I felt this feild report would be a good example of frame.

TL;DR: Girlfriend tried to shame me into being too controlling, didn't work, she apologized.

I've been with my girl for a few years now. We never fight (I don't allow drama), and she basically does everything for me. She is all the good stuff, yada yada, use your imagination.

A small detail; I quite smoking a year and a bit ago (she quit too. But for her it was only social smoking).

To the story.

She came home from work the other night and gave me the old "I have to tell you something" line. Oh?... She tells me she had a smoke.

My first reaction is disgust. I tell her that it's super out of character and ask why? She says she just felt like it. Uh huh. She asks why I'm so upset. I tell her; "because, you told me you wouldn't smoke anymore (she told me this a long time ago), and I trusted you."

This is the key moment in my frame. I never backed down from this.

Enter the shit-test;

She proceeded to try and make it seem like my standards are too high, and if she is to smoke by accident every once in a while, she doesn't want to feel so shamed by it. She's basically saying; the weight of my frame is heavy.

Now, this is where is all gets interesting, but also very simple. She kept going in circles, trying to re-frame the argument with different analogies or metaphors (she's pretty creative), to make my reasons seem unreasonable. But the whole time, all I did was HOLD HER EYE CONTACT and let her off-load. There were loooooong silent pauses in-between each section of speech. And she would just stare into my eyes, challenging me to break first. But no, I'm not gonna do that. I just kept telling her "Your arguments don't stand against the fact that you broke my trust. You have no argument here."

After a while of letting her talk, I just got up and got ready for bed. She eventually followed suit, and while in bed she cuddled up to me and said "Sorry. I made a mistake."

Lesson learned: Have a frame and stand your ground. If she had broken mine, she would have lost a bit of attraction. Instead, now she is a happy little girl who can count on her man being strong.