When you are asking another to do something for you or to give you something, are you requesting or are you demanding?  Here is the difference:

Request- this is what I want of you, and my own well-being and my care, respect and love for your is neither diminished nor enhanced by your response to my request.

Demand- here is what I want from you or else! The “else” could range from playing the victim: “I am hurt and you are responsible” to playing the persecutor: “How dare you!”  This, more often than not, leads to manipulating, arguing, and to fighting and/or walking away.

Demands are at the root of violent communication.  Requests, as described above, contribute to peaceful and loving communications and, consequently, smooth relationships.  

When you make requests of people, if they are truly innocent requests (in the sense that you are not attaching anything to the no you might get and there is no underlying ‘threat’ in your mind about what you are going to do to punish the person refusing your request), people sense the energy of that, and they are never offended.  As a matter of fact, they are more likely to give you what you want or if they can’t, they would gracefully tell you what they can do and discuss alternatives with you.  On the other hand, people are usually offended by a demand, because it awakens a form of “defensive” energy inside of them.

So the more you can clean up your requests so that they are more genuine requests, the less your communication with others is filled with arguments and verbal fights.  However, this is NOT the reason you might want to consider making requests instead of demands.  You can be genuinely sharing what you want with others and they would still perceive it as a demand and offend themselves.  

The reason you might want to consider cleaning up your requests is that you will feel better inside of you when you do that.  When you are not attached to people responding in a certain way, you keep your peace.  Remember: all frustrations are the results of (attachments to) expectations.

Homework
In the upcoming week, practice making some really clean requests.  And really start noticing the difference inside of you, because you can really feel the difference inside your body between when you make a request: this is what I love, this will help me, and I am absolutely not attached to you saying yes or no; and when you make a demand (which may be familiar to you already).  

Once you become familiar with that place inside of you when you make a request (usually we feel open and relaxed and a there is sense of expansion in our chest), make sure you are in it before asking something of others.

And remember: you are doing that for your own sake (your own well-being), not for the sake of others and not for the sake of getting what you want per se.
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Salam
Ahmad