When the triggered emotions aren't dealt with
successfully, attack and defensiveness or avoidance and
stonewalling begin and the continuing negative cycle causes connections to dissolve and the love to disappear.
John Gottman's nine communication skills (the four don'ts: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and
stonewalling, and the five do's: calm down, complain, speak non-defensively, validate, and overlearn skills), for example, are some of the most empirically informed and research - tested communication skills available to help dating and married couples learn to interact effectively and to resolve conflict
successfully (Gottman 1994a and 1994b; Hillsdale et al. 1998; Gottman, Katz and Hooven 1997; Gottman and Levenson 1999 and 2000).