The topic of today’s article is how to handle arguments with women without them losing respect for you or falling out of frame with you.

The title might be a little bit misleading for some of you because to be honest, there is no winning or losing in any arguments with a woman. The only thing that matters in such situation is to handle it appropriately and lead it in a productive direction.

Don’t argue with a woman…?

If you search this topic up on the Internet, most people are going to tell you to never to argue with a woman. That’s conventional wisdom and (hopefully) all of you know about it already. We know it is true.

See, I could write this article in bad faith and just regurgitate the same shit every other dude says about this topic.

However, I want you to learn something. Would you really know what to do if it comes to an argument with your woman at some point if I just told you the same shit everyone else does? Probably not.

Instead, I want to present you with solutions that actually work in the real world, so you guys know what the hell you’re doing. And what exactly does “do not argue with a woman” mean?

Psychological analysis of arguments

OK, don’t argue with a woman. Roger. Got it. So, does that mean she’s right all the time? How does that show up in the actual relationship dynamic? How do I handle things then if I don’t argue with her? In this article, we’re going to answer these questions.

First of all, let’s talk about female communication one more time. As we’ve already covered most of it in this article, we know that women don’t default to logical communication.

The way in which their brain processes information goes something like this:

Instinct -> unconscious mind -> emotions -> Logic

While the process for men is more along the lines of:

Instinct -> unconscious mind -> Logic -> emotions

This means that women, contrary to men, filter things through their emotions first, after they have been processed by the unconscious mind. Emotions come first for women and after that comes the logical discussion or the argument in the moment.

While this will heighten a woman’s capacity for emotional intelligence, it does us no good when it comes to arguing. That’s just how women are wired, no matter if she has the highest IQ on the planet.

Why it makes no sense to argue with a woman

An example regarding this: Have you ever had a woman get mad at you for explaining something to her outside the scope of an argument?

If yes, that’s because she’s almost offended that you communicate with logic to her, as that’s not her default way of communication. That’s also why terms like “mansplaining” exist.

When you’re dating a woman and are therefore in a sexual relationship with her, there always is some kind of tension there. Even if you haven’t had sex with her yet, the frame of the relationship (even if you’re just on a date) is a sexual one, or at least it should be.

This tension leads to a dynamic where there are emotional connotations to that relationship. This in turn means that a woman is no longer able to separate the emotional aspects of this relationships with logic or reason.

It thus makes no sense to try to appeal to a woman’s logic and explain yourself like you would do when you talk with another guy.

Consequences of using logic to “persuade” your woman in an argument

First of all, that’s weak as you’re supplicating to her and seeking her validation. It seems like you feel bad that she invalidates your points, so you try to chase her acknowledgement of your views to feel like a good boy again.

This seems needy and insecure. Even if you’re just trying to logically argue the point, to her it comes across as seeking validation. Women look for an emotional exchange with you. They don’t care about your logic and reason. The thing they care about the most is results.

In addition to this, arguing with logic will destroy that emotional bond that she has with you. When a woman is arguing, she’s not concerned with the truth or what is right necessarily. The thing she cares about the most is being a “good” person.

She wants to feel like a “good chimp”

I could come up with a whole bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo to explain this concept, but that would just mean that most of you guys would zone out while reading this.

Let me therefore go ahead and give it to you as simple as possible. We use the term chimp or chimpanzee while referring to our animal brain:

If a woman doesn’t feel like she is a “good” chimpanzee, she will fight tooth and nail to defend that status. Because in ancient times, not being a good chimpanzee would mean that she would’ve been ostracized from the tribe.

A woman that isn’t “good” would’ve been beaten or killed by her mate, get left behind or get less privileges in the hunter-gatherer nomadic tribe. Good women on the other hand would get all privileges in the tribe.

Therefore, being labeled as a “bad” person is a survival issue for a woman because in our ancestral past, she relied on the social structure for survival.

