Having been married for more than 40 years, I can attest to the truth of the following statement: to excel in the art of domestic argument, one must master the art of losing.

作为一个进入婚姻这座围城40多年的人，我可以证明下面这段陈述绝对是正确的——想要在家庭争论这门艺术中获得胜利，首先，你要掌握以退为进的艺术。

　　Modern psychologists are taken with the “win-win” solution. But in marriage, success resides more in “lose-lose” solutions. Out of these, both parties can win. For in the love configuration, losing gives a gift that always returns.

现代的心理学家们都热衷于“双赢”的解决办法，而在婚姻中，成功者更多地采取的是“双输”的解决方案。通过这样，夫妻双方都可以是赢家。因为，在爱情的天空下，放低姿态永远是一份有回报的礼物。

One day shortly after my wife and I were married, we set about picking new living-room wallpaper from a book of samples. My taste and hers were at odds.

婚后不久的一天，我和老婆正着手于从一本样品册子里挑选起居室的新壁纸。我和她有了分歧，我们各有自己喜欢的壁纸。

“I like this one,” she said. “That looks like a section of a diseased liver.” “How can you say that? This is a classical pattern that goes all the way back to the Venetian.” “The Venetian were blind. They named blinds after them, remember? I like this one.” “I wouldn’t hang that in hell if I were the devil.”　

“我喜欢这一种。”她说道。

“这种壁纸看起来就像一块患病的肝。”

“你怎么能这样说？这种图案可是古典的古代威尼斯风格。”

“威尼斯人是瞎子，他们以威尼斯来命名百叶窗（在英语中，盲人和百叶窗是同一个词——译者注），记得吗？我喜欢这一种。”

“我死也不会用那一种壁纸来作装饰。”　

As the argument went on, my wife suddenly slammed the book shut. “There are over two hundred samples in this book,” she declared. “I say we spend our energy finding one that suits us both, instead of bickering over the ones we don’t like.”

争论继续着，我老婆突然用力把册子一合，大声宣称：“这本册子里有200多种样品，我建议，我们还是花精力来找到一张我们都喜欢的样品，而不是用来对那些我们不喜欢的品头论足。”

　　And that’s how we settled it. Eventually we found a pattern we both liked. The “wallpaper book” became our symbol for settling the myriad issues that arise in marriage. “Well,” she’d say when we couldn’t agree on furniture or a place to vacation, “there are plenty of samples in the wallpaper book.”

我们就这样解决了争论。最后，我们终于找到了一个我们俩人都喜欢的图案。壁纸样品册子成了一个典型事件，代表了我们解决婚姻中出现的无数问题的一个象征。当我们在购买家具或去什么地方度假的意见不一致时，我的老婆就会说：“在壁纸样品册子里有大把样品可选。”　　

The issues that people argue over most in marriage, such as how to spend money, often aren’t the real ones. The key issue is: who is going to be in control? When I was younger, my need to control arose out of fear, a lack of trust, insecurity. The day I finally realized I didn’t need to control my wife—that, indeed, I ought not control her, that I couldn’t control her, and that if I tried to, I would destroy our marriage—was the day our marriage began.

　　人们在婚姻中争论的那些问题，诸如怎样花钱之类，往往并不是争论的真正问题所在。关键的问题是：谁是家里的当家人。当我比较年青的时候，我想当家是出于恐惧，是缺乏信任和安全感。当我终于意识到我不必支配我老婆的时候，我们的婚姻才算真正开始。确实，我不应该支配我的老婆，我也不能去支配她，如果我尝试这样去做，我将会毁了我们的婚姻。 　　

　　Giving up control is often confused with weakness. But the winner in a domestic argument is never really the winner. When you win a battle and your partner submits, you have, paradoxically, lost.

放弃支配对方常常与“妻管严”和“大男人”相混淆。但是，在家庭争吵中的赢家绝算不上是真正的赢家。当你赢得了一场口角，使你的人生伴侣顺从的时候，恰恰相反，你其实是输了。　　

　　What is it we want most from a marriage? To love and be loved. To be happy and secure. To grow, to discover. A love relationship is the garden in which we plant, cultivate and harvest the most precious of crops, our own self, and in which our spouse is provided the same rich soil in which to bloom.

我们在婚姻中最想得到的是什么？是爱与被爱，是快乐与安定，去成长、去增长见识。一段爱的关系就像一个花园，在这个花园里我们种植、培养和收获最宝贵的农作物——我们自己。在这个花园里，我们要给我们的配偶提供同样肥沃的土壤，让她或他茁壮成长。　　

　　We cannot obtain what we want unless our partner also gets what he or she wants. A woman may, for instance, want to go to the symphony. Her husband might hate symphonies. But by spending a few hours listening to music he doesn’t care for, he can bring joy to his partner. That’s a pretty cheap price to pay for joy, isn’t it?

除非我们的人生伴侣也能得到他或她想要的，否则，我们不可能得到自己想要的事物。例如：一个女人可能想去听一场交响乐，而她的丈夫可能讨厌交响乐，但是，只要丈夫花几个小时去听一下他不热衷的音乐，就可以给他的伴侣带来欢乐，难道这不是一个换取快乐的很容易的办法吗? 　　

　　But what if a husband wants to go on a fishing trip with friends? Suddenly there aren’t a lot of samples in the wallpaper book: his wife either agrees or not.

但是如果丈夫想要和他的朋友们一起去钓鱼呢？突然之间，在墙纸样品册子中没有许多样纸可供挑选了——老婆只能选择“同意”或“不同意”。　　

　　Already you can hear the usual power strategies: “I’ll spend my money any way I please,” or “How come you’re such a millstone? Jim’s wife is happy that he gets to go.”

你应该已经听过以下常见的争权策略：“我可以按自己的心意来花我自己的钱。”或：“你怎么这样难缠？吉姆的老婆就很开通，他想去哪儿就去哪儿。”