Rule #1: Do not use denigrating labels.

When people are angry, they often use the strongest lan­guage possible to vent their feelings of frustration. And nothing is more satisfying than describing the object of one’s resent­ment in the most defamatory terms imaginable. While this form of name-calling lets off steam, it can ignite long-lasting strife in any marriage.

Bear in mind your goal in speaking. You are trying to get your spouse to listen and understand what you have to say. If you start labeling your spouse, you will succeed only in arous­ing defensiveness. He or she will then quickly lose patience, tune out and may even get up and walk away.

Your job as a speaker is to speak in a manner which will be tolerable for your spouse to hear. You must make every effort, therefore, to avoid use of terms such as: stupid, mean, crazy, idiotic, cruel, retarded, abusive, weird, sadistic, narcissist …, well, you get the idea.

• Rule #2: Do not attack.

Attacks are indictments that are leveled like criminal charges in a court of law. They are pronounced in a self-righteous tone which almost always elicits defensiveness and counterattacks. As a rule, attacks tend to begin with, “You are…,” or, “You always….”

The best way to avoid attacking your spouse is to try to frame your comments using “I” statements which express your feelings.

“Nechama” felt that her husband, “Zev,” was stingy regarding giving monetary gifts to their married children. She felt he was self-centered and selfish since he wanted to keep all of his money for himself. Unlike Nechama who enjoyed helping her adult children financially, Zev often com­plained that Nechama was squandering his hard-earned money on their ungrateful children.

For many years, Nechama used to lambast Zev with unflattering terms, calling him selfish, self-centered and unloving, whenever an opportunity arose for them to give gifts to their children. Eventually, Nechama learned how to express her feelings in a less confrontational manner.

One night, after dinner, Nechama turned to Zev and said, “I would like to give some money to our children to help them with their upcoming Yom Tov expenses. Whenever I have brought this up in the past and you have opposed it, I felt disappointed in you. I would like to respect you as a partner and the father of our chil­dren. But when you are so against giving money to our children, it makes it difficult for me to respect you. For me, giving to our children is like giving to myself. And I would like to feel that my husband at least understands, if not agrees, with that position.”

Zev did not agree, at first, to Nechama’s proposed gift giv­ing. But he did sit still long enough to hear her out. It was the first of many discussions which they had on that subject. Eventually, they worked out a compromise which resulted in smaller gifts than Nechama had originally intended but with which she was quite comfortable in the end.

• Rule #3: Do not exaggerate.

Exaggeration is another way in which we tend to vent our feelings when we are upset. This undoubtedly relieves our inner tension but does not do much for marital harmony.

Once again, the main objective must always be kept in mind. If your goal is to be heard and understood, then exag­geration is extremely counterproductive. Once your spouse hears any slight exaggeration on your part, he or she will feel fully justified in rejecting everything you have to say. As men­tioned earlier, therefore, words such as “always” and “never” should be eliminated, along with any other exaggerations which can be used by your spouse to disregard and discredit what you have to say. Sometimes as illustrated by the next case, exaggeration succeeds — by getting your spouse’s atttention, for the moment, only to fail in the long run — by getting your spouse to ignore or minimize your feelings in the future.

“Avi” tended toward being somewhat overly dramatic whenever he got into an argument with his wife, “Lea.” He was not trying to be manipulative or insincere. That was simply the style he had learned when grow­ing up, witnessing the knock-down, drag-out con­frontations between his parents who never got along with each other.

Whenever the dust settled after a quarrel, Avi would once again speak in his typical mild-mannered, gentle tone which was familiar to all friends, neighbors and extended family. The outside world never witnessed the histrionics which Avi displayed to his wife and children.

One day, after a particularly exhausting struggle with Lea over a trip Lea was planning to take without him, Avi announced, “I feel so distraught right now that I’m afraid I might hurt myself.”

Lea immediately thought that Avi was contemplat­ing suicide. As a result, she immediately canceled her trip and decided to remain at home, rather than take any action which could provoke Avi to take his own life.

Subsequently, during marital counseling, Lea spoke about how Avi’s comment had frightened her and made her feel that she had no alternative but to cancel her trip. Avi replied that Lea had “read into” his remarks. “I never had any intention of killing myself,” Avi insisted. “If you canceled your trip, you cannot blame me for your decision.”

By the end of the session, Avi acknowledged that his statement regarding hurting himself was an exaggera­tion. But it took much longer for Avi to be able to accept responsibility for the damage such exaggerations caused to his relationship with his wife. Eventually, Avi understood that his use of exaggeration was a major contributing factor to the disregard and disrespect he often received from Lea.

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Dr. Meir Wikler is a psychotherapist and family counselor in full-time private practice with offices in Brooklyn, N.Y. and Lakewood, N.J. This article has been adapted with permission of the author and publisher from Ten Minutes a Day to a Better Marriage: Getting Your Spouse to Understand You by Dr. Meir Wikler (Artscroll, 2003).