The #1 Habit Destroying Your Relationship (and How to Stop Harsh Communication for Good)
- Keith York LMFT
- Nov 8, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 29, 2025
An Orinda, CA therapist’s guide to stopping criticism, contempt, and conflict so your relationship can heal and thrive
By Keith York, LMFT Couples Therapist in Orinda, CA
Let me cut right to the heart of it.
If there’s one move, one commitment, one seismic shift that can save your relationship from the brink—or prevent it from ever getting there—it’s this:
Eliminate harshness. Entirely. Period.
No raised voices. No sarcasm. No snide remarks, eye rolls, or subtle digs. No “just being honest” cruelty disguised as truth-telling. No contempt. No harshness, ever—toward your partner or toward yourself.
It’s radical. It’s countercultural. And it’s absolutely essential.
The Poison of Harshness
Most couples don’t fall apart from lack of love. They fall apart from too much unregulated behavior.
They lose each other in what John Gottman calls The Four Horsemen: criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, or worst of all—contempt.
Gottman calls contempt “sulfuric acid to a relationship”. It burns through love.
Contempt is anything you do or say that communicates you are better than your partner.
In the heat of conflict, we say things we’d never tolerate hearing. We weaponize honesty instead of using it to build trust. We push away the very person we crave connection with. Why? Because we’ve been taught that harshness is power. That “tough love” is love.
That if it hurts, it must be the truth.
But here's what I teach my clients, and what I want to teach you:
Harshness is never strength. Harshness is never love. Harshness never, ever works.
You will never engender empathy in someone by punishing them. Not your spouse, not your children, no one.
Fierce Intimacy, Without the Fury
I’m not asking you to be passive. This isn’t about biting your tongue until you explode or pretending everything’s fine when it’s not.
What I’m asking for is what renowned author and therapist Terry Real calls fierce intimacy—the kind that speaks truth with love, that fights clean, that stays connected while confronting what’s not working.
You can be strong and tender. You can be direct and kind. You can hold a boundary without a blade in your hand.
If your relationship is suffering, stop asking:
“Who’s right?”
“How do I win this?”
“How can I get them to change?”
Start asking:
“How do I speak the truth with love?”
“How do I make it safe for both of us to show up?”
“What’s it like to be on the other side of me right now?”
Harshness-Free Is a Practice, Not a Personality
Some of us grew up in homes where harshness was the only language spoken. Maybe you learned to go cold, or go critical, or go silent. If so, I have compassion for that.
But you don’t get to bring those tools into your marriage without consequence.
The good news is this is a learnable skill.
You can practice replacing attack with assertion. You can learn to breathe before you speak. You can train yourself to stay in the room, with an open heart, when every part of you wants to shut down or lash out.
You can become someone safe to love—even in conflict.
Try This: The 24-Hour No-Harshness Challenge
Want to change your marriage? Try this:
For the next 24 hours, commit to zero harshness.
None.
Catch your tone. Check your face. Pause before the retort. Refuse to let frustration turn into cruelty.
If you mess up—and you will—repair. Quickly. Take responsibility. Say: “That was harsh. I’m sorry. Let me try again, with more care.”
Then keep going.
The more you practice, the more you’ll see:
Love doesn’t die from disagreement. It dies from disrespect. And respect is not a feeling—it’s a behavior.
The Bottom Line
You want a better marriage?
Start here.
Stop trying to be right.
Start trying to be kind.
Lay down your weapons.
Pick up your courage.
Live a harshness-free marriage.
Not someday.
Now.
Your relationship might just thank you by surviving—and thriving.
If you want to go deeper into what it means to love with strength and tenderness, or if you and your partner need help practicing a new way of being together, reach out. It’s never too late to learn a better dance.
The East Bay Center for Relational Recovery’s mission is ending misery in relationships and helping people get back to what we call Remembered Love.
Written by Keith York, LMFT, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Orinda, California, serving Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga, and the greater east bay area of San Francisco. Keith specializes in couples therapy with a focus in Gottman Method Therapy and Relational Life Therapy.
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