I get crosswise with too many people. I blame some of this on wanting things to be right more than I want them to be comfortable (perhaps this is a rationale, or an excuse for a lack of masterful coaching and conversational skill). The things I want to be right are either work related (I want my clients to do what they said they would do) or personal (I want my husband to do what we agreed). This sounds pretty clear cut though, in fact, it is anything but. Clients have their own agendas, their own needs and priorities, and sometimes what I think is most important isn’t to them. My husband is distinctly his own man, not cowed by other’s demands or requests (except those of his children), and he decides when he’s good and ready to do or be whatever he thinks is important. I, of course, saw this as an admirable quality before I married him. Sometimes, now, I see it as supreme narcissism.

Yesterday morning my husband and I had a beaut of a fight–in the garage–with the door open. The neighborhood was our audience. The argument, brief though it was, ended with my husband telling me to do something with my nether parts. I said I wanted to be alone, got in my car and left. My leaving was not a bad strategy for me. I do need some air when we have intense disagreements. I need to physically de-escalate our passions, or mine anyway. As soon as I was half a mile away I was planning our lunch together. I was still angry about what had precipitated the argument for me (I started it), but no longer saw it as very important. My husband, on the other hand, saw my final action as abandonment.

I began reading Verbal Judo as part of my early morning quiet time today. In it, one of the first things the author suggests to de-escalate disagreements is to respond to a taunt, or a provoking question with a straight answer. So if, as the author describes, someone asks me where I learned to drive (implying perhaps that I’m not a very good driver) I can respond, “Connecticut.” Smile. Go about my business. No fight. If I reconstruct our argument yesterday morning, there were several places where I could have answered or made a statement that was truthful, even humorous, that might have taken the air out of the fight and left both of us with our dignity.