Dr. Julie Gottman

And then in the middle piece, maybe there is a complaint that you have, you haven't talked about, or maybe you had a little regrettable incident that you need to process.

clear the air about that, try and understand what went wrong during that and what to do right next time.

And then you end the meeting with another appreciation, another expression of gratitude.

I mean, there's nothing better than hearing gratitude as a sign that, look,

You're visible.

You're important to me.

I see who you are.

I love what you do.

And I want you to know I recognize you.

And you're beautiful.

So the first one is criticism.

Criticism means blaming a problem on a personality flaw of your partner.

Like you're so selfish, you're so lazy, you're so inconsiderate, thoughtless, whatever.

So a characteristic that's bad that you're seeing in your partner, that's criticism.

Secondly is contempt.

And contempt is the worst one we have.

Contempt is like criticism, but you're coming from a place of superiority, looking down your nose at your partner, and you're sneering a little bit.

You've got a look of disgust maybe on your face.

There's scorn.

There's mockery.