When I start to feel angry at my wife and I see an argument brewing, I often stop to ask myself "what is the cost of the argument, and is it worth the cost?" Generally, when I look at it this way, I discover it's not. So often, the underlying issue is something trivial, and the damage done by the argument can be enormous, especially if it escalates.
Sometimes I try to think of some way of addressing an issue without turning it into an argument. For example, the other day I noticed that my wife had not cleaned the pans she had used to cook her breakfast, leaving them for me to deal with (again). I thought about confronting her directly, but whenever that happens, she immediately twists it to be about something she had done for me, making me into an ungrateful dick. So instead, I took a sideways tack. As I was cleaning the kitchen I looked over at the pans and said "didn't I just clean those yesterday?" Somehow, that got the point across without it becoming an argument.
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