Four behaviours, watched on tape

In the 1980s and 1990s a research group in Seattle put couples in a room, filmed them arguing, coded every few seconds of it, and then followed them for years.

Out of that work came a short list of four behaviours that kept showing up in the couples who went on to do badly. Criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling.

They are worth learning for one reason. They are behaviours, not personalities. You can see them on a tape. You can hear yourself doing one. And a thing you can hear yourself doing is a thing you can stop mid sentence.