Marriage Jujitsu

In the martial arts we learn how to use the opponent's attack and movement toward us as the power to move him. Nowhere is that practiced better than in the form of jujitsu. If your adversary throws a punch at you, you learn to take his thrust and help it go further than he intended while side stepping it to avoid impact. In a sense you help him punch and then trip him on the way past! it is at the same time both powerful and totally effortless.

The marital arts could learn from these martial arts! You would do well to learn how to take your wife's attack and allow it, side step it and have it work to your advantage. But what might that look like? We are not talking about your wife physically attacking you however. But sometimes you do stupid and unthinking things that evoke her anger and rage.

Step 1. Acknowledge she's mad (angry, upset, hysterical, name the emotion - and for help see the post on November 8) and that from her perspective, she has every reason to be so. Acknowledging it means naming it back to her: "Wow, I see that I really pissed you off!"

Step 2. Assure her that you did not (and never do) intend to upset her.

Step 3. But let her know that you want to hear it all - like the full frontal attack (you are man enough to take it, so shut your mind up and stand in there). This can be a simple, "Tell me more" or "Tell me about it, I want to learn."

Step 4. Shut up and listen. This is the jujitsu part of it: you let her anger or tears or whatever run their course and wear her out. Once she's expressed the full gamut, there will be little combat left in her - she's made her point and you listened.

Step 5. Let her know you heard what she said. Don't let this get into a quiz but just assure her that you got the point and that you will give your level best not to do that again.

Now there are two exceptions to this (when she essentially wants you to violate your personal terms or what you stand for, or when you have violated some major ethical issue like had an affair) but we wont go into those here. The bottom line is to learn to practice martial arts in your marital relationships.