The trick to avoid arguments is primarily useful for husbands and wives but there are many other situations where it can be very helpful.
When people live together there is bound to be a certain amount of friction that occurs. It is to be expected. Each person has their own good and bad habits. Let’s imagine a household where the husband has the habit of leaving his clothes lying around on the floor and the wife is upset with having to constantly pick them up.
One Sunday evening when the wife picks up a dirty sweat shirt to throw into the hamper she verbally attacks her husband. ” Were you raised in a barn leaving your clothes all over the floor? You turned out to be one big slob. ” At this point the husband having been attacked responds with his own attack criticizing her cooking and anything else he could think of.
What the wife should have said was, “When you leave you clothes on the floor and I have to pick them up it makes me feel like a maid instead of your wife.” She is still discussing the problem of clothes on the floor but there is no personal attack, so the husband does not attack her. This opens up the probability for a reasonable discussion about the clothes.
The idea in back of this trick is to express how the other persons bad conduct hurt your feelings instead of criticizing them for what they have done. This leads to discussion rather than confrontation.