People you can’t stand shouldn’t get free housing in your head. Start charging.

Rehearsing arguments is a tax you pay on someone who is not even in the room. You replay what they said in the hallway, you write the perfect comeback in the shower, and they go about their day with no idea. Those are real hours out of your life, spent on a person who would not spend one minute on you.

Catch the replay when it starts, and name what you are doing, out loud if you are alone. Then put your hands on something else: a song, a walk, the dishes. It will come back, and you get to move it out again.