Reply to DH walked away from lunch date with me and the kids--am I overreacting?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DH, the kids (3 and 5) and I were walking to a nearby restaurant for lunch this weekend when we got into a fight. It was a dumb recurrent fight and we both got very frustrated with each other very fast. I was expecting that we would snap at each other for a few minutes and then calm down, in large part b/c the kids were there and because everything had been fine otherwise. I think it's important to show kids that couples can have disagreements/fight but remain civil to each other and get past it.

But my DH said he felt like it would be better for him to go home or else he would say something that he would regret. So he just walked away. I was totally shocked and for about 20 minutes I was looking up the street expecting he would come back. I went ahead and had lunch with the kids at the restaurant we had been planning to go to, feeling totally bowled over but trying to act normal.

When we got home he put the kids down for a nap. Then we had a huge fight while they were sleeping in which I told him that his walking away had made me see him differently--as someone who would, literally, walk away from our family if he was mad at me. I felt it showed he was willing to put his anger at me above the kids.

He said he felt he had made the right decision by leaving because he thought "it was going in a bad direction" and we would have ended up having a serious fight in front of the kids, and that I was being melodramatic in my reaction.

We worked through the original fight (didn't resolve it but agreed to both try to work on the issues). But I am still feeling very unsettled by the walking away part. I believe him that he thought he was making the mature decision, but I think that is completely wrong and not how you should conduct yourself if you are a member of a family. I felt he was basically blaming me for his decision, too, by talking about the fight in the passive voice and acting like would have had no choice but to say something terrible to me if he had stayed, as opposed to regulating his own behavior.

So what do you think, DCUM? Was I overreacting or was this a really big deal? (Ducking.) [/quote]

Men process things differently and walking away to reevaluate the situation is what most men do.  Read about it.  Men are solvers and like to solve problems and come to conclusions.  You're overreacting and it's obvious you don't understand male behavior.  Walking away to come up with a different strategy and to approach the issue a different way is what men do.

Get over yourself[/quote]

OP here. This is the kind of idiocy that makes DCUM less useful than it would otherwise be. I have gotten some helpful feedback on this thread. Most of it was not complimentary to me, but I can deal with that. But the background chorus of sexism and vitriol makes it harder to sort out whether the rest of the comments are making good points or are just reflexively blaming women for everything. [/quote]

I'm a woman and think your response here is annoying. Some random mra crap has made an appearance but not the comment you're responding to. Makes me wonder what else you think is sexist.

Do your kids a  favor and don't interpret the "don't fight in front of your kids advice as sexist. Another person here who's parents fighting in front of them caused anxiety and pain. I am pretty good at conflict management but I'd say that I learned it the hard way. No fight that caused bad enough feelings for constant sniping and one person having to walk away is appropriate.[/quote]

Op here, confused. The post I called sexist didn't say anything about not fighting in front of the kids. There have been several posts saying that and they have made me think about my views about that and read a couple of articles about it. It seems like there is a consensus that bad fights should not be held in front of kids, but it is important for kids to see their parents have disagreements and become frustrated at each other and then deal with that in a constructive way. That way they know that it's OK to have negative emotions but have good models for how to handle them. I agree we obviously need to work on our "fighting style," which is why we have made an appointment for couples therapy. (Well, I made the appointment, which goes to my underlying issue about our division of labor, but that would be a topic for a different post.)

I do think it's sexist to say "men do X, you obviously don't understand male behavior, get over yourself." People in a relationship should deal with each other as individuals, not archetypes of their gender. I'm sure it's true that some men and some women tend to need to walk away to calm down in an argument. But my DH has not generally been like that in the 10+ years we've been together. [/quote]

You said there was a background chorus of vitriol and sexism leading me to think that this immediate pp wasn't the only advice you thought was sexist. I said that I hoped the 'stop fighting in front of the kids' advice wasn't being interpreted as sexist or full of vitriol.

My parents hate each other and I feel powerful anxiety whenever I know they're even speaking to each other. Hallmarks from my childhood before they divorced include escalating sniping arguments in public, worse fights that we could hear at home and yes, one of them occasionally storming off.

Take this for whatever it's worth, but your tone sets off my childhood anxiety. That dig you took at the end of your post, the way you not once in this thread mentioned something nice about him, the way you did not at all mention how your five year old reacted to this (they noticed for sure), the fact that you put fighting style in quotes kind of implying you think it's dumb to talk like that and more than anything the fact that you have a regular habit of unresolved sniping all says that you guys are starting to care more about being right and being the good one than solving the problem.

I think you are using one thing, that it is good to show your children good conflict management by example, and conflating it with fighting in front of your kids in order to not have to examine your contribution very closely.

I'm happy you're going to therapy. I'd recommend going into it thinking that your marriage is on the line, because contempt is the number one killer of marriages and you sound like you're drifting that. Multiple posters with histories similar to mine seem to be hearing the same thing, so maybe take that into consideration.

As for the sexism of men needing to walk it off more I would say sure it's a stereotype but hardly one the results in endemic sexism and one that has some resemblance to real life because it is a common (though not universal) difference between men and women. To respond to that saying there is a chorus of sexism and vitriol is extreme.

And to all the posters aghast that were assuming OP was at fault you are being silly. It takes two to tango when you fight and OP openly admitted she was participating in the sniping. We aren't advising her dh were advising her. If her dh was here I'd be saying similar things to him.[/quote]

I'm sorry you had a terrible childhood and that your parents hate each other but I think your own experience is coloring the way you read my post. Obviously I am concerned about the health of my marriage, hence my question here and the counseling, but we are not constantly at each others' throats, we do not hate each other, and we have a generally good relationship.

I didn't mentioned how my kids reacted to this because I came here to ask a specific question, which was whether I overreacted to his walking away, not to discuss my kids' reactions. As it happens one of the kids asked why Dad was leaving and I said because he was frustrated with me, but that it was OK and we would talk about it later. [/quote]

I have a really good marriage, im not hung up on my childhood (which was not terrible) and dont read disaster into every post i read here or every argument I have or witness. I gave specific reasons why your posts make me recall my personal experience. Certainly my history influences how I read posts but to be fair you framed this as your DH did something that you felt symbolized how easy it would be to leave your family behind entirely. If there is hyperbole here you introduced it.

I don't know you or your marriage. You could be right. But when numerous posters read this into your tone then I dunno,  maybe you need to work on your tone. [/quote]

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