I was recently recommended the book, 'When I Say No, I Feel Guilty,' which contains a lot of conversational strategies for improving assertiveness. One of these is called 'Fogging,' which is basically sort of an 'agree, but don't amplify' type thing.

In my marriage, one thing I've noticed is that agree/amplify never seemed to work all that well. The amplify part was either coming off as passive/aggressive, sarcastic/defensive, or just plain unfunny. I think agree/amplify maybe makes more sense with plates and flirting interactions, not hardcore LTR betaization attempts.

For example, last night, my wife was being a bitch because I ran the dishwasher at night, but I should have known that of course she had wanted to take a bath and now wouldn't have the hot water. Beta me would have apologized and told her I couldn't read minds and it would have escalated into a big fight with personal attacks. Agree/amplify me would have tried to make a joke that still would have seemed as defensive to her. Instead, I simply agreed, "yeah, I shouldn't really have run the dishwasher if you wanted to take a bath." The key is DO NOT APOLOGIZE, just simply state back whatever fact they were saying to you.

I know this worked because she said "You're an asshole" and 10 minutes later we were having sex.

I'm no TRP expert but just wanted to share this experience.