Here Come the Four Horsemen

Picture this pleasant scenario with your partner: you have a complaint. You’ve tried to overlook it, but you’re fed up. You’re irritated, so your complaint has a critical edge. “Why don’t you ever get home from work on time? You’re always late.”
Your partner, feeling unfairly blamed, is understandably defensive.
“I’m not always late. And why are you so negative?”
You might trade these attack/defend barbs for a while, neither feeling heard. But, then someone raises the bar and things get hotter.
“You’re so self-centered. Why in the world did I marry someone so thoughtless?”
“Me self-centered? That’s insane! You are disgusting!”
Now, the gloves are off. You’ve escalated and things have gotten personal…you’re going for the jugular. This is intense and painful and will likely last until someone taps out. 
“That’s it; I’m done! I’m out of here.” One of you shuts down and becomes a stone wall. The conversation stops, but not the conflict. 
Maybe for an hour or a day, or longer (I’ve seen it last for years) it’s a Cold War, or at least an uneasy truce. 
Slowly, the smoke clears and eventually things get back to a kind of normal—until the next explosion. 
And the more it happens, the further apart you and your partner become, to harder it is to reconnect and the more desperate your love feels.
Sound familiar? You’re not alone.

We’ve All Been There

You’ve been stampeded by what John Gottman calls the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt and Stonewalling). It’s a familiar and troubling pattern for countless couples in conflict. Gottman has discovered in his decades of research that the Four Horsemen will eventually destroy any relationship if couples don’t corral them.

Strange as it sounds, conflict management is key to any happy relationship. Conflict happens—and, strangely enough, conflict is not a sign of trouble. Rather, how we manage it tells the tale.

Couples who can’t learn to change the conversation, go deeper and understand what’s really going on when they spark are in for a rough ride. And, given the divorce statistics we’ve all heard, many, many couples need more help than they get.


You Can Change the Conversation

That’s why Vicki Kennedy and I do what we do. We’re both couples therapists and, for more than five years now, we’ve been leading Hold Me Tight®️ couples retreats near Orlando FL. Hold Me Tight®️ is a two day experience for couples that helps them makes sense of what so often doesn’t. It’s rooted in attachment science and the tenets of Emotionally Focused Therapy, generally considered the gold standard for couples care.

Conflict is not just scary in a relationship; it’s confounding. Why and how do we get so stuck in these endless cycles? Why do we get so wound up? And why does it seem that no one else impacts us like our partner, the one we love more than anyone else?

A Hold Me Tight®️ retreat helps couples slow down, corral the Four Horsemen and begin to make sense of those raging cycles. And making sense of it is the best place to start. What we can understand, we can manage and change.

Take Charge of Your Relationship

Wouldn’t you love to understand your cycle—and know how to interrupt it? Wouldn’t it be great, even in the heat of the moment, to turn toward your partner rather than turning away (or worse, turning against)?

Hold Me Tight®️ will show you how. In two days together, you and your partner can come to understand your moves in this dance of love. And even better, you can learn new moves. You can bring the Four Horsemen to heel and have a different kind of conversation…a conversation instead of a confrontation…a conversation that heals and comforts your heart.

A Hold Me Tight®️ retreat is not therapy. It’s a low key, two day experience with other couples facing the same challenges and seeking the same connection as you and your partner. Learn how much you and others have in common. You will get to practice new conversations in real time…conversations for connection. You go at your own pace. No one is put on the spot. We don’t twist arms. We don’t push you; we point you toward deeper, closer connection, which is what we all really want. You will leave with a road map for closeness that you never you could have…never knew how to have.

Time for a Change

You and your partner really can get there. Get in on it today. Our next Hold Me Tight®️ retreat is in April. Join us in sunny Florida in the Spring and give your love a boost.




Have a Safety Plan

The "Other Side" of the Coin

By Mark Beck • July 17, 2025
In my last blog post, we said that the most vital skill for any strong relationship is empathy. (If you haven’t seen that blog, check out “The One Skill Your Relationship Can’t Do Without”.) Empathy is vital in love. But, empathy is not the only important skill. That hit record has a flip side. What is it? It’s vulnerability. Close connection in love demands vulnerability, almost by definition. Vulnerability: the willingness to open up, to show and share the deep stuff: wishes, needs, fears, uncertainties, insecurities, the things about us that we often prefer to hide. In any healthy relationship, vulnerability and empathy go hand in hand. Each makes the other possible. Without them, couples live at arm’s length, “hiding in plain sight,” like intimate strangers. They might be together…might even be married, but they aren’t close. Maybe you know this all too well. Maybe you live it everyday.

The One Skill Your Relationship Can't Do Without

By Mark Beck • July 14, 2025
Lots of things make for a healthy relationship: affirmation, trust, sacrifice, forgiveness, commitment. But, maybe the most important skill, the one no healthy relationship can do without…is empathy. Empathy is the ability to recognize and convey not only your emotions, but your partner’s emotions as well. Humans are bonding mammals and emotions are how we bond. Emotional connection is the lifeblood of any relationship. Your partner needs to know that you “get them,” that you understand their world, that you support and believe in them, that you are there for them. Empathy gets all that across.

