According to gottman, allows each partner to deny responsibility for the problems that are causing conflict.

I believe the answer is: criticism

By making criticism, we could expose our partner on his/her weaknesses and focusing on that weakness to evoke a certain negative emotion. By doing this, the focus of their discussion could be strayed from our own weakness/insecurities and could be used to avoid responsibility when we're in a fight with our partner.

answer; genetics;