Contempt between partners
After observing thousands of couples over decades, John Gottman found that contempt — treating a partner with disgust or scorn — was the single strongest predictor of divorce, more corrosive than ordinary anger or criticism. His wider model also tracks criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling. The headline accuracy figures from his studies are debated, since the model was often fitted to couples already in the sample, but the central finding about contempt has held up well.
