing. Claims that researchers can predict divorce with very high accuracy come from studies that built their predictions and tested them on the same couples. When other researchers tested prediction equations on new couples, accuracy dropped sharply, and they concluded that such results should be interpreted with extreme caution [5]. The patterns are real and useful. They are not a verdict on any one relationship.

What Are the Four Horsemen?

Gottman identified four ways of communicating that are especially damaging, which he calls the Four Horsemen [2]. Each has a healthier alternative.

• Criticism turns a complaint about a situation into an attack on your partner's character. Walking into a messy kitchen and saying, "You are a slob. You never clean anything," is criticism. A gentler way to raise the same issue focuses on your feelings and a specific request: "I feel overwhelmed when the kitchen is a mess. Could we clean it up together tonight?" [2]
• Defensiveness means denying responsibility or counterattacking: "I do clean the kitchen. You never pay the bills on time." The healthier alternative is to accept responsibility for your part, even a small one [2].
• Stonewalling means shutting down: going silent, avoiding eye contact and withdrawing from the conversation. It often happens when a person feels emotionally flooded. Taking a real break to calm down, and agreeing to come back to the conversation, works better than pushing through [2].
• Contempt means speaking from a position of superiority, through mockery, sarcasm, name-calling or eye-rolling. "You wouldn't even think to clean the kitchen. You're too selfish," is contempt. Its antidote, according to the Gottman Institute, is building a culture of fondness and admiration for each other [6].

Why Is Contempt So Damaging?

Of the four, contempt does the most harm. Gottman has found it to be the number one predictor of divorce [6]. Criticism says "you did something wrong." Contempt says "you are beneath me," and it leaves the person on the receiving end feeling disrespected and small.

The Gottman Institute also reports that couples who are contemptuous of each other are more likely to suffer from infectious illnesses such as colds and flu [6]. Other research points in the same direction. In the four-year study described above, couples whose conflict conversations were more negative reported more illness at follow-up [3]. In a study at Ohio State University, researchers gave married couples small skin wounds and then watched them discuss a disagreement. Couples who were consistently more hostile healed at 60% of the rate of less hostile couples [7]. How partners speak to each other can affect the body, not just the relationship.

How Does Betrayal Begin?

In What Makes Love Last?, Gottman argues that betrayal rarely begins with a single dramatic event. It builds gradually, through many small moments when a partner turns away instead of toward the other, and through negative comparisons, when a person starts dwelling on what the relationship lacks rather than valuing what it has [8].

Psychologist Shirley Glass, who studied infidelity for decades, described a related pattern. In a healthy relationship, partners keep a window open to each other and a wall around their relationship. When someone starts confiding their relationship problems to a sympathetic friend or coworker instead of to their partner, that arrangement reverses: a wall goes up inside the relationship and a window opens to someone outside it [9]. Trust can be badly damaged long before anything physical happens. Bringing complaints to your partner, however uncomfortable, protects the relationship.

What Are Bids for Connection?

Trust is built in small, everyday exchanges that Gottman calls bids for connection. A bid is any attempt to get your partner's attention, interest or support. Saying, "I'm really exhausted. Would you mind doing the dishes tonight?" is a bid. So is pointing out something interesting through the window, or reaching for your partner's hand.

When a partner makes a bid, the other has three choices: turn toward it by responding with interest, turn away by ignoring it, or turn against it by responding with irritation [10]. The choices add up. In Gottman's research with newlywed couples, those who were still married six years later had turned toward each other's bids 86% of the time. Couples who had divorced had turned toward each other only 33% of the time [11].

Can Loneliness in a Relationship Harm Your Health?

Strong relationships are good for health, and isolation is not. A review of 148 studies covering more than 300,000 people found that people with stronger social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival over the study periods [12]. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General warned that poor social connection is associated with a 29% increased risk of heart disease and a 32% increased risk of stroke, and that the effect of social disconnection on mortality is similar to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day [13].

Researchers have also looked at what loneliness does inside the body. In a study of young adults, lonely participants had higher total peripheral resistance, meaning their blood vessels resisted blood flow more, and they slept worse. In older adults, loneliness was linked to greater age-related increases in blood pressure [14]. A five-year study of adults aged 50 to 68 found that loneliness predicted rising systolic blood pressure over time [15].

Much of this research measures loneliness and social ties in general rather than loneliness inside a relationship. Research on marriage specifically points the same way, though the effects are more modest: a review of 126 studies involving more than 72,000 people found that better marital quality was linked to better health, including a lower risk of death [16].

What Can Couples Do Starting Today?

• Notice and answer bids. Put the phone down when your partner starts a conversation, and respond to the small requests as well as the big ones.
• Start gently. Raise a problem by describing the situation and how you feel, and ask for something specific, rather than describing your partner's character.
• Take a break when you are flooded. If your heart is pounding and you cannot listen, agree to pause and come back to the conversation once you have both calmed down.
• Say the positive things out loud. Appreciation, thanks and affection are the everyday antidote to contempt.
• Bring complaints to your partner first. Talking about your relationship problems with someone outside the relationship, before your partner, can quietly erode trust.
• Get help early. A couples counselor can help partners break patterns before they harden. Our article on the economics of romance covers apologies, humor and other ways to calm an argument.

Sometimes, despite real effort, a relationship does end. When it does, the way a couple separates matters too, especially when children are involved. Collaborative divorce and divorce mediation are designed to help couples resolve their divorce respectfully and with as little conflict as possible. If you would like to talk through your options, contact DaltonMurray.

Sources

1. Fulwiler, M. (2012, July 2). Managing conflict: Solvable vs. perpetual problems. The Gottman Institute.
2. Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. Crown.
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4. Benson, K. (2017, October 4). The magic relationship ratio, according to science. The Gottman Institute.
5. Heyman, R. E., & Smith Slep, A. M. (2001). The hazards of predicting divorce without crossvalidation. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63(2), 473-479.
6. Wilde, E. (2025, May 25). What is contempt? Understand one of the Gottman Four Horsemen. The Gottman Institute.
7. Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., Loving, T. J., Stowell, J. R., Malarkey, W. B., Lemeshow, S., Dickinson, S. L., & Glaser, R. (2005). Hostile marital interactions, proinflammatory cytokine production, and wound healing. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62(12), 1377-1384.
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10. Gottman, J. M., & DeClaire, J. (2001). The relationship cure: A five-step guide to strengthening your marriage, family, and friendships. Crown.
11. Wilde, E. (2012, August 31). An introduction to emotional bids and trust. The Gottman Institute.
12. Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316.
13. Office of the U.S. Surgeon General. (2023). Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General's advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
14. Cacioppo, J. T., Hawkley, L. C., Crawford, L. E., Ernst, J. M., Burleson, M. H., Kowalewski, R. B., Malarkey, W. B., Van Cauter, E., & Berntson, G. G. (2002). Loneliness and health: Potential mechanisms. Psychosomatic Medicine, 64(3), 407-417.
15. Hawkley, L. C., Thisted, R. A., Masi, C. M., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2010). Loneliness predicts increased blood pressure: Five-year cross-lagged analyses in middle-aged and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 25(1), 132-141.
16. Robles, T. F., Slatcher, R. B., Trombello, J. M., & McGinn, M. M. (2014). Marital quality and health: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 140(1), 140-187.