I feel like this moves the goal posts but that's fine, this is a more legitimate question.

This is the actual hard part of the marriage/relationship that the commenter higher-up is talking about. Compromise is table stakes. Communicating well with your partner, making sure they are an equal participant and making sure they feel heard and valued is what's important.

Again, focusing on who is going to "win" is not a healthy perspective in my opinion. Questions like "do feelings beat rationality?" Is the same thing as saying "does paper beat rock?" The purpose of the article was not that dishes and minor arguments about dishes on the counter resulted in a divorce. The point is that she felt belittled and unheard. He was winning the dish battles, but lost his marriage.

>Should feelings always trump?

No! But they might! Each marriage and relationship is different and they change over time (as people tend to do). For one couple this could be true, but that doesn't really mean anything. Again, this approach is thinking about marriage as a series of small arguments to win, with your spouse as the opponent.

Compromise is table stakes. Whether the dishes got done or not really doesn't have anything to do with whether or not these people got divorced, the issue was a lack of communication and one partner not feeling heard.

This is a less-bad framing of the earlier question, but it still suffers from the same flawed perspective. The goal is to have a healthy and happy marriage where both individuals feel heard and respected and like a team.

What if you feel more strongly about something than your partner? Do you feel like your thoughts and feelings on the matter are being heard? (Note: feeling heard is not the same as "I got my way") Do you feel like an equal team member in the decision? It's okay to feel annoyed or frustrated at the result, that's part of life, you don't always get your way. But it's a huge difference between "I felt like my opinion was fully heard and considered, even if we didn't decide on my point of view." and "I felt dismissed, belittled, and unheard. $spouse/boss/friend/person didn't really listen to what I had to say and I don't feel valued."

It was not so much a question on _who_ is going to win, as to _what_ is going to win. In other words: What are deemed legitimate criteria, and even the most important criteria, in a conflict? It’s a question of value systems. Making feelings paramount, like several above suggested, seems like a pragmatic quick fix. If one part obviously feels so much stronger than the other, why shouldn’t the other just give way? But it is not without its problems. Stronger feelings doesn’t mean more right, and doesn’t mean the holder has a more justified basis for being accommodated. Even though it may patch things up more easily in the short term.

There’s also a personality component: some people tend to feel more strongly about most things, and others may not feel particularly strong about anything (although they are not void of feelings/opinions). Causing relational skew. The latter person giving way, to smooth things over, and to not stir strong feelings in the other, can turn out to blow up hard in the long run.

But yeah, as you say: HOW something is done is oftentimes just as important as WHAT is done (the outcome).

> The latter person giving way, to smooth things over, and to not stir strong feelings in the other, can turn out to blow up hard in the long run.

You're still approaching this as "A's feelings vs B's rationale". The original article is highlighting one (common) path this takes: one person's feelings are not being heard and they feel devalued and belittled. But you're still approaching it as partner vs partner rather than as a team vs the issue with a goal of everyone feeling loved, heard, and understood.

It is on both sides to make sure that the other person feels heard and an equal partner. If person B feels like their rationale isn't being considered at all, or that their feelings are not, it's the same situation.

>The latter person giving way, to smooth things over,

A valid feeling is that they are giving a lot. Their partner feels strongly about things ABC, but there's no free lunch. Changes to your behavior obviously have consequences. Folks are giving specific examples like "My spouse cares about laundry being in the hamper, I don't really so I don't mind putting in the extra effort to make them happy." But if one feels like they are giving more than they are getting, that's a communication issue beyond whether the dishes get done. The same as the person who feels strongly not being heard.

Your example: "can turn out to blow up hard in the long run" is necessarily different. There's resentment implicitly brewing. Maybe the spouse often starts these conversations more aggressively. Something like "Why can't you ever put your clothes away?" It starts off aggressive, is accusatory, and assumes that the spouse is acting in bad faith.

Put more succinctly, if things do blow-up in the long run then there's a similar communication failure that has occurred and one member of the partner ship doesn't feel like a capable and equal partner in the eyes of their spouse.

HOW something is done: how these feelings and thoughts are communicated is not just as important oftentimes, but is absolutely more important always. Specifically for small stuff like dishes, laundry, etc. "What" wins is entirely irrelevant and will vary from issue to issue and couple to couple.

If it's something more consequential like having children, parenting values, financial values, etc. that's more fundamental that the topic here and is likely just two people who are incompatible with irreconcilable values.

> You're still approaching this as "A's feelings vs B's rationale".

Not necessarily. I also wrote:

«If one part obviously feels so much _stronger_ than the other, why shouldn’t the other just give way? … some people tend to feel _more strongly_ about most things, and others may not feel particularly strong about anything (although _they are not void of feelings/opinions_).»

I’m thinking about the degree of feelings involved. (No one is fully and solely rational, after all.)

I agree with you on the other points you make.

I suppose the statement I made is slightly imprecise, but the framing is still A's feelings and rationale vs B's feelings and rationale. Which is the entire paradigm I'm saying is bunk and pointless.

> What if one person just feels more strongly about things (most or all of the time)? Should feelings always trump? Should feelings always be allowed to trump rationality/proportionality in a marriage conflict?

It depends if to you “marriage” is a business transaction or an emotional relationship.

Though there are likely to be problems if you a x your partner envision it differently.

Transactional Analysis and Eric Berne (author of The Games People Play) disagree.

Emotions and (business) transactions are not mutually exclusive.