It's a form of reframing.

It's just admitting that you can't change the other person. The other person figures out from that that there's no point in defying or resisting or whatever because the first person has stepped down from trying to "make" the other person be one way or another.

It's a sort of "giving up" and admitting defeat in whatever the argument is with the person. The person being argued with has to fall back and regroup (hopefully) because the structure of the relationship they're used to has collapsed.