Areas › Your marriage › Repair after rupture
Describe your own reality with I heard you say, not you said. Leave room to be corrected.
Report only what you saw, heard, and felt, like a reporter, not what you think they meant.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Avoid making too many assumptions, some assumptions are sinful (Quran 49:12). I heard, rather than you meant, guards against the sinful guess.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱجۡتَنِبُواْ كَثِيرࣰ ا مِّنَ ٱلظَّنِّ إِنَّ بَعۡضَ ٱلظَّنِّ إِثۡمࣱۖ وَلَا تَجَسَّسُواْ وَلَا يَغۡتَب بَّعۡضُكُم بَعۡضًاۚ أَيُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمۡ أَن يَأۡكُلَ لَحۡمَ أَخِيهِ مَيۡتࣰ ا فَكَرِهۡتُمُوهُۚ وَٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ تَوَّابࣱ رَّحِيمࣱ
Believers, avoid making too many assumptions- some assumptions are sinful- and do not spy on one another or speak ill of people behind their backs: would any of you like to eat the flesh of your dead brother? No, you would hate it. So be mindful of God: God is ever relenting, most merciful
Qur’an 49:12read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Stating your version as the truth invites a fight over facts; framing it as what you perceived, and inviting correction, keeps the exchange safe.
Gottman, J.; Coan, J.; Carrere, S.; Swanson, C. (1998). Predicting Marital Happiness and Stability from Newlywed Interactions. Journal of Marriage and the Family doi
Newlywed interaction patterns; accepting influence; soft start-up.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Owning your account as perception, not fact, keeps a partner from feeling accused and lets them correct you.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Manage Conflict; Aftermath of a Fight, Step 2: Realities.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.