The key to ending conflicts in your relationships with women:
The Request Translator !
This perhaps the single greatest tool that a man should learn to master. This excerpt is from Chapter Four of The Essential Guide for the Married Man.
“Anytime you hear words coming out of your wife’s mouth that sounds like a complaint about you (I know it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does), you are NOT allowed to respond (thank you Stephen Covey) until you are able to translate her complaint into a request. Again, until you are able to translate what sounds to you like a complaint about you, you are forbidden to do or say ANYTHING until you can decode your wife’s message by translating her words into a request for something that she wants. If you are able to do this, two very important complementary principles are put into motion.
First, you disarm the natural triggers that lead to defending yourself, using the weapons of defense against your wife, and creating a conflict that didn’t exist until you opened your mouth. That alone is good.
Second, and more importantly, even if you are not able to satisfy or fulfill her request at that moment, you will be naturally drawn to do so. Men are naturally wired that way; we are designed by God to do good. When you ask a man to do something, particularly when it sounds like he is the only one who can do it, it is hard for him to say no. Absent all other conflicting thoughts, your conscience will compel you to say yes.
So in an instant, what could have been the source of a prolonged conflict is magically transformed into you being drawn closer to her and generating first love the verb, which then manifests in love the noun.”
A simple example might be: “You are never home!” Now, you may recognize that complaints commonly come in the form of definitive statements, and we’ve learned early “Never answer a statement!” So that should be your first key to get the Request Translator out and power it up. Sometimes it takes a little while to warm up. On the surface, the statement may very well be true, so any attempt to defend yourself with stacks of evidence and justifications would just be futile. It only fuels the conflict. But you already know that. You’ve tried it, perhaps repeatedly, and it never goes well. Instead, what might your wife be asking of you? What is her request? While there may be several forms, she is ultimately saying, “I want to be with you” or “Will you spend time with me?” or, “Am I important to you?” Notice how your entire demeanor changes in an instant! You feel desired. This feeds your ego instead of being attacked, which provokes it.
So give her the benefit of the doubt. Remember:
I’d rather be wrong and do the right thing,
than be right and do the wrong thing.