 Most relationships start with us on our best behavior, putting our best foot forward, only showing them our best side. And then over time, the more time spent together, we're all human. Some of those imperfections and flaws and some of these patterns from past relationships come up from the way your family handled conflict come up. So for me, one of my ex-girlfriends told me that I stonewalled. I had never heard of that term. I didn't know what that was. And I didn't realize that my physiological response to being criticized, to being called out in conflict was to completely withdraw and shut down. And then when I started to unpack that and do the work, I realized, well, that's exactly how my dad behaved in moments of argument. He would get so overheated and so angry that he was speechless and that he would just completely withdraw. And me and my sister had to fight tooth and nail to get his attention back, to get him to re-engage with us, to get him to cool off, that seemed to go away. So I was like, well, now this pattern, presenting it in my father, I see it now in myself. And a lot of these patterns to how we handle conflict, they're modeled for us through childhood. They allow us to feel good in the moment, but they sacrifice the relationship. They sacrifice the person on the other end, receiving the contempt, receiving the defensiveness, receiving the stonewalling. And over time, as Dr. Gottman shows, that's what ultimately leads to the breakup, to the divorce, to the dissolution of the friendship, to you not wanting anything to do with that person. And it's typically not the one action, the one experience, the one conflict. It's the repeated demonstration of these behaviors and these patterns in communication around conflict that lead to the distrust and lead to the other person saying, you know what, it's just not worth it. I can't do this anymore. I don't want to be in this situation because of these behaviors and actions. So you may have been on the receiving end of some and we may be actually doing these two others in our life. And part of the reason I want to do this episode is because when I recognize that pattern in my own life around stonewalling, I'm now consciously aware of it. It's not to say that I never do it. I still find myself from time to time in really heated conflict with my wife wanting or even starting to stonewall, but it allows me to catch it and recognize that pattern and to come back and apologize and say, you know what, Amy, I'm really sorry. I realize now that I was stonewalling you. And that's kind of been my default response in these moments of intense conflict. That's not how I want you to feel. That's not how I want to show up in this relationship. And I appreciate that you're so kind, giving compassion and understanding of these behaviors that I'm working on. Sometimes it takes a coach, helping you unpack and talk through the situation to see other pathways to resolution. Sometimes it takes, as Johnny said, therapy, talking it out, bringing in a professional to help solve this. But these patterns come up again and again in relationships. It's not like Dr. Gottman looked at one couple and said, OK, I got the four horsemen here. Let's go ahead and publish, right? This is after looking at tens of thousands of relationships and starting to recognize that these are well-worn human patterns to the way we communicate to the dynamics that show up in these relationships. And stonewalling, because there's the physiological response in the way that we move forward, we have to acknowledge that that's going on. And that acknowledgement might mean, hey, let's take five minute walk. Let's take 10 minutes. Let's do a breath exercise. Let's move to a new environment. Let's work to get our physiology back to a state where we can communicate comfortably. The stonewalling is really damaging if no resolution is ever found, no solution, no apology, no responsibility is taken. And you just let that simmer. You walk away from it, like you brush it under the rug. You pretend it didn't happen. And you hope if you wait long enough, maybe your partner will forget it. Maybe your coworker won't remember the last three times you've been late to that meeting. Maybe your best friend isn't going to worry about the fact that you haven't venmowed him back. And this is the fourth time he's requested it. When you stonewall, there's an implicit removal of responsibility from yourself. It's just like, I'm just going to withdraw. I'm going to go turtle mode. I'm going to pull back into my shell. And I'm going to wait for calmer seas here and hope that the other person just lets it slide, forgets about it, doesn't worry about it. And that is so devious because it is a physiological response. Like it's not stonewalling if someone says, OK, this is an argument I don't want to have, I'm going to stonewall now. It's that fight, flight, freeze response that happens with or without us knowing.