Voltaire said: “If you wish to converse with me, define your terms”.
An argument is defined as: an exchange of diverging or opposite views, typically a heated or angry one.
In a conversation about how you feel there can be no other feeler of your feelings because only you can discern and speak on how you feel.
No opposite view is applicable.
What is your’s is not someone else’s to give you and the best example of something that is your’s are your feelings.
No one else can tell you how you feel.
You are the only owner of your feelings because only you can experience your emotions.
Any argumentative response to you expressing how you feel isn’t appropriate in a conversation.
Other people can have an opinion (and their own feelings) on why you may feel the way you do but no one can argue that you are feeling that way.
Also, no one should ever tell you how you should feel and expect you to want to talk about your feelings to them again.
It’s a vulnerable thing to talk about feelings and if someone doesn’t have enough respect to acknowledge your feelings for what they are-end the discussion.
Another person can wish or desire that you didn’t feel a way but in terms of challenging your reality of what you feel, no.
No one ever has the right to tell you what to feel because it’s rude and it’s oppressive.
Typically if an argument happens during a conversation where you are sharing what you feel it is because the person you are talking to is taking it personally that you feel the way you are expressing.
That means they are making your feelings about them and that is never appropriate or helpful.
Feelings are not up for debate and sharing them is not supposed to end in a fight.
When someone reacts argumentatively to you telling them how you feel it’s really their own personal problem they are experiencing.
They can get argumentative out of frustration because they do not want you to feel the way you do (especially if it is something they did to cause you to feel this way) or it’s because they feel they should be the one receiving attention and understanding for something they are feeling instead of you.
In this second case it is often that they want you to care more about how your feelings are impacting their feelings than you do about your own feelings and they want you to turn your attention back to them.
Note in the second scenario you may be talking to a narcissist because narcissists tend to get emotionally frustrated anytime you make things about anyone other than them.
And in either case an argumentative response from them is still not appropriate because the purpose of the conversation you started was an attempt to gain some understanding from the person you are talking to so they can understand how you feel, not argue about it right?
When you express your feelings it isn’t up for debate how you feel and it’s not opinion based because the topic (you) is also the only one who can feel first hand how you feel.
Only the person experiencing themselves can have the feeling. Nothing to argue about.
A feeling belongs to one person and it can only be shared in terms of expressing it and describing it.
Nothing has been presented to argue about.
When someone tells us how they feel the appropriate response is to listen, say something that indicates we have understood what was said, and then ask how we can help them feel differently moving forward.
Once we have listened and worked through the conversation then we have the opportunity to also talk about anything we are feeling.
An argument arises when a person expressing how they feel is interrupted by someone who is trying to debate them or blame them for how they feel instead of acknowledging the validity of how they feel.
Getting offended by how someone feels is emotionally unintelligent and it needs to be understood that when someone is expressing themselves it is about them talking and it is for the other person to do the listening and not change the topic to themselves by arguing. otherwise it becomes two people talking at each other and that isn’t a conversation.
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