Exactly my situation,too. I learned the art of 'effective and proper communication' by dealing with my mother too. You will also find that we have been conditioned and tend to be defensive when dealing with other people too. But I have also noticed that, in court, the first tactic of a lawyer is to make the witness EMOTIONAL (in order to offset your ability to remain logical and distract the jury from the facts). That is why they will ask if you are comfortable, they want you to give an OPINION and be EMOTIONAL (opinions are emotional), but if you answer "I am AS comfortable AS necessarry to answer questions", that is a FACT, not an emotion. In court, you are required by law to TELL the TRUTH, WHOLE truth and NOTHING but the truth (NO opinions or speculation). If you can remain UNemotional and only be reasonable, the opposing lawyer will panic. It is the same in any verbal confrontation. So that is the danger of the "F" word, although I fantasize about it too.