If scheduling a fight seems a little bit absurd, just imagine the results of letting the tension build for several days because you haven’t made time to argue.

It is usually helpful to schedule a time to fight and make an agreement to do so; it does not promote constructive hostilities if we waylay our partner in the bathroom or on the way out the door to work. We need to schedule discussions at a time when we can give them our full attention.

Scheduling fights has the added advantage that you can prepare for them, organize your thoughts, and know you have a time when this particular issue will be dealt with. If you feel bad about the grocery bills on Tuesday, and you know you have a date to fight about it on Thursday, it’s pretty easy to put your stuff aside until then. Most people don’t put their stuff aside very well when it seems that their issues will never get dealt with.

—Book: The Ethical Slut

Anki cards:

• They say no, you say "Thank you for saying no"
• They were honest, you say "Thank you for being honest"
• …

• Typical-minding
• Separate observation from judgment
• Re-approach the small things in your partner that bother you
• Communication cultures

These small things may never change, so you shouldn't approach it with an "okay, I'll endure it" mindset. Better if you learn to view these things thru a different lens, such that they genuinely don't bother you anymore.

Or else – let them know. Or what do you think, does it sound like a good idea to keep enduring without ever saying? It'll explode later during some big conflict and they'll be like "why didn't you tell me earlier?"

Note that it doesn't need to be perfectly fixed or perfectly accepted. It's okay if your partner does little things that bother you, and you do little things that bother them, so long as the other knows it's a bother. Knowledge disarms it.