Fight Back, Give In, or Something Else?

The legal notice ran to nine pages. It said Suresh was a negligent father, a drinker and a man who hid money from his family. He read it twice at his desk and then wrote for three hours.

By one in the morning he had an email of two thousand words, titled “The truth about you”. He had copied in her brother. His cursor was over the send button when he decided, for no reason he could name, to forward it to his cousin first. She is a lawyer.

She rang at seven. “If you send that, you are writing her next piece of evidence for her.”

“So I am supposed to just take it?”

“No. There is a third thing.”

Two instincts, both expensive

Bill Eddy and Randi Kreger, in their book Splitting, describe the two responses almost everyone reaches for when a partner turns on them. They consider both to be mistakes.

The first is to hit back. It feels natural and even fair. The trouble, they write, is that an aggressive reply makes you look like the unreasonable one to anybody watching, hands the other side material to use, and tends to increase the behaviour you wanted to stop. They tell of a father who sent one furious email after a bad day in court. It was attached to the other side’s papers at the next hearing as proof of his temper.

The second is to give way. Many people in these marriages, the authors observe, have kept the peace for years by yielding. They warn that it does not end the demands. Just when you think you have given enough, more is asked. And false statements you leave unanswered tend to follow you around. If you do not raise a thing, they say, it is as though it never existed.

The third thing

They call it the assertive approach. It is neither attack nor surrender. In their description it means learning how these patterns work, keeping a record of what happens, and putting accurate information in front of the right people, promptly and in a matter-of-fact tone.

They sum up the first half of it in a word, KEEP: knowledge and energy to explain patterns. The energy part matters. This can last months or years, and you have to pace yourself.

Stop and think

The authors call these some of the most important words in a difficult separation. Before you communicate in anger, check with a therapist or a lawyer. Process the fury there, and not in writing.

They also ask you to choose your battles. A provocative letter may need no answer at all. To respond is a choice. A false statement in a formal document is different. That should always be corrected in writing, even briefly, to protect you now and later.

Do not make yourself a target

For the length of the process, they advise behaving as close to perfectly as you can, because you are being watched. Pay what you owe on time. Keep a low profile online. Think about how an ordinary decision could be described by someone who wishes you ill.

And be scrupulously honest, starting with your own lawyer. Admit your mistakes early. The authors make a sharp point here: a claim that is half true is harder to deny than one you can prove is wholly false.

Buy time

A partner in this state will often present everything as an emergency that must be settled now. Eddy and Kreger’s advice is not to absorb the crisis. They offer a sentence for it: “Give me time to think about it. I am inclined to say no, but I will get back to you in two days.”

They cite research showing that emotions are contagious, and they draw a practical conclusion. If you mirror back the upset, it grows. If you answer in an even voice, with something as dull as “I will think about that”, your calm can be caught too. They pair that patience with clear messages and firm deadlines, so that being flexible is not mistaken for being unsure.

Suresh did not send the email. He sent four sentences the following afternoon, written with his cousin. All four were facts.