Contempt is one of the biggest predictors of relationship breakdown, according to Dr. John Gottman. Of all the Four Horsemen, the four negative communication patterns Gottman identified as warning signs of divorce, contempt is the one he calls the most dangerous. And for good reason.
Contempt in a relationship is any communication that expresses disgust, superiority, or fundamental disrespect toward your partner. It is the difference between criticizing what your partner did and communicating that who they are is beneath you. When contempt becomes a regular feature of how you and your partner interact, the emotional safety of the relationship erodes quickly, and research shows it is the single most reliable predictor of divorce.
As Gottman-trained couples therapists, we have seen how recognizing contempt early, before it becomes the default tone of the relationship, can change everything. Here are five signs that contempt may be showing up between you and your partner, along with what you can do about it.
What Are the Signs of Contempt in a Relationship?
Contempt rarely announces itself with a single dramatic event. It builds through repeated small behaviors that communicate disrespect, superiority, and disdain. These are the five most common signs that contempt has entered your relationship.
1. Are you or your partner dismissing each other during conversations?
Disrespectful communication habits are often the earliest sign of contempt. Ignoring your partner while they are talking, interrupting them mid-sentence, or finishing their thought for them because you have already decided what they are going to say all send the same message: what you think does not matter to me.
Over time, the partner on the receiving end stops trying to be heard. They withdraw. And withdrawal creates its own set of problems, because now neither person is actually communicating. The emotional connection that holds a relationship together starts to thin, and the cycle of negative communication deepens.
2. Does every disagreement turn into a competition about who is right?
Healthy relationships have room for disagreement. Contemptuous ones turn every disagreement into a contest. When one partner regularly corrects the other, whether it is how they tell a story at dinner, how they handled a situation with the kids, or how they loaded the dishwasher, the underlying message is: I know better than you. You are not competent.
That message, repeated often enough, does real damage. The corrected partner begins to feel inadequate. The correcting partner begins to feel justified in their superiority. And the gap between them widens. What looks on the surface like a disagreement about facts is actually a destructive loop about power and respect.
3. Has teasing crossed the line into mockery or ridicule?
Criticism and mockery are often the most visible signs of contempt. Imagine you have just gotten dressed for a social gathering. Your partner looks at you and says, “Is that what you are wearing?” That is not a neutral question about fashion. It is a statement of disapproval wrapped in a question, designed to make you feel small.
When this kind of remark becomes routine, it escalates. What may have once been playful teasing crosses into ridicule. The humor has an edge to it. The laughter is at your partner, not with them. And the person being mocked learns to brace themselves in situations where they should feel safest. That is contempt doing its work.
4. Are eye-rolls, sighs, and sarcasm replacing real conversation?
Contempt does not always use words. Non-verbal contempt includes eye-rolls during serious conversations, heavy sighs of exasperation when your partner is explaining something, a condescending tone that says more than the words themselves, and sarcastic remarks delivered with a smile that is not really a smile.
These non-verbal signals are remarkably powerful. Research consistently shows that contempt communicated through body language and tone can be even more damaging than what is said out loud, because it is harder for the receiving partner to name and address. You cannot argue with an eye-roll. But you can feel the disdain behind it, and that feeling accumulates over time.
5. Do you find yourself constantly correcting how your partner does things?
When contempt has taken hold, even mundane actions become targets. How your partner folds the laundry. How they pack the kids’ lunches. How they wrote that email. Nothing meets the standard, and the corrections keep coming, often accompanied by the same non-verbal cues described above.
The partner doing the “fixing” may not even realize how it lands. In their mind, they are being helpful. But to the person being corrected, the constant message is: you are not good enough. That is a painful thing to hear from anyone. From the person you chose to build a life with, it is devastating.
What Does Contempt Look Like in a Real Relationship?
Contempt in practice rarely looks like obvious cruelty. It looks like two people who have slowly lost respect for each other without either of them being able to point to the moment it started.
Consider a couple we will call Fred and Penelope. They came to counseling after years of escalating tension that neither of them could fully explain. They were not screaming at each other. There was no single crisis. Just a persistent, grinding sense that something had gone deeply wrong between them.
