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Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
No persuasion lands until your partner feels understood. Interview them, then reflect their view to their satisfaction.
Argue with them in the most courteous way (Quran 16:125). The most courteous argument begins by showing you truly understood.
النحل
ٱدۡعُ إِلَىٰ سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِٱلۡحِكۡمَةِ وَٱلۡمَوۡعِظَةِ ٱلۡحَسَنَةِۖ وَجَٰدِلۡهُم بِٱلَّتِي هِيَ أَحۡسَنُۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ هُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِمَن ضَلَّ عَن سَبِيلِهِۦ وَهُوَ أَعۡلَمُ بِٱلۡمُهۡتَدِينَ
[Prophet], call [people] to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good teaching. Argue with them in the most courteous way, for your Lord knows best who has strayed from His way and who is rightly guided
Qur’an 16:125read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
The Gottman Rapoport exercise postpones persuasion until the listener has summarised the speaker's position to the speaker's satisfaction. Gottman calls this earning the right to persuade, because influence only travels after understanding.
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.
Earning the right to persuade by first summarizing a partner's view to their satisfaction is what makes influence possible.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Manage Conflict; Gottman-Rapoport intervention (Listener: summarize and validate).