How to cut ties with an angry, unreasonable, uncommunicative person - peacefully

I wrote this for a friend I’ll call Sam, who was trying to cut ties with a disagreeable roommate. Sam is very agreeable. His roommate was behaving unreasonably and refused to communicate. If you are a highly agreeable person (like a pushover who is “too nice”), this advice is especially useful. This advice can be extrapolated to any situation in which one must communicate and try to end contact with someone acting angry and unreasonable.

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To communicate with your roommate and make him less hostile, you need to make him relax. That will happen if you AGREE with him. This is a psychological technique called “the Disarming technique” (invented by a Stanford psychologist called Dr. David Burns). You will disarm your roommate, making him easier to work with and less hostile. 

How does agreeing with someone stop them from being angry?

Agreeing with someone, when we actually disagree with them, goes against human nature because we naturally want to be right/ “win” arguments. But remember that this person’s opinion of you doesn’t matter at all in your life, because after this person leaves you said you never want to stay in contact. So instead of fighting back, which will just make him harder to work with, you should become an ally in his eyes.

None of us like working with people we dislike - might as well make this forced “working relationship” (if it helps to think of him as a teammate you have to temporarily work with) as functional as possible by improving the communication.

Verbally agreeing with your roommate will reduce your roommate's complaining too, if you verbally say that he's right and has a point. He complains so much because he doesn't feel like he's being heard. 

How do you agree with him?

1. Say things like "That's right" when he complains, and that will instantly make him less defensive and feel like he's heard. Your roommate may rarely hear positive feedback, so when you start giving him it, he will love it. He will be willing to work with you and become nicer. It’s like magic and is a much better feeling than feeling his resentment.

2. Don’t argue back.

   1. Agreeing with someone’s criticism is the fastest way to get them to stop criticizing you.

   2. Even when your roommate’s criticism is illogical, agree with it and recognize some truth in it. At least don’t fight back - just nod and accept the criticism.

3. When talking with him, don't attempt to be "right" because as you've seen, he can’t be convinced with reason. There's no point in wasting your time and energy trying to prove to him that you're right, and in fact that will make him angrier and harder to work with.

To help you feel better while you do have to deal with temporarily living with him, count down and celebrate the number of weeks you have left to live with him. This is a psychological technique from Esteem Dynamics called the "mathematization of misery."

You know you've got X amount of time left to spend with this guy, maybe 3 months, which is finite. Knowing you only have X time left helps you recognize that the amount of time you have to spend with this guy is only temporary and soon, you can be free of him. Every week you're living with this person, you can check off on your calendar that you've spend another day with him and now you're Y% closer to him being gone.

It's a way to celebrate that he's slowly leaving and helps you feel like you're making progress toward celebrating this departure. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

What if he asks you to do things you don’t want?

If you’re a nice person, you’ll feel bad saying “no.” (Sam pointed out that he feels bad saying “no.”)

An easy way to get out of doing unreasonable things he asks for, without looking like a bad person in his eyes, is to use the phrase "I wish I could, but I can't.” This is the strategy from Esteem Dynamics called “Blame Big Louie.” That statement shows that you don't have control in the situation and so you're not the one preventing him from getting with he wants. It does that by deflecting the blame to someone else (e.g. another person, a landlord, etc.). As a result, your roommate won't get what he wants, but also won't be mad at you because he'll think it's not your fault.

For example, if your roommate demands that your girlfriend move out sooner, you can easily respond "We're doing the best we can and are trying to find a place for her to move out, but housing is hard to find and we can't control the marketplace." So you're explaining it's not your fault.

As an example of a more extreme request, if your roommate says he wants you to pay $200/month for your girlfriend to stay, respond "I wish I could, but we'd already agreed to $100/month and I have the rest of my budget already allocated for other things. I can't afford to pay you more this month. I really wish I could, but I can't.”