Practices

Speak in I-statements about a specific situation. Drop the you-statements, the blame, and the always and never.

I felt worried when the call did not come lands. You are so thoughtless attacks. Stay with I and the specific.

If you are the critical one, risk the soft feeling under the anger and ask, gently, for what you need instead of attacking.

Criticism is often a protest from someone who feels alone and unmet. Softening, letting your partner see the hurt beneath the sharpness and asking…

If you take a break from a fight, name when you will come back, and come back.

Give me twenty minutes, I am not leaving this. Then return, calmer, as promised.

For a compromise, name your one true core need, then be genuinely flexible on everything around it.

Separate the small inflexible core from the wide flexible area. Guard the core, give on the rest.

On a stuck, recurring fight, stop trying to persuade. First explore the dream or value behind each position.

Gridlock rarely yields to argument. Set persuasion aside and get curious about what the issue means to each of you.

Before you try to persuade, summarize your partner's position back until they say yes, that is it.

No persuasion lands until your partner feels understood. Interview them, then reflect their view to their satisfaction.

After a fight has cooled, revisit it once without blame, each saying how it felt.

Not who was right. How it felt for me, how it felt for you, and what we each needed.

On the fight you keep having, stop trying to win it and ask what it means to them underneath.

What are you hoping for, or afraid of, in this. Then only listen for the dream beneath.

Before you argue your side, say their side back so well that they feel understood.

Summarize what they mean until they say yes, that is it. Then, and only then, your turn.

If you go silent and shut down, do not just stonewall. Say you need a break, and come back when calm.

Silent withdrawal makes it worse. Name that you are overwhelmed, take twenty minutes, then re-engage.

When either of you floods, take a real break of at least twenty minutes before continuing, and agree when to return.

Past a certain heat the body cannot hear reason. Stop, settle, and come back at the time you set.

Put the uncertainty at the front. Not Thursday, possibly Friday, most likely Monday is worth far more to the other person than a confident yes you cannot keep.

It feels worse to say, which is why people avoid it. But a hedge given early costs you nothing, while a promise broken later costs twice: the thing…

Point at the body. 'Your hands went up just then', or 'you put your head in your hands', gives a feeling something solid to stand on.

Feelings argued about in the abstract go round and round. A gesture you both just watched is much harder to dispute, and it opens a door: what was…

When someone goes quiet and you can see they have gone inside, that is not your moment to help. Stay still and let the silence run.

You will feel the pull to summarise, to check they are alright, to bring the other person back in. All of it lands as an interruption. Give it a few…

When someone finally gets one true word out about how they feel, resist explaining it to them. Ask what that word is like from the inside and let them find the rest.

The temptation is to say the clever thing: of course you felt rejected, anyone would. It is often accurate and it usually ends the moment, because…

Once the feeling is actually in the room, ask the plain question: what did you hear her saying about you? The answer is usually where the sting really lives.

A comment about the washing up does not floor anyone by itself. It floors you because of what you heard underneath it, something along the lines of…

Watch for the swerve. Right after something tender gets said, along comes a story about a brother or a colleague or a thing from years ago, and the tender part quietly gets left behind.

Swerving is not dishonesty. It is what people do when a feeling gets close, and it works, which is exactly why it is so easy to follow along.…

If a conversation has wandered off and you have lost the thread, go back to the last thing that had real feeling in it, and go back using the words they used.

Not a summary of those words. The actual phrase: 'you said she has her standards and you will never meet them, and your eyes went red when you said…

You do not have to reflect back everything a person just told you. Pick up the part that carries the weight and say that much.

A long, careful summary can flatten what someone has just risked saying. If the heart of it is that he feels defeated and frightened of never being…

Telling somebody one thing you are quietly embarrassed about will bring you closer than a month of pleasant conversation.

It does not have to be dramatic. The worry you have never said out loud, the mistake you still think about at night, the thing you are no good at.…