Richard O. Jones

At this point she is a self-proclaimed mind reader and arguing on the grounds that she knows his thoughts. The husband denies his lust for the other woman and claims that he was only innocently admiring the nice outfit or the picture on the wall behind the woman, which causes the wife to accuse him of being a liar- after all, she is a mind reader.

How can such a situation be amiably resolved?

Both parties should admit some culpability to the crisis. Without falsely admitting guilt the husband should admit his actions were thoughtless and he should apologize. He should show empathy for his wife's position. Perhaps the other woman was indeed attractive, which is a source of insecurity to most wives. The wife on the other hand must admit that she's no mind reader and that she was coming from a place of past experiences with unfaithful men, or has deep-seated beliefs that all men are dogs, or personal insecurity issues. She also must realize that the glance once or twice is no disrespect to her, however to gawk would be. She should apologize for being presumptuous.

In another scenario a husband and wife are sitting at the table having breakfast. The man is reading the paper and the woman humming a tune while she eats. The man tells her to quit because it's disturbing him.

The woman tries to momentarily cease but soon she relaxes and subconsciously the humming returns. This time the man bitterly accuses her of purposely making that disgusting noise to disturb him. He presents as proof that she does it every morning while he's reading his paper and she purposely doing it to bother him. Which is fact and which is opinion? The facts are that the woman is humming, and the sound disturbs the man. The opinion however is that she's humming to disturb the man. Just because he said stop doesn't mean the she can automatically cease a habit that she may have had for decades. For him to argue his opinion is presumptuous and should not continue.