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Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
This assumption of similarity keeps you humble and softens contempt in the middle of a disagreement.
Do not assert your own goodness; He knows best who is mindful of Him (Quran 53:32). Refusing to place yourself above your partner is exactly this humility.
النجم
ٱلَّذِينَ يَجۡتَنِبُونَ كَبَٰٓئِرَ ٱلۡإِثۡمِ وَٱلۡفَوَٰحِشَ إِلَّا ٱللَّمَمَۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ وَٰسِعُ ٱلۡمَغۡفِرَةِۚ هُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِكُمۡ إِذۡ أَنشَأَكُم مِّنَ ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَإِذۡ أَنتُمۡ أَجِنَّةࣱ فِي بُطُونِ أُمَّهَٰتِكُمۡۖ فَلَا تُزَكُّوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡۖ هُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِمَنِ ٱتَّقَىٰٓ
As for those who avoid grave sins and foul acts, though they may commit small sins, your Lord is ample in forgiveness. He has been aware of you from the time He produced you from the earth and from your hiding places in your mothers’ wombs, so do not assert your own goodness:He knows best who is mindful of Him
Qur’an 53:32read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
The assumption of similarity in the Gottman Rapoport exercise asks you to look for your partner's fault in yourself and your own virtue in them. Gottman uses it as a check on the sense of superiority that feeds contempt.
John M. Gottman (1999). The Marriage Clinic: A Scientifically Based Marital Therapy. W. W. Norton
The Gottman-Rapoport intervention. Adapted from Anatol Rapoport: the listener must summarise the speaker's position to the speaker's satisfaction and validate it before replying, on the principle that understanding must precede persuasion.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Looking for your partner's fault in yourself, and your virtue in them, dissolves the superiority that fuels contempt.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Manage Conflict; Gottman-Rapoport intervention (Assumption of Similarity).