When I Say No I Feel Guilty - Summary

Reposting from main sub on to askMRP per the mods. I have a serious problem with defensiveness when my wife starts criticizing me. WISNIFG was written for me and I just re-read it and outlined the material to help internalize it. Fogging, Negative Assertion, and Negative Inquiry are the exact tools I need and I'm finally using them how I should. I'm sharing the TL;DR summary.

Edit: full 12 page outline with too many nested bullets for a reddit post is here.

Summary of Assertive Rights – You have the right to:

1 – Be the ultimate judge your own behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yourself

2 – offer no reasons or excuses for justifying your behavior

3 – judge if you are responsible for finding solutions to other people’s problems

4 – change your mind

5 – make mistakes – and be responsible for them

6 – say “I don’t know”

7 – be independent of the goodwill if others before coping with them

8 – be illogical in making decisions

9 – say “I don’t understand”

10 – say “I don’t care”

Summary of Assertive Skills

Broken Record (verbal persistence) – keep saying what you want over and over again in a calm repetitive voice, without getting angry, irritated, or loud

• “I want x” repeated as many times as needed

Workable Compromise – Whenever your self-respect is not in question, offer a workable compromised to the other person. Do not compromise a matter of self-worth

Self-Disclosure – Assertively disclosing information about yourself – how you think and feel. Make sure body language is congruent, eye contact.

• Can also be a neutral inquiry, just trying to understand

Fogging – Agree with the truths in non-assertive criticism. Agree with actual truths about you and your behavior and admit mistakes or errors. For arbitrary right/wrong judgments tacked on to criticism, agree with the odds or principle (there’s always a grain of truth). Don’t respond to anything implied.

• Agree with actual truth: That’s true, that’s right… I could, should x
• Agree with the odds/principal – for something that’s possible: you could be right, maybe you’re right, that’s probably true, I guess you’re right, you may be right, I understand why you think that, I see why you think that

Negative Assertion – Assertively accept and own (via self-disclosure) your errors and negative points. Share true feelings we assume we should hide: dislikes, worry, ignorance, desires, and fears

• I did do x, what a very stupid/dumb/inefficient/wasteful/unproductive thing to do, I didn’t handle that well, I messed that up, I goofed, that was a dumb thing I did

Negative Inquiry – prompting criticism – inquire into structure of right/wrong structure in criticism, and ask for more information wrong/bad about your behavior. The critical issue can then be out in the open to find workable compromise

• I don’t understand, what is it about x that is bad/wrong/you don’t like?
• What am I doing specifically that’s x?
• What else is wrong or what don’t you like about me doing x?