Examples of contempt in marriage

In a marriage, contempt is acting as though your partner is beneath you or not worth your time. It’s disregarding someone else’s thoughts and opinions or actively displaying scorn for them. Dr. “In short, I see contempt as a form of emotional abuse.”

It manifests in behavior like sarcasm, eye-rolling, regular interruption, criticism, and regular impatience. The person showing contempt has work to do on their communication… But relationships are a two-way street.

The definition of contempt is a feeling of scorn towards another person or an act showing disrespect for someone or something. An example of contempt is the feeling that someone has for a person who stole her precious jewelry.

Treating others with disrespect, disdain, mockery, name-calling, aggressive humor, and sarcasm are examples of contemptuous behavior. The sociologist Warren TenHouten observed that when anger is fused with disgust, it creates a particularly deadly psychological compound: contempt.

The word originated in 1393, from the Latin word contemptus meaning “scorn”. It is the past participle of contemnere and from com- intensive prefix + temnere “to slight, scorn”. Contemptuous appeared in 1529.

They are certainly feeling emotions, but contempt is expressing (negative) judgments, which your partner will resent. So the key antidote to contempt is expressing your feelings and longings—and expressing them well.

Stop the contemptuous behavior.

Stop yourself from spewing sarcasm and cruel comments at your spouse. Refuse to put down your spouse, no matter what you feel. At the very least, while you work on your own role in your marriage, stop your contemptuous behavior.

Contempt is fueled by long-simmering negative thoughts about one’s partner, and it arises in the form of an attack on someone’s sense of self. Inevitably, contempt leads to more conflict—particularly dangerous and destructive forms of conflict—rather than to reconciliation.

You feel contempt for someone who is inferior or unworthy in your eyes, because you believe they possess a negative personal characteristic. Although it is the negative characteristic that triggers the contempt, the emotion is felt towards the person.

Stonewalling in a relationship is when one person refuses to communicate or cooperate with their partner becoming like “a stone wall”. You may know it as its more common name, the ‘silent treatment’.

Narcissist Stonewalling

Stonewalling is the refusal to communicate with someone. This means that your spouse refuses to listen to you and your concerns. Stonewalling is one of the most prevalent narcissistic abuse techniques.

Wife Abandonment Syndrome is a pattern of behavior that begins when a husband leaves his wife out-of-the-blue without ever having told her that he was unhappy or thinking of leaving. Following his dramatic revelation, he replaces the tenderness he’d typically shown her with anger and aggression.

Stonewalling can also be a manipulative or controlling strategy. When stonewalling is deliberate, the partner who refuses to communicate is often drawing the situation out and preventing the other partner from seeking out other options to address the conflict or even end the relationship.

There’s a lack of connection.

Here are some things that can cause partners to feel distant from each other and therefore feel lonely, according to Jackson and Andre: Feeling like your partner doesn’t listen to you. Feeling like you’re not having enough relationship. Poor communication or lack of communication.

Another sign your marriage is ending is when you fantasize about being free of your partner or even living your life with somebody else. If you feel more excited or more at peace at the prospect of being free of your partner for the rest of your life than remaining in this marriage, then it could be time for a divorce.