That’s just how a woman’s hindbrain, the chimpanzee brain, and thus her instincs, operate. She has to feel like she’s a “good” woman. Therefore women don’t want to admit when they’re wrong or mechanisms like the “anti slut defense” happen.

What about men?

Men on the other hand don’t give a shit about being a “good” person, as they were judged by the tribe on how much resources they could obtain.

In the ancestral past, fixing a mistake or a problem would mean that they were able to better procure resources or win battles with less losses. That’s why men have no trouble admitting fault.

The tribe wasn’t reliant on them being a “good” chimpanzee, it was reliant on them being the “useful” chimpanzee.

What happens during an argument with a woman?

Let’s now say that a woman wants to argue with you. Her interest in the argument is to be right. However, she doesn’t want to be right to point out what’s objectively true in that moment, but to defend herself from being perceived as a bad person.

In her eyes, there’s an injustice and an attack against her and her social standing as a “good” person, so she feels like she’s being victimized as a “bad” person in this conflict.

Anyone who tries to indulge in this injustice is therefore a “bad” person attacking her and she will be resentful, attacking and heated towards anyone who tries to make her out to be this precieved “bad chimpanzee”.

Even if you’re not attacking her social standing with your words, she feels like her social proof and therefore her survival are in danger. This is because in admitting fault in the argument, she admits to being a bad person. And “bad” monkeys get thrown out of the tribe possibly.

Their initial response to any argument is thus to argue with you to defend a perceived social status of “goodness”, no matter how logical you are. This in turn will piss you off so bad that you want to throw them off a cliff.

Even if you’re right and what you say in the moment is absolutely correct, your points are completely logical to any bystander watching and she looks stupid in defending herself, you are still attacking her status as a “good person”.

She is the good person being victimized and you are the big bad person attacking her. That will be the narrative of every single argument you have with a woman from now until the end of time. That’s also the reason why you will never win an argument with her.

What happens after you argued with your woman?

What does this mean? It means that your woman will never be able to admit fault as long as she’s defending her status as a good person. The goal here is not to “beat” you woman in a logical argument.

That’s a big misconception I still see being thrown around in certain parts of the manosphere.

You’re not alpha if you whip her ass in a logical argument, especially not if she resents you after you have beaten her with words. That’s just plain stupid. Essentially, you made her feel like a bad person and she therefore resents you even if you win the logical debate.

Then the accusations like “You were mean to me” or “You didn’t handle me right” will come flying at you and she will see herself as the victim. It will be all those things you did wrong to bring this injustice to the table, so she will be mad at you and you will be at fault anyway.

It doesn’t even matter that you’ve won the logical argument with your woman, you still lose. Now you have to deal with her bitchy attitude towards to you for 3 days, even though logically she was at fault in the argument.

See where this is going?

It’s all about her “good chimp” status!

The personal accountability is hindered because of the whole “good person” mind state. In addition to this, she will probably do the thing you argued about in spite because she’s resentful now.

She’s just not going to tell you about it. So, not only do you have a bitchy woman at home now, she also fell out of your frame and does things you don’t want.

You lose big time, even if you logically”win” the argument

And then the other part is the argument with your woman in itself. Anything bad that you say during the argument is going to be put in the memory banks.

As this is an emotional exchange, she’s going to log everything you say that’s negative into her filing system to use against you at a later time. So that is what arguing does for you, even when you’re right. It only causes resentment.

If you’re wrong in the argument, things will get even worse. If you stick to your point even though you’re wrong, you’re now being inconsistent and a bad leader in the relationship. This will break her trust and her bond with you.

On the other hand, if you admit to being wrong, you will completely lose frame. Since this will happen in the context of an argument, you will lose your leadership because you have to defer to her leadership and appease her to make things right again.

The crux of the matter is the following: Whatever you’re doing during the argument, you lose. Women just don’t like logic, get this shit through your head.

Solution

Now that you know why it is a bad idea to argue with a woman, lets talk about how to actually win this.

The “win” in this case is to handle the argument with your woman in a manner so that you have frame control on the one hand and she still respects your leadership and eventually you on the other hand.

