That was great!!!!
When you went through and gave your list of ways that YOU avoid dangerous situations, that was perfect rhetoric! You stated the same exact premises that you did the first time, but just did it in a way so that you were using yourself to illustrate a point and carefully noted what you were doing, and why. This turned it from what could be perceived as "ad hominem" or "false cause" into you being gracious enough to use your own self to illustrate your point. This makes your point more convincing, and keeps both debating parties moving forward constructively.
Actually, having been through "couples counseling" as well, where you learn constructive ways to argue and discuss things, the same rules of logic apply, they are just differently labeled.
But basically, talking in a manner that isn't pointing a finger at someone and getting them needlessly riled up is not just the correct way to debate in a public forum, but also in relationships. It's all just being decent at communication, I guess.

please correct me if my interpretation is wrong: these fallacies shift the conversation away from the issue at hand and attempt to distract, discredit, or confuse in order to try and “win” an argument by ensuring it doesn’t even take place to begin with

Absolutely correct. The whole reason that we face-palm during political debates these days is because the candidates no longer make even the slightest attempts to follow these basic rules of debate. These fallacies were not made up by your high school debate coach. They have been in place for thousands of years, and were set in place by the Greek philosophers who recognized that before we could go about having a constructive conversation and pursuing deeper truths, that some ground rules had to be set as to how this would be done.
So, as much as I feel like the "grammar police" when I make a post like this, it's a lot more significant than spelling or syntax. If I am not taking these guidelines into consideration when I formulate an argument, then I either end up
a) making a self-defeating argument
b) devolving the argument into a hotbed of emotion and resentment, and nothing at all constructive is done
c) saying something that looks good on paper, but has no intellectual merit
d) causing Plato and Aristotle to roll over in their graves

So don't take this as me going after you personally either. You actually made a good argument that a good amount of thought went into. It's just that since I am the one who opened the "can of worms" with my original post, I feel some sense of obligation to help ensuing discussion be productive as possible.