My wife and I carpool. We had an incident this morning where she thought I was showing weakness. Admittedly, I confessed a tiny moment of weakness to her.

This tiny sliver, barely a sentence was enough for her to pounce on. She went on and on about it and what I should do, etc. My initial response was to hold frame, say OK and leave it at that.

The entire trip she still kept going and by then, I said something back and it triggered an emotional response. "Am I not allow to say anything?" "Why are you being defensive?"

Clearly shit tests and I did OK (could've been better) for what it was. I re-directed and said she can say something, but I should be allowed to say something back in response. I flipped it and asked her why she was being defensive about it.

At this point, she hit her emotional limit and blew it. I can't talk to you about anything, blah blah blah we're done (with this conversation), don't bother to pick me up. I kept calm the whole time (in the past, I would've blew it myself...but not after TRP).

I dropped her off. About 10 minutes later, I get a deluge of long texts. My singular response was "I thought you said we were done?"

Later on, I text her that I'll be picking her up at the usual time/place. Now this is key. I didn't ask her, I told her. Her reply a few hours later was "OK."

The fact I made it a statement, not a question was key to holding frame. Absolutely key, I would say. With the statement, she didn't have a whole lot of options. Asking as a question would've let her be the decider, not me.

I started following TRP and MRP in January and this has been very helpful. Wanted everyone to know how it's helped me out. Old me would've just taken it and apologized for even speaking back. Thanks.