This outcome should be achieved without beating her down with words.

The outcome of this specific tool will be the same, no matter if you’re right or wrong. If she’s wrong, she will change her outlook on things and still love you for it. If you’re wrong, you will still have frame. It’s a win-win situation for both of you.

The four phases of an argument

Dan wile, a psychologist, has published a paper in 1996 that talks about four phases of an argument. These phases are the following:

1. Attack-and defend phase
2. Active repair phase
3. Collaboration phase
4. Admitting phase

We will now explain each of these phases in detail and tell you how to handle them in an argument with your woman.

Phase 1: Attack and defend

This is where the heated part of the argument happens. Both participants launch ad-hominem attacks against each other and are not able to regulate their emotions in a way to have a productive adult discussion.

This is the phase in which you guys will lose the argument with your women right away.

Words are thrown back and forth and it gets toxic. You have already lost if you let that happen. If you win this phase, you both lose as explained earlier. If you lose this phase, you both lose as well.

Look, I know that for many of you this will probably be a quite misogynistic statement, but we don’t give a damn. It’s the truth, okay?

Whose frame are you in when you argue?

She’ll beat you into attack and defend mode right away by sucking you into that scenario where you’re both shouting insults at each other. Now think about this from the perspective of frame control.

If she’s coming in hot wanting to have this argument and you buy into it, who’s frame are you in? It’s most definitely not yours! You’re essentially following her leadership by buying into the frame of “we’re going to have an argument now”.

The attack-and-defend-mode is the phase where she feels this existential threat of: “Am I a good monkey or a bad chimp?” Then you come along and argue with her. She perceives this as you trying to make her out to be the bad chimp.

Thus she will start to defend her “good monkey” status instead of arguing the point. She’s trying to prove that she’s a good person who’s facing an injustice, and anyone who disagrees with her is part of that injustice and has to be beat into submission.

How to beat the attack and defend phase

The idea now is that you don’t participate in this phase. If she’s coming to you with a complaint or something like this, not taking everything so damn seriously, good humor and some reframing techniques (like amused mastery, fogging, a bit of cocky funny humor, etc.) like mentioned in this article, will solve about 80% of problems already.

If the complaint is insignificant and she’s just bitching about nothing, you might as well have fun with it instead of having a serious argument with your woman. You can also use the LUCA technique as described here, to try and calm down the situation.

In addition to this, you can issue statements of facts to just tell her how it is after you listened. AGAIN, you’re not arguing. You try to diffuse the situation, listen to her and just tell her how it is.

Example: Let’s say the issue is about finance. You have your finances together and you don’t want to spend money on something she wants to buy.

Tell her something like this:

You: “You know what? We’re just not going to spend that kind of money on this stuff.”

You make it a definitive statement. See the difference? You’re not arguing here, you are not getting in a back and forth to try to make her see your points. You just state how it is.

Make a few jokes and you keep it light. See, humor works in this phase because she can’t be a bad chimpanzee if the issue is not that serious.

This diffuses that hindbrain protective need to start defending herself. Let her just say whatever, it doesn’t matter at this point. Even if her words don’t match your words, the outcome you want to achieve and the results matter.

Back to the example. You stated how it is. If she’s now listing all the reasons why you need this thing and is getting annoyed over it, you just throw some humor in the mix.

Should the conversation then fizzle out and she doesn’t do what you have told her behind your back, you have essentially reached the outcome you wanted and she’s still in your frame. So, despite her no agreeing to you verbally, she follows your lead and your decision and you get what you want.

In addition to this, she also maintained “good chimpanzee” status during the conversation. Everyone is happy and life continues, without you two having to go through all four phases of the argument.

What if the situation does not diffuse?

Although the above-mentioned techniques solve 80% of your problems, there will be times when she’s not gonna have it and is determined to suck you into an argument. Your humor isn’t really going to accomplish much in these situations.

That’s when you take yourself out of it.

