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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。”
