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Greetings. In the first two parts of this blog, I informed you of two ways to destroy your marriage. When criticism and defensiveness enters into a marriage and these two become not just an occasional comment or habit, but they become a pattern that two people use to get back or hurt the other person, than your marriage will begin to crumble. Attacking each other and being defensive and doing this over and over will lead to two people not loving each other but will lead to two people destroying love and the marriage.

So let’s look at a third area to avoid so as not destroy your marriage. This is contempt. Now this is not a word we use often when we think of relationships but it is so vital and important to a marriage to find ways for this not to happen. Criticism happens when we become annoyed or irritated with the other person and their habits. For example, you want your spouse to stop spending so much money but instead find ways to live within their means according to the budget.

But contempt goes deeper after criticism when the real focus and intention is to really want to insult and verbally and emotionally abuse your spouse. So one spouse not only gets upset and angry at the other person but goes one step further by stating: “Why are you always so irresponsible? You never pay attention to how you spend your money. You are so selfish.” In defense, the other spouse will say, “Oh shut up! You are just a stingy cheapskate who does not know how to live. I don’t know how I ended up with your anyway or why I choose you.”

Contempt happens when we shift from not only being angry with our spouse but we really have a deep desire to bring insults and harsh language upon our spouse making statements that he or she is stupid, disgusting, incompetent or of no value. Being contempt results in two people not showing love, respect, or kindness to each other but instead they become abusive and hurtful towards each other.

Being and doing contempt in your marriage leads to rarely showing any compliments, any positive qualities, or remember any reason why you married the other person in the first place. Contempt clouds your view of the other spouse and all you want to do is think or attempt to do things that bring insults and attack on the other person with emotional abusive language.

Some of the features of contempt are insults and name calling like jerk, idiot and fat, stupid, or ugly. Contempt could be hostile humor in which you insult your spouse with sarcastic humor maybe in front of others at a social event. Mockery also can happen as contempt when we put our spouse down in words of no respect. Body language can also happen in which we do things like rolling your eyes, sneering, or disgusting looks towards your spouse. When love and respect gets replaced in the marriage and we intentionally think of ways to be insulting, mean, angry and hurtful, then we are practicing and participating in contempt. Being contempt and doing contempt over and over again will only lead to destroying trust and viewing your spouse as disgusting.

So this is a warning: If you are engaging in contempt, you will destroy your marriage and all your relationships. This becomes really hurtful and harmful in any marriage. To reverse this pattern when you and your spouse argue, try to think of ways ahead of time to not use an argument as a way to retaliate or exhibit your superior moral stance. Try to think of ways to show compliments rather than insults. Stop attacking the person and start to attack the problem. Thanks for reading.