Depending on how she’s talking to you, you can go with one of the following options or come up with one on your own:

You: “Listen (baby), you’re too emotional right now for us to have this discussion. We’re gonna talk about it later. Just let me know when you’re a little bit less upset”

Or

You: “I’m not going to be talked to like that. We’re both going to say things we don’t mean, so let’s just talk about it later. Let me know when you’re a little less upset.”

Or

You: “Listen, we’re not going to do this if you acting like this, we’ll talk in a few days, alright? Let me know when you’re a little bit less upset.”

And that’s it. Give her a kiss and remove yourself from the situation. If she’s throwing ultimatums at you, don’t give in. You have said your piece, informed her what’s going on and are therefore not stonewalling or ignoring her. Don’t get emotional or placate to her or you lose.

In doing this, you’ve essentially taken the wind out of her sails and prevented the part of the argument where both of you are going to lose, and the relationship suffers for it.

You’re already one step ahead of every other guy who argues with her and says some toxic shit that she’s going to remember forever, even if you get through the situation.

If you guys live together, you just don’t really talk very much anymore and you just minimize contact for what’s required for life support.

After that, go to the gym or work on your business or whatever. Work on your purpose.

Phase 2: Effective Repair

The next phase is the effective repair phase. In this phase, you both still operate in the framework of attack and defend but are trying to repair some damage done in the attack-and-defend mode.

Before analyzing this, though, I want to mention the following:

What’s nice about an argument cycle is that if you take yourself out of the cycle, she now has to go through all remaining phases herself. She’ll just be off in her little corner doing the whole spin around hamster wheel thing, having this whole argument with herself.

If you work on your purpose during that time, chase excellence instead of her and don’t really give a damn about the argument, she will come back to you after she’s finished the cycle.

At this point you can then solve the initial problem because she’s more open to you emotionally and falling back into your frame. Everyone’s happy and life can continue.

How she behaves in the “effective repair” phase

Alright, how do you handle phase two now? In phase two she’s trying to correct some wrongs she’s done to you during the initial attack-defend phase. She maybe texts you and tells you something like this:

Her: “I shouldn’t have been so bitchy” or “Well, maybe you’re right about this thing” or “You have a point about this thing” or “I shouldn’t have yelled at you”

She will say something like this in phase two but is not yet willing to concede her argument. The only thing that happens here is that she has taken some time and is now willing to repair some stuff that they fucked up on.

Remember, it’s all about being a good chimpanzee, so if she wasn’t a good chimpanzee during the argument, she will try to repair that damage to appear like a good chimpanzee again.

Backtracking on the argument, however, would mean that she’s wrong and that she’s a bad chimpanzee again. Therefore, in phase two, she’s not yet willing to concede.

What you have to do in the “effective repair” phase

Alright, let’s say you have made the correct decision in phase one and ghosted (not calling or texting) her for a couple of hours/ days depending on how long she needs to reach phase two. After 24 hours you receive a text that states the following:

Her: “I’m sorry I yelled, I’m just really frustrated about …. And you’re right about …. But what about ….”

As you can probably see from the nature of the text, your woman is still in attack-and-defend mode somehow, but now tries to repair some things. What you don’t want to happen is going right back into mode one and “regressing” in the process.

At this point, you move the process along. The above was a text message (since in this example, you’re not cohabitating), thus you respond with something like this:

You: “It’s alright baby. We’ll talk later and I’m sure we can work everything out”

Or

You: “It’s all right baby. We’ll deal with this later and I’m sure we can get through this”

The reason why you don’t talk it out yet is that she’s not ready to have a conversation yet. She will too easily revert to the attack-and-defend mode. At this point, she’s not yet ready to enter your frame again, but still needs to feel like a good chimpanzee.

That’s exactly what you tell her with this message. On the one hand you reassure her about where you stand regarding her and on the other hand you tell her hindbrain that she’s still a good chimp.

The frame here is: We’re going to do the right thing, whatever that may be. It doesn’t matter if you were wrong or I was wrong, you’re not a bad chimpanzee.