In sessions, the patterns became clear. Fred interrupted Penelope constantly, not out of malice, but because he had already decided he knew what she was going to say. Penelope felt unheard and undervalued, so she started mocking Fred’s decisions in front of friends, a way of reclaiming some sense of power in a relationship where she felt powerless. Fred responded by “fixing” things Penelope did around the house, accompanied by sighs and eye-rolls that communicated his frustration louder than words ever could.
Each of them was reacting to the other’s contempt with more contempt. Neither of them felt respected. Both of them felt alone in the relationship.
The turning point came when they stopped trying to prove who was more justified in their frustration and started looking at the pattern itself. They began practicing gratitude, not as a technique, but as a genuine reorientation toward what they valued about each other. They learned to catch themselves mid-eye-roll, mid-correction, mid-sarcastic comment, and choose a different response. It was slow work. But it shifted the emotional climate of the relationship in ways that surprised both of them.
How Do You Stop Contempt From Destroying Your Relationship?
Contempt can be interrupted, but it requires both awareness and deliberate practice. Couples counseling is strongly recommended when contempt has become a pattern, but there are steps you can begin taking on your own.
How do you start recognizing contempt in real time?
Start noticing the moments when contempt shows up in your relationship, both when you are expressing it and when you are on the receiving end. You do not have to have a big conversation about it right away. Just begin building awareness. Pay attention to how your body feels in those moments, the tightness in your chest, the heat in your face. Those physical signals are information about what is happening emotionally.
How do you replace contempt with direct communication?
Contempt thrives on indirectness. The sarcastic remark, the pointed sigh, the passive-aggressive comment: these are all ways of communicating dissatisfaction without actually saying what you need. Direct communication is harder and more vulnerable. It sounds like, “I felt dismissed when you interrupted me at dinner,” rather than an exaggerated eye-roll the next time your partner starts talking. It takes practice, but it is far more productive than contempt.
Why does owning your part matter?
Everyone is capable of contempt. Acknowledging that you have participated in the pattern, not just as the recipient but as the source, is a critical step. Self-awareness is uncomfortable. It is also the only path toward changing the dynamic.
How does building appreciation counteract contempt?
Contempt is, at its core, a habit of scanning for what your partner is doing wrong. The counter-practice is intentionally scanning for what they are doing right. Compliment them. Thank them for small things. Notice their effort, even when the execution is imperfect. Gottman’s research shows that couples who maintain a ratio of at least five positive interactions for every one negative interaction are significantly more likely to stay together. Building appreciation does not fix everything, but it creates a climate where repair becomes possible.
When Should You Seek Professional Help for Contempt?
If contempt has become the background noise of your relationship, if every conversation feels like it could become a minefield, working with an experienced couples therapist can help you interrupt the pattern before it causes irreversible damage. Having an unbiased guide in the room changes the dynamics of these conversations in ways that are difficult to replicate on your own.
Just because your connection feels threatened does not mean it cannot be repaired. But this is work that is always more effective with professional support, and sooner is better than later when contempt is involved.
Couples Counseling in Lakewood and Longmont, Colorado
If you are recognizing these signs in your relationship, our couples counselors in Lakewood and Longmont are here to help. We offer both in-person and online sessions for anyone in Colorado.
We invite you to call us at 720-551-4553 for a free 20-minute phone consultation with a marriage specialist. You can schedule your appointment via phone or through the contact page on our website.
Self Care Impact Counseling envisions a new age of counseling for adolescents, adults, couples and groups that makes a REAL difference with core values of GROWTH | BALANCE | COMPASSION | INNER HARMONY.
About the Author
Alayna Baillod, LCSW, is a Clinical Supervisor and the Owner of Self Care Impact Counseling. She is an EMDRIA Approved EMDR Consultant and EMDR Therapist, extensively trained in Gottman Couples Therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), DBT, Somatic Therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Attachment Theory. Alayna specializes in couples counseling, EMDR trauma therapy, and codependency recovery. Schedule an appointment with Alayna.
