Shannon Curry

And we just go into fight or flight in a way.

We just want to annihilate our partner instead of say anything that would be helpful to the relationship.

So if you're getting flooded, you could do a couple things.

You could get super critical.

You could get contemptuous, which I'll talk about in a second.

It's the last horseman.

Or you do the third horseman, which is stonewalling.

And in their research, the Gottmans found that men are actually more likely to stonewall.

I also am someone who stonewalls.

But it's where you just sort of disconnect from the conversation.

You shut down.

You turn away.

You can physically even turn away, kind of arms crossed, but you're shut off.

And stonewalling happens usually because you get flooded.

You feel like you can't win.

You don't know what to do to make the situation better.

It feels pretty hopeless.

And

talking feels unproductive.

So you can see how in a typical heterosexual relationship, the gender dynamic, we know that women tend to use criticism more often because they're the ones that typically raise issues verbally.