So that’s how she’s going to perceive this message but you still need to give it some time. Maybe it’s a few hours, maybe it’s another day. This absolutely depends on the type of person or the type of argument you’re dealing with. You want to move her into phase 3, the collaboration mode.

Phase 3: The collaboration mode

In the collaboration mode, your woman will look for validation of her own argument or to validate the other person’s argument. At this point, she will be open and ready to enter your frame again.

If you handled the argument like a bitch, i.e. defending your points and participating in a pissing match between two emotional lizards, this is where you would apologize and supplicate to her leadership. By the time you get to phase 3, she would expect you to validate her and her points and for you to eat shit.

In case you’ve done what we’ve told you to do throughout this article, this is where she will be open to a discussion again.

She will be open to the idea that maybe she was wrong and she needs to change her thinking or that you two might need to change how you’re handling the topic you’re arguing about in the future.

Let her initiate the third stage

However, this has to be initiated by her. You can’t chase her and try to convince her to change her mind. She has to come to her own conclusions and must be willing to enter your frame again.

This is because you’ve set a standard in phase 1 of the argument and reassured her of her social standing as a good chimp in phase 2. You have also not buckeled and backtracked from your standard.

If you’ve done this right, her behavior will indicate this and she will seek your validation and try to validate your points. Going back to the texting example, she will probably send you something like this:

Her: “I understand why you said this” or “I get what you mean now”

It could be something around those lines. However, be aware that she’s still not ready to concede the argument yet! She’s only respecting you and your wishes again and is open to change.

Essentially, she’s trying to rationalize what you meant by what you said. This is because you didn’t chase her and acted like the dominant leader that you should be in this relationship.

In phase 3, it’s completely okay to validate some stuff she did well, too. You’re not saying she’s right. You’re not suffocating yourself to appease to her. You’re not conceding your points. You’re just validating her because you want to provide positive reinforcements for any of the good things she’s done.

Remember that she has to feel like the good chimp, so that’s what this is all about. At the same time, you don’t mention the things she’s done wrong. You just let them be.

If you do this, she can comfortably move into phase 4, the admitting phase.

Phase 4: The admitting phase

The admitting phase is where you want to end up in when you handle things appropriately. After you took yourself out of the argument in phase 1, you let her reason out everything for herself and just show up at the end, when she’s ready to have a conversation again.

In this phase, she will at least admit her role in the disagreement and start and be open to admitting some things that she could have handeled better.

How this phase looks is dependent on the type of person you’re dealing with and how productive you run your relationship. Some women may outright admit that they’ve been wrong and apologize to you.

However, don’t make her eat shit for admitting that she fucked up, as this would her feel like the bad chimp again. Remember, you’re looking for results, not beating her down logically.

Other women may not outright admit faults and just come to your frame again.

Just let her come to her own conclusions and let her admit the things she’s done wrong to you. No need to hold any resentment here.

Here’s an example of what phase 4 might look like :

Her: “Well, I think it was more just a misunderstanding” or “I now completely get what you meant, it’s more about … than …”

Then she starts altering her opinion a little bit so that it matches yours more, which shows that she’s entering your frame again. This is perfectly fine. You don’t need her to recite your every word.

Look, most of the time this will not result in her completely supplicating, admitting what a terrible person she is and how wonderful you are.

If you really think that this is how it should play out, you should probably refrain from dating women and work on your own insecurities.

Look, I’m going to give you another example just to make sure that everyone understands exactly what I mean:

One more example regarding phase 4… So that you really get what we mean!

Let’s say you told her not to go to lunch with a coworker of hers, as you suspect he wants to sleep with her.

You told her that this he’s not respecting the relationship you guys have and that she therefore needs to stop hanging out with him. She tried to start an argument and you handled everything perfect as we’ve discussed in this article. In phase 4, she could say something like this:

Her: “I now understand why you said what you said. It’s more about … disrespecting you. I don’t want to disrespect you in the relationship. I’m not going to do anything wrong.”

