[stuntkite]

Second on the NVC thing. A coworker who was an underwater CTO put me on that because he was having a really hard time being under water and dealing with me being an acerbic dickhead. It is really, really effective at making difficult conversations much easier. In general, applying it in daily life makes me a happier person too. Not that I'm a fantastic practitioner or anything. When dealing with sticky situations like OP here, I'll usually write out how I think the conversation might go and try to nail down the NVC language before hand so I don't mess up with a bunch of "It feels like" non feelings language.

[headscientist]

Writing it out beforehand and rehearsing seems like a great idea. So much easier to just end up using non-productive (or violent) communication if you don't rehearse a bit and make an effort to keep your communication and language very purposeful and conscious.