Maintenance is Key

By Mark Beck • July 7, 2025
My wife and I bought a car recently. Not a new car, just new to us. We spent a small fortune on it and I’m determined to take good care of it. I vacuum it religiously. I check the fluids, tire pressure, mileage. I keep it clean, inside and out. I wash it at least once a week and am careful not to track a lot of dirt inside it. I’ve watched You Tube videos on simple maintenance such as oil changes, tire rotation and so forth. I’m no master mechanic, but I like to do the little things any shade tree mechanic might. We keep it out of direct sun when we can and drive as carefully as possible.

Trust is Key

By Mark Beck • June 25, 2025
I had a strange experience recently. I was out of town (in Texas, actually) and absentmindedly left my phone in a WalMart restroom (big mistake, but I know I’m not the first). I realized what I’d done less than 20 minutes later and headed back for my phone. Too late…it was gone. Now, if you found a lost cell phone, what would you do? You’d probably try to contact the owner or at least leave it with someone responsible. You’d make a good faith effort. Most people would. But, not all. With my wife’s phone, I called my number and, sure enough, someone answered. He indeed had picked up my phone. I was relieved…for a second. Then, the guy told me he’d happily return the phone to me…for $200, via Cash App. I don’t know who was dumber: me for leaving my phone behind or him for thinking I’d give him a dime to get it back. We both knew one thing: whether I paid him or not, I’d never see that phone again. It was a sad lesson in broken trust as my faith in humanity slipped a few notches. Chalk one up for the school of hard knocks.

Change Your Viewing

By Mark Beck • May 29, 2025
What is the first step to changing our station in life, changing a situation or a relationship? I suggest it starts with changing how we view things, how we look at the problem or the person. Do we see burden or a blessing…obligation or opportunity? Often, when we’re stuck, say, in a difficult relationship, we see our partner as an opponent. He or she is the problem. We may even go find a therapist whom we hope will “fix” our partner. We focus on the other’s weakness, faults and failures, how they let us down and miss the mark. If that is your focus, then the more you look, the more you will see. Most couples who come to me for therapy are so focused on their partner’s problems that they can’t see anything else. They are often stuck in blame and negativity. And what we see informs what we believe. If we see only the bad in our partner, it’s easy to believe that he or she doesn’t love us or that the relationship is hopeless. That’s when couples don’t call me; they call lawyers.

We All Need Predictability

By Mark Beck • April 25, 2025
If you are invested in the stock market, it’s been a roller coaster lately. Indeed, perhaps the best short run strategy is to close your eyes and hold on and ride it out—just like on a roller coaster! However you view the market moves we’re seeing—tariffs and the like—one thing is pretty clear: markets don’t like unpredictability. Uncertainty makes markets very nervous. Hence, lots of ups and downs make for tension and trouble. It’s human nature; unpredictability is stressful in any context.

Safety First

By Mark Beck • April 1, 2025
A local factory required all of its employees to attend a safety class. One fellow didn’t really pay attention and when the final exam at the end of the class asked, “In case of a fire, what steps would you take?” the fellow answered, “Large ones!” “Safety First” is a wise strategy, everywhere from the workplace to the highway to healthcare to childcare. Injuries and accidents cost multiplied billions every year and it’s always better to prevent an accident than to treat one. Whatever the setting, people do better when they feel safe.

Curious or Critical

By Mark Beck • March 14, 2025
Somebody said, “Marriage is a never ending conversation.” I think that’s true. It certainly is a never ending education. That’s part of what makes it fun. Everyday I learn something about my wife, Debbie, about how she sees the world and sees me. And I’m often surprised at our different perspectives. We were on the verge of an argument the other day, simply because we both saw the situation very differently. Neither of us were wrong. But, once I realized how Debbie saw things, I understood her actions and reactions much better. And I realized again that a real key to connection lies in understanding, more than being understood. The late Sue Johnson used to say, “People calm down when they feel understood.” I’ve certainly found that to be true.

Love Is a Team Sport

By Mark Beck • January 29, 2025
If you’re a sports fan (specifically, football) this is your favorite time of year. The NFL playoffs showcase the best of the best and even for the non-fanatics out there, some important truths are evident. Football, like many other sports, is a team game. For sure, individual superstars shine, but only because those around them pull together for a common goal. The best teams operate as one. Eleven players, all on the same page: focused, supportive, picking each other up, pursuing the same goal. When they do, they become more than the sum of their parts…highly efficient. They minimize mistakes and overcome them when they happen. When adversity hits, lesser teams slip into fault finding, sniping and looking out for number one. In any sport, if teammates ever become opponents, they can’t win. It’s game over.

Relationship Rescue

By Mark Beck • January 24, 2025
You might remember the cruise ship Costa Concordia that foundered off the coast of Italy in 2012 after her captain carelessly steered her too close to shore. Rocks tore a 175 foot gash in her hull and the ship listed severely to her starboard side, taking on water and running aground. Ultimately, 32 people died and the recovery cost about $2 billion. Perhaps the greatest blunder though, was that the captain waited over an hour to give the order to abandon ship. For such negligence, he was ultimately convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years. Indeed, he left the ship with 300 passengers still on board! (He said he “fell” into a lifeboat as it was being lowered.)
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