Was that your complaint about your spouse or his/her complaint about you? Just remember that they are highly likely not giving a crap about you making up for lost time now.
Validation is an excellent technique to prevent a situation from escalating if that's how your past communications went.
A typical conversation for me prior to learning how to validate went something like this:
Me: (Monday) I need a favor. I was invited to go to XX on Tuesday, but it's my night with the girls. Can we swap nights and I'll take them Wednesday?
WAH: Why do you always spring this on me last minute? I can't ever make plans when you do this to me! I hate when you do this, so no.
Me: Don't be surprised when I refuse to help you on a night you need it. You always think about yourself first.
As you can guess, things never worked out well and the kids were caught in the crossfire.
Revised:
After he replied with NO.
Me: Yikes, I do tend to spring stuff on you last minute. I totally understand how frustrated you must be when I pull this on you. I'm sorry. I'll let XX know I can't do it, and I'll try to be more mindful next time. Thanks for being honest with me.
Once I was able to acknowledge how frustrating my crap was, he stopped getting annoyed with me for asking for a swap or any other favor.
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
