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become righteously indignant, and insist that the offending obstacle
move. The other is to drive around it. The first approach will
eventually earn you a heart attack. The second approach--which I call
yielding to win--will get you home.
The classic example of a husband yielding to win concerns the
ubiquitous toilet seat issue. The typical woman gets irritated when
her husband leaves the toilet seat up, even though it only takes her a
millisecond to put it down herself. For many women a raised toilet
seat is symbolic of the male's sense of entitlement. So a man can score
major points with his wife just by putting the seat down. The wise
husband smiles at how smart he is as he drops the lid.
Accepting influence is an attitude, but it's also a skill that you
can hone if you pay attention to how you relate with your spouse. In
your day-to-day life, this means working on the first three principles
by following the advice and exercises in Chapters 3, 4, and 5. And
when you have a conflict, the key is to be willing to compromise. You
do this by searching through your partner's request for something
you can relinquish. For example, Chad, who infuriated Martha by
working late when her mother was due to visit, might not be able to
compromise on working more than usual, but perhaps he could
switch the timing of his work. He could, for example, postpone the
late night until Friday so that at least he could help Martha get the
house ready for her mother's visit. Perhaps she, Grandma, and little
sister could take their son to soccer practice on Saturday
(traditionally his task) so that he could get some work done then.
If despite plenty of effort a man is still unable to accept
influence from his wife on a particular issue, it's a sign that an
unacknowledged, unsolvable problem is stymieing his attempts. In
such a case, the key is to learn how to cope with the unsolvable
problem, using the advice in Chapter 10. One couple we studied, Tim
and Kara, faced this dilemma. They constantly argued about his
friend Buddy who Kara thought was anything but a pal.
Unemployed, he often fought with his live-in girlfriend and ended
up boozing and then crashing on their living room sofa. Kara feared
that Buddy would be a bad influence on Tim and saw his frequent
presence in their home as an invasion and a threat. But whenever she
tried to talk to Tim about it, he insisted that this was his home and