Your Partner Just Rolled Their Eyes at You: Signs of Contempt in a Relationship

It's small. You make a point, or say something you thought was perfectly reasonable, and your partner's eyes go up and come back down. Maybe it's a quick smirk. Maybe they just turn and walk out of the room before you've finished the sentence. If you are constantly noticing these shifts, you are likely witnessing the early signs of contempt in a relationship.

Nobody says anything. But you both felt it, and you both know it wasn't nothing.

Contempt grows from small moments that were never prevented. Preventing them is the work of Protecting the Relationship & The Premium, the anticipation pillar of the Emotional Safety Framework.

Contempt gets talked about as one of the most dangerous things that can show up in a relationship, and with good reason. Researcher John Gottman named it one of his Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and found it to be the number one predictor of divorce. But most of what's written about it stops at the warning. I want to talk about what contempt actually is, because I see it differently than most.

Understanding Why Marital Contempt is Actually a Fear Response

Gottman describes contempt as disgust and superiority. I see the fear underneath it. At its heart, contempt is a fear response in the moment. It's often disguised as superiority, which is why it's so easy to miss.

I'd go even further. The bigger the ego, the bigger the insecurity underneath. Acting superior is very often protection that happens to look like confidence.

Two Ways Contemptuous Behavior Starts to Grow in a Marriage and Relationships

In my clinical experience there are two main reasons contempt ever starts, and one is far more common than the other.

The most common is erosion. When a relationship loses emotional safety over time, contemptuous behavior becomes more likely and more common. What builds up are the small, accidental moments I call needle pricks. A partner forgets the dry cleaning after being asked twice. Shows up seven minutes late, again. Each one is small, and none of them ends a relationship on its own. But the accumulation leaves a lasting impact and creates the environment where contempt starts to appear.

The other is learned. One partner, or both, picked up long before this relationship that contempt is how you deal with being bothered. They won't call it contempt. They'll just say "that's just who I am." If that's the case, the "I'm better than you" attitude usually shows up in how they treat people in general, not only their partner. They may have watched their parents treat each other that way, grown up with older siblings who put them down constantly, or had a previous partner who did. They learned it as a way to protect themselves. One way to tell the two apart is to notice whether it shows up with people in general or mostly with you.

The early signs

In the first scenario, the earliest signs are that you start to experience your partner a little differently. Their tone is sharper than usual. Conversations turn into fights faster than they used to. The last fight was the worst you've had. Something was said that was almost below the belt for the first time. I would treat all of those as warning signs.

In the first scenario, actual contempt usually shows up in body language first. A quick, subtle roll of the eyes. Walking away at the beginning of a conversation. A smirk when you try to make a point. In the second scenario, sarcastic comments and put downs disguised as jokes tend to come out much earlier.

Does it always end the relationship?

If not always, it's pretty darn close. I believe relationships don't end because of a lack of love. They end because of a lack of safety. At some point the pain of being in the relationship becomes worse than the pain of leaving it.

Contempt tends to show up at the extreme end of low safety, especially in the first scenario. By the time it does, things have usually been bad for a while, which is a big part of why it predicts so much.

How to keep it from starting or growing

The biggest thing couples can do is stop the needle pricks before they happen. I believe the vast majority of relationship damage is unintentional, so I want partners to become hyper aware of what they do and say, and the impact it might have, before they do or say it. Even when their partner isn't around. We take a lot of moments for granted because they "shouldn't" bother our partner, and that leaves the door wide open.

Can a Relationship Genuinely Recover Once Contempt Sets In?

Yes, but it's hard. By this point the emotional safety between two people has been going down for a while and is really low.

The key is for each partner to intentionally take responsibility for the emotional environment they create for the other. Most people focus on what their partner does and says and want that to change. I want people to step back and examine what they're doing and saying, and the impact it has. Because contempt is a fear response, the more each partner works on making things safer for the other, the more the temperature of the relationship drops, slowly but surely, and the less fear responses are needed.

If you've read Gottman's work on contempt, some of this will sound familiar. His long-term answer is a daily habit of small positive actions that build fondness and admiration between partners. I come at it through safety, but I think we're pointing at the same thing: the small moments you invest in every day change the environment contempt grows in.

That's true whichever way the contempt started. The origin is different, but the road back leads to the same place.

Make no mistake about it, it will be bumpy. The emotional habit between two people gets so ingrained that it will still raise its head from time to time, even when both are doing the right things. But if they stick with it and give it enough time, contempt eventually becomes a thing of the past.

If you're on the receiving end

Seeing contempt as fear doesn't make it acceptable, and it doesn't make it your fault. Both partners play a part in the environment between them, and understanding where it comes from is not the same as excusing it. If you're ever afraid of your partner, or feel controlled, that's a different situation from the one I'm describing, and a reason to talk with a professional.

The eye roll isn't the real problem. It's the environment surrounding the fear underneath it, and that's something two people can work on together.

Want some help in figuring this all out? I've worked and helped many couples through this and all sorts of relationship issues.

Schedule something with me or reach out directly.

I work with couples across the South Denver metro area, including Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Greenwood Village, Centennial, Cherry Hills Village, Ken Caryl and Englewood to help them drop counterproductive habits and implement the Emotional Safety Framework as a lasting lifestyle.

As always, I've got you.