Reply to Argument with DH...left me in the car

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Okay, OP. As a part-time counselor, here is my read on the situation.

I partially agree with the PP who thinks that your husband is flipping out a little at BEING MARRIED and no longer being FREE. I think he will probably get over that, because you said that otherwise, things have been good. I think that the baseline issue is that you guys do not do well under pressure. Him working a ton is stressful for both of you. Is that a permanent condition or is it likely to ease up soon? If it's a permanent condition, you will both need to get right with that and figure out routines that work for you given those parameters. If it is temporary, you keep reminding yourselves that it's temporary. Maybe plan something fun to do together at the end of the tunnel so you have something to look forward to. Try not to nag/whine/mope about his hours, whether they're permanently crazy like this or temporarily so. That behavior will not change his behavior, will not make you feel better,  and will likely make him respond even more poorly to the pressure. You are also experiencing stress after a car accident. Make sure that you are getting the appropriate follow up medical care - emotional too, because even if it was a very minor accident, you may be experiencing some residual distress.

In counseling, I would suggest that your focus areas be stress management and communication. Learn the ways that you both cope, figure out which strategies are good ones and which strategies are less good. Learn the best way to communicate with each other - how, when, where, etc. For you, I would concentrate on "I" messages. "When you told me that you thought that woman was attractive, I felt _____", "This week I have felt _____ when we have been short tempered with each other." That sort of thing. Try not to be accusatory "You always/you never" are things that you should never say to anyone, particularly a spouse (irony alert!).

For what it's worth, I have been married twice and in both marriages, these were things that we had to learn, despite being together for some time before marrying. It is always a work in progress, so please don't feel like your relationship is permanently damaged.[/quote]

Thanks for this helpful post. I mainly wrote this post to get a different perspective. I probably didn't handle it right but I didn't have time to think my actions through...my husband just left me in the car without saying a word. It was dark, I couldn't see where he went, and the light turned green. My gut response was to get in the driver's side and drive the car around to find him.i don't know what's so dramatic about that.

I don't think he's so much missing his freedom...minus this incident, it's been really nice between us. Same deal when we were engaged. For the most part, it's been quiet. He hasn't been wthdrawn. I admit communication is  something we're both learning to be better at, but we both admitted this in the car. He said he didn't want to blow up in my face so he had to leave. He told me he thought the story was funny and wanted to share it with me but was surprised by my reaction. I told him it hurt my feelings when he said that. He said he feels like things haven't been been great in a while. I agreed but said I've been short with him because I've been feeling stressed and he said he's feeling stressed from work and admitted to being short as well.  He wanted to enjoy the night and take me out to dinner like I deserved to be taken out. I apologized just to make things better and told him I would give him his space. Maybe I do need a breather.

Since then, he's been nice and he's reached out to me in little ways. I'm fine with giving him his space and making up, but I'm still confused by him just getting up and leaving like that. I just don't want him to do it again when he's upset. I don't know how to handle it. I felt much better after talking it out. [/quote]

PP here. I think your second paragraph would have been really helpful to include in your original post, if only to prevent people assuming that your marriage is headed for disaster. Some suggestions:

1. It's helpful to have a safe word or phrase for arguments to diffuse or table the situation. Even if you do not argue often. My husband and I used to argue a lot, but we had the agreement that if it was getting too heated, one or both of us could say, "Let's table this for half an hour. I want to be nice to you."

2. It's okay for people to take breaks if they feel that continuing a conversation/argument will result in escalation rather than resolution, but there need to be ground rules about those breaks. Our rule was that those breaks have to occur in a safe way. You don't take off out of a car at a stop light. You don't walk out of a restaurant/movie theater/whatever and leave your partner there alone.

3. If a conflict arises and you're away from home, you either agree calmly how you'll get home and when you'll reconvene, or you go together and just don't talk to each other on the way. I did what your husband did one time(though I was the passenger, not the driver) and DH was really, really upset about it, for the same reasons that you were upset. I understand his reaction, but it was not a mature reaction when he did it and it wasn't a mature reaction when I did it. I apologized for what I did and made a promise (to myself and my husband) that I wouldn't do that again because it was unsafe and immature.

4. If a conflict arises at home, it's okay to leave to take a walk around the block, but you need to say that that's what you're doing, not just storm out. And don't slam doors because it's physical and confrontational.

5. When people are stressed out, they tend to see a rough week as "things haven't been great in a while." That may or may not be true. How long, really, have things been "not great"? I have felt this way in my own marriage and have asked clients about it. The answer is almost always, "Well, this week has been really hard because it was the last week of school and we've had a ton of after hours stuff and I haven't gotten any down time and the house is a mess." When asked, "When was the last time you and your partner had a really great time together?" the answer is often "Oh, last weekend/two weeks ago, we did X and it was great." Bad things magnify. Remembering when the last time things were good will help with that.

6. If your daily routines are stressful and awful, proactively build downtime into them. DH and I build specific things that we both enjoy into our weekends. We try to go out to dinner as a family mid-week, because by Wednesday/Thursday, I find that what I really need is to sit at a table and eat things that I didn't cook off of dishes that we won't have to wash later. It's a worthwhile indulgence for us. Figure out what yours are and then start doing those things. The sooner you incorporate relationship-building fun things into your regular routine, the more likely they are to stick.[/quote]

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