W starts ragging on me about how my mother never was able to run a tight, clean, household, which I found insulting. What is an appropriate response?
"It sounds like you're angry about my mom, is that how you feel?" Validation. Seek to understand her feelings. Validation is not agreeing or disagreeing, it's just letting her know that you ackowledge her feelings. In RetroV they teach that when things like this come up you don't push to discuss the subject matter, you discuss the feelings and try to work through those feelings- to talk about them and determine how strong or weak they are.
