Why the fresh case makes sense

Nobody fights the dishwasher row as though it were the first one because they've thought it through and decided that's the best approach. They fight it that way because that's how the row arrives. It arrives as a dishwasher. It's worth being honest about what the fresh case gives you, because if it gave you nothing you'd have stopped years ago.

It gives you a real topic. The dishwasher really was full. The in-laws really are coming for four days. The phone really was on the table through dinner. Tonight's costume is made of facts, and facts feel like something you can argue about and win. It gives you the chance of a verdict. A new case has a right answer, and if you can just get it agreed, this one at least will be settled. It gives you a way of not looking at the pattern. Saying "here we go again" out loud feels like admitting something is wrong with the two of you, and fighting about the dishwasher instead feels like keeping that admission at bay. And it gives you hope. Each new instance carries the possibility that this is the one where it finally gets said properly and finally goes in, and that possibility is worth a lot to someone who's tired.

Underneath those there's usually a set of beliefs, and they're the chapters that follow. That this time it really is about the dishwasher. That once your partner finally understands, it'll stop. That couples who are right for each other don't have a row like this. That you'd let it go if they'd only admit it. That you've talked about it a hundred times, so talking is clearly what's needed, only better. That if you don't push, nothing will change, or that if you go quiet, it'll blow over. That it always happens at the same time so there's nothing to be done. That you need to get to the bottom of it, and that you already know what's at the bottom. Each has something true in it, and each is doing the same job, which is keeping tonight's instance looking like a new case.

The fresh case is an answer to a real situation. The dishwasher is full. This book won't tell you that doesn't matter. It'll look at whether the fresh case is the only way to answer it, because I don't think it is, and the research on arguments that keep coming back doesn't think so either. Then it'll look at what the fresh case costs, which is more than an evening. And then it'll give you a way of handling the next instance in ten minutes, with the record shut, so that the dishwasher can go back to being a dishwasher.