He’s hypercritical. Most of us can remember the beginning of our relationship. Love colored everything, even the personality quirks of our partner. As relationships progress, those rose-colored glasses will naturally begin to fall away, and we will likely experience mild annoyance that our spouse can sink a basketball from twenty feet, but is unable to make it to the clothes hamper with dirty socks. Mild annoyance, yes, but in most instances, you still exhibit some level of generosity to one another when dealing with mistakes. If your husband has grown extremely hypercritical of everything you do—things that were never a problem before—then you likely have a bigger problem.
Renowned psychology professor and researcher, Dr. John Gottman, believes “stonewalling” is one of the “four horsemen of the apocalypse” as far as a predictor of divorce. Stonewalling is basically withdrawing emotionally from your spouse, or, in simpler terms, giving your partner the silent treatment. When a person gets so angry, frustrated and upset that he or she shuts down and disengages from any type of meaningful conversation, stonewalling has occurred. A full 85 percent of all “stonewallers” in a heterosexual relationship are men. When you add criticism, contempt and defensiveness behaviors to stonewalling, Dr. Gottman believes he can predict with 90 percent accuracy the demise of a relationship based on those four issues.
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