This then results in her not going out to lunch with whomever you talked about anymore.

See what I mean? She didn’t admit she was wrong or that she was terrible or a “bad” chimp. However, you got the results you wanted, so everything is fine. Remember the term “outcome independence?” You shouldn’t give a fuck about anything else than results.

After she admitted her part in the argument, you guys can conclude whatever crap this was about and continue the relationship you had.

A Warning regarding phase 4…

I have to make it clear that “your” woman is probably not wanting to make things work if you have piled up too much resentment throughout the course of the relationship.

The fact she will most likely face sometime during this cycle is that she won’t be able to have a productive relationship with you unless you guys come to an agreement.

A woman wants to be in agreement with you because you’re the best she can do and because you’re the dominant leader of the relationship. If you have a shitty relationship, you don’t add any value and she doesn’t give a fuck, using this tool might as well blow up the relationship.

However, in our humble opinion this is perfectly fine. If you’re in a situation like this, the relationship would’ve most likely ended anyway at some point. It’s probably for the better that you guys go separate ways and work on yourselves.

What if the argument with your woman ensued because you fucked up?

Before we conclude, we want to address the chance that you were at wrong.

Remember what we talked about in the chapter about phase 1? If you fucked up and get into attack and defend mode with her, you now have to relinquish leadership and move into her frame to admit your wrongs.

In addition to this, she gets to beat you up about your mistakes, which is dogshit.

IF you made a mistake, the solution is really simple. You issue definitive statements that are focused on a solution. Your goal here is also not to argue but to set standards. For example:

You: “Listen, I shouldn’t have done A, B and C. I’m going to fix that so it doesn’t happen again.”

Or

You: “This wasn’t good. I’m going to change that/ fix that”

Or

You: “Yeah, I see your point on this. I’m gonna think about this a little differently. And here’s what we’re gonna do moving forward: …. “

The goal is also not to admit to a bunch of wrongs to make her feel better about herself. If you’re a man on a self-improvement journey, you’re hypersensitive to mistakes you’re making anyway.

Don’t dump all of your crap on her plate and issue sentences like “I could just talk to you better this way” or “I could’ve used a different word for this” or “I could’ve not hung up so aggressively”.

A lot of people would just admit to problems and faults that aren’t actually faults at all. They’re just things that could have been handled better. Who cares about that shit? Women don’t want to hear explanations or rationalizations; they care about results. Just fix it and don’t do it again in the future, that’s all.

Another example if you fucked up

Another example to really drive the point home. Let’s say you talk about money and she wants to buy something. You thought it was a bad idea to buy it but now see that it’s actually not a bad idea at all. Just say something like:

You: “I didn’t really want to spend money on that thing. But I see your point. Alright, we’ll go ahead and buy it.”

If you do something like this, you’re still deciding and leading. Yes she gets her way. And? If it’s the better solution then that’s perfectly fine as she helped you in making a better decision.

You didn’t participate in the attack-and-defend phase, thought about it and made a decision to still do the thing she wanted without any explanations whatsoever. You maintain frame and everything’s fine.

When you instead had this back-and-forth exchange where she gets to be mad, pissed off and pout a bunch, you now have to appease her after you both disrespected each other during the attach-defend phase.

Then the rest of the phases involves you supplicating to her and then at the end she gets to buy the things she wants. Then you’ve lost frame completely.

See how you both win even when you fuck up? Keep your mind and your eyes on the actual goal, maintain leadership and frame and handle these things like a pro. That’s a win for both of you!

Conclusion

In using this tool, you leave your woman no grounds to resent you for beating her down logically like every other idiot would do. You also don’t make her feel like a bad chimp. Instead, you handle an argument with your woman like a champ.

You maintain dominance by having the outcome independence necessary to deal with arguments in a productive way and not chasing her to validate your points. Stick with the goal, do what’s right and you will win every time.

The best part: Your woman still loves you for it.

Cheers,

Conquer and Elevate