Fight Club Vol. 4: I Just Don’t Get It

Dear Fauchon,

I’m sorry I missed the deadline for sending you a letter yesterday. It was the result of a milestone for your mother and I, but not the celebratory type.

For some reason, we often manage to get into a fight right before meeting friends for dinner, and we did so again last night. Typically, in poor fashion, we just cancel last minute, continue the fight, eventually make up, then feel guilty for standing up our friends. Last night, your mother put it all aside and sucked it up, puffy eyes and all, and walked out the door with me to meet our friends.

We arrived late, but we got there. It was great company with lots of laughs around the table, and for two hours, I was convinced we our fight was behind us and everything was “back to normal”. Ironically, a lot of the conversation even revolved around fights between couples, including our friends’ experience, who have been married more than five times longer than we have (we’ve been married two years, so five times that is respectable!).

I even received the quintessential marriage advice from the husband: women aren’t rational = wife is always right = just shut up. Funnily enough, I tend to be the one that’s irrational, but I think I’m still the one that should be shutting up, which inevitably means I bottle up a lot of my emotions and like what happened last night, I explode into a spat of frustrated chaos.

After dinner, your mother and I resumed our fight until two in the morning. We started in the kitchen where she sat on the stool while I plopped myself on the ground (she is often the one that does this instead) and just fumed. In the past, I would’ve just walked off, but because your mom hates that, I’ve effectively been scared into rooting myself to the ground. We subsequently fought and yelled, and everything I agreed with over the course of dinner about being a good husband just went in one ear and out the other. And according to your mother, I was throwing “everything and the kitchen sink” at her (not literally, of course).

I also usually find that my lack of patience will cause me to spout out unconsidered thoughts and constantly bug her with “What are you thinking?”, “What are you feeling?”, and other annoying questions. I tried a more measured approach, which involved me silently sitting there. It took about ten minutes, but she started talking first this time…which made no difference because we carried on fighting for another three hours after that. And the fight is so dumb in retrospect that I don’t want to waste any more words / time / energy recalling the details. Even the dinosaur illustration print we hung up a week ago fell down to the ground on it’s own, which I took to be a sign of disapproval.

We’ve since made up and there’s no longer trouble in paradise, but I will need to try a different tactic next time. I read somewhere as soon as an argument starts, just start stripping. Not to have sex, but just because it’s so outlandish / outrageous / out- anything it’ll defuse the situation. I’ll report back, but hopefully I’ll come up with something more normal before you land on the doorstep!