Pull the small weeds of irritation before they take over the whole yard.

Small annoyances do not stay small when nobody says anything. The roommate who never takes the trash out, the friend who is always twenty minutes late, the joke that stopped being funny months ago. Each one feels too minor to mention, so you let it go, and then one ordinary Tuesday you snap about dishes and it is obviously not about dishes.

Say the small thing while it is still small and boring. Hey, it bugs me when you do that, said in a normal voice, is almost never the fight you are picturing. The explosion you are avoiding is usually built by the avoiding.