BASIC PRINCIPLES OF FAIR FIGHTING
		     (Conflict: The key to Sustained Reality.)
		   (adapted from PAIRING, G. R. Bach, Avon, NY 1970)

1.)	Be specific when you introduce a gripe.

2.)	Don't just complain, no matter how specifically, ask for a reasonable
	change that will relieve a gripe.

3.)	Ask for or give feedback of the major points, to make sure you are
	heard, to assure your partner that you understand what he/she wants.

4.)	Confine yourself to one issue at a time. Other issue at a time. Other-
	wise, without professional guidance you may skip back and forth, evading
	hard ones.

5.)	Do not be glib or intolerant. Be open to your own feelings and equally
	open to your partner's.

6.)	Always consider compromise. Remember, your partner's views of reality
	may be just as real as yours, even though you differ. There are not
	many totally objective realities.

7.)	Do not allow counter-demands to enter the picture until the original
	demands are clearly understood, and there has been a clear-cut response
	to them.

8.)	Never assume that you know what your partner is thinking until you have
	checked out the assumption in plain language; nor assume or predict how
	he/she will react, what he/she will accept or reject. Crystal gazing
	is not pairing.

9.)	Don't mind-rape. Ask. Do not correct a partner's statement of his/her
	own feelings. Do not tell a partner what he/she should know or do or
	feel.

10.)	Never put labels on a partner. Call him/her neither coward, nor a
	neurotic, nor a child. If you really believed that he/she was incompetent
	or suffered some hopeless basic flaw, you probably would not be with
	him/her. Do not make sweeping, labeling judgements about his/her feel-
	ings, especially about whether or not they are real or important.

11.)	Sarcasm is dirty fighting.

12.)	Forget the past and stay with the here-and-now. What either of you did
	last year or last month or that morning is not as important as what you
	are doing and feeling now. And the changes you ask cannot possibly be
	retroactive. Hurts, grievances, and irritations should be brought up at
	the very earliest moment, or the partner has the right to suspect that
	they have been saved carefully as weapons.

13.)	Do not overload your partner with grievances. To to so makes him/her
	feel hopeless and suggests that you have either been hoarding complaints
	or have not thought through what really troubles you.

14.)	Meditate. Take time to consult your real thoughts and feelings before
	speaking. Don't be afraid to close your eyes and think.

15.)	Remember that there is never a single winner in an honest intimate fight.
	Both either win more intimacy, or both lose it.
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