How do you tell the difference between a sign from the universe and a coincidence? It’s been a challenging couple of weeks in my house, because my husband has been Going Through Something. In other words, Arsenal FC have been up to their old tricks. He’s their most ardent fan, a cheap seats season ticket holder (he can only see half the pitch). I stay out of it, mainly, viewing it as a vaguely amusing masochistic hobby, which probably bodes well for me in a general sense since he remains devoted even though they almost always disappoint, if not devastate him.

Recently, he has been particularly despondent. Yet again, Arsenal were on the brink of triumph, and then started playing as if they were an out of shape pub five-a-side team mistakenly welcomed on to the pitch, like that man who was waiting in the BBC reception for a job interview and ended up live on air. The Guardian’s latest match report compares this season to “watching somebody have their toenails very slowly peeled off with a set of pruning secateurs”.

My husband has been acting as though he’s the “somebody” in that simile; hobbling around, wailing, actively pained. As I began to wonder whether I should tone down my eye-rolls and take some kind of interest, my phone led me – either by fluke or divine intervention – down a wormhole. The final destination? An exploration of the new trend to emerge from the gentle parenting movement: gentle partnering. I’ll be honest, I had quite a strong reaction to just reading those two words, and will probably require an ocular transplant if I continue rolling at my current rate.

Gentle parenting is, of course, the millennial-favoured child-rearing approach that involves never saying no or raising your voice. It’s billed as respectful and empathetic; you offer your child choices as opposed to making demands.

The guidelines for the partner version include practising active listening – so, in my case, about football. Imagine! Even early on in our 19-year relationship, back in the best-behaviour days, my entire being glazed over the second he started banging on about … goals and whatever. Supposedly I should reflect back what I’ve heard, but if I said, “So you wanted Arsenal to win then?” my husband would definitely think I was being sarcastic rather than caring. And the truth is, no matter how hard I tried, he would not be wrong.

Gentle partnering also requires “allowing your partner to be a messy human”. Initially I thought this meant in the literal sense, around the home, in which case: no. It actually means accepting that they’re not perfect. I reiterate that we are 19 years in – that ship isn’t even a dot on the horizon, so long ago did it sail.

Other advice includes not taking things personally (in a relationship, where you are the only other person) and, instead of starting a row when you’re angry, practising mindfulness, breathwork or journalling.

The more I learned about gentle partnering, the more certain I became that I’m naturally aligned with its antithesis, Fafo partnering. Like the parental namesake I just stole it from, “fuck around and find out” partnering means allowing your other half to experience the consequences of their actions, tough-love style, rather than being a helicopter meddler, calmly describing their emotions back to them. I don’t need to tell my husband he’s sad Arsenal have let him down again; he knows. Sometimes I used to suggest he supported a different team, who win more, but I’ve learned it’s pointless because for some reason he will never follow this patently sound advice. Instead he continues to fuck around with Arsenal, so he keeps finding out. Them’s the breaks.

And then I remembered Jade Goody. When the news broke that she had died, on Mother’s Day 2009, leaving two small sons, my husband held me while I cried. He didn’t say, “This is stupid, you didn’t know her,” even if he was thinking it. He didn’t point out that what I was upset about made no real difference to my life so it was ridiculous to be so bothered, as I may or may not have communicated to him about the fortunes of his beloved team. It mattered to me, so it mattered to him – or he put on a bloody good act of pretending it did, anyway. Looks like I’ll have to start similarly faking it for Arsenal.

The best way to be a partner – parent, human – is surely not to have one rigid strategy you never waver from, come what may, but to do what feels right for each individual circumstance, in the moment. At the very least, perhaps you could adopt a combination of the two opposing techniques to find a medium that makes you both happy. Fuck around and find out, gently.

Polly Hudson is a freelance writer