Share
Say what's true for you, and why you see it that way. The coach helps you keep it on your side.
A place to say your side, and be heard before anyone answers.
One of you shares, in your own words and with your reasons. The other listens to understand. Only the person who shared says when they felt understood. Then the floor passes.
How it works
Listen
Reflect it back, ask what they meant, or just say you heard it. Arguing isn't one of the options.
ReflectAcknowledgeValidateAsk to understandExtend
Understood
Only the person who shared can mark it. When they do, it's the other person's turn.
I feel like I end up carrying the weekend planning, and by Friday I'm already tired of it. I'd love for us to sketch the weekend together on Thursday nights.
See it differently? That gets its own turn, after Alex feels heard.
Decide
After you've both felt understood, you may decide something together. Or leave it there. Understood is enough.
Sam's offer
What I could live with
Thursday is fine if it's short.
Where I'd move
I'll bring one idea each week instead of none.
Your offer
What I could live with
A loose sketch on Thursday, in ten minutes, not a meeting.
Where I'd move
I'd stop planning Sundays at all.
Nobody can be argued with here
While one of you has the floor, the other can only listen. There is no reply box for rebuttals, no "yes, but". If you see it differently, that gets its own turn, after your partner feels heard.
Research by John Gottman found that how a conversation starts largely predicts how it ends, and that de-escalation matters more than winning. The structure here is borrowed from the speaker–listener format studied by Howard Markman and colleagues: one person speaks, the other works to understand, nobody rebuts.
I feel like I end up carrying the weekend planning, and by Friday I'm already tired of it. I'd love for us to sketch the weekend together on Thursday nights.
See it differently? That gets its own turn, after Alex feels heard.
ReflectAcknowledgeValidateAsk to understandExtend
The coach is private to you
While you write, a quiet note may appear beside your draft. It never judges whether you're right. It only helps you say it from your side, so it can be heard. Your partner never sees it.
You never think about what the weekend costs me.
I feel like the weekend lands on me, and I'd like us to carry it together.
Pausing is built in
Either of you can pause, any time, for at least 20 minutes, and you pick when you'll be back. The conversation waits exactly where it was.
That number isn't arbitrary. John Gottman's work on flooding found that a body in the middle of a hard conversation needs roughly that long to settle. Time to settle, not to rehearse.
I feel like I end up carrying the weekend planning, and by Friday I'm already tired of it. I'd love for us to sketch the weekend together on Thursday nights.
See it differently? That gets its own turn, after Alex feels heard.
So by the time the weekend comes you're already worn out from holding all of it, and you'd like it to be something we build together earlier in the week.
Correction: Not worn out, exactly. More like unnoticed.
What this is not
- Not a therapist.
- Not a referee.
- Not for relationships with violence.