Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH here. DW can always outlast me in a fight. No matter how exhausted she is, she'll keep yelling, and keep escalating. Not great at controlling her emotions. Best case scenario is she cries herself to sleep.

On the flip side, if I'm pissed at her, I'll go sleep in the guest room, and lock the door. Sure, she could (and does occasionally) unlock it with a paper clip, but it's a strong message that I'm disengaging and won't keep fighting. I have never locked her out of our room.

Not a perfect solution, but better than the alternative given she can't control her anger and emotions. Occasionally, if she knows she is at fault, she will calm down, unlock the door after I've fallen asleep, and get in the guest room bed with me and sleep there.

So, when she is upset about something, your response is to completely disengage, then wonder why she continues to escalate? She wants to talk to you. It doesn't sound to me like either of you are good at controlling your emotions. It just looks different when you feel out of control.

People with good coping skills will not "continue to talk" once emotions are high.

Getting away is a positive coping mechanism.

Counselors will recommend a "code word" and once one person says it, the other person needs to stop talking for 30 minutes.

I kick my dh out to the guest room when he’s sick. That way he can have a guest room and bathroom all to himself and on a different floor than me and dd and not infect anyone. I will take care of him and bring him food and liquids and the iPad etc but he needs to be away from the living space.
Same goes for me.

We have never fought where the result was not sleeping in the same bed so can’t comment on that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH here. DW can always outlast me in a fight. No matter how exhausted she is, she'll keep yelling, and keep escalating. Not great at controlling her emotions. Best case scenario is she cries herself to sleep.

On the flip side, if I'm pissed at her, I'll go sleep in the guest room, and lock the door. Sure, she could (and does occasionally) unlock it with a paper clip, but it's a strong message that I'm disengaging and won't keep fighting. I have never locked her out of our room.

Not a perfect solution, but better than the alternative given she can't control her anger and emotions. Occasionally, if she knows she is at fault, she will calm down, unlock the door after I've fallen asleep, and get in the guest room bed with me and sleep there.

So, when she is upset about something, your response is to completely disengage, then wonder why she continues to escalate? She wants to talk to you. It doesn't sound to me like either of you are good at controlling your emotions. It just looks different when you feel out of control.

It doesn't happen instantly. I will start off cooperative and trying to resolve the issue. Oftentimes that works. Sometimes not. I hate to play this card, but I can usually predict whether we're going to resolve an issue, not by what the issue is or what I say, but by:

The amount of sleep she's had

The amount of stress she's under

Whether it is that time of the month

How the kids have been treating her

How hard she has been working

Certain triggers like leaving on vacation or my family visiting


It doesn't matter who is upset with whom to start the argument. She could be upset at me for not picking up the dry-cleaning (I'm just making something up) or leaving my crap everywhere around the house, or I could be upset with her for something equally small. We're not fighting over affairs, substance abuse, gambling, or anything serious.

But once she starts to "spin up" and yell, and I yell back, it is up to me to either straight capitulate (which is what my father did to my mother, and she walked all over him), or deescalate. And the only way I've found to do that is to physically leave the room. Nothing productive ever happens if we keep arguing, as she is running 100% on emotion and cannot be reasoned with.

After a cooling-off period, though, she is very reasonable, and often apologetic. She will come to me, cry, apologize, and tell me I deserve a better spouse and partner. Again, not all the time, but frequently.

I kind of wish we could be like normal couples and deal with our problems through make-up sex. That never happens, and arguments wreak havoc on our love life.

Anonymous wrote:DH here. DW can always outlast me in a fight. No matter how exhausted she is, she'll keep yelling, and keep escalating. Not great at controlling her emotions. Best case scenario is she cries herself to sleep.

On the flip side, if I'm pissed at her, I'll go sleep in the guest room, and lock the door. Sure, she could (and does occasionally) unlock it with a paper clip, but it's a strong message that I'm disengaging and won't keep fighting. I have never locked her out of our room.

Not a perfect solution, but better than the alternative given she can't control her anger and emotions. Occasionally, if she knows she is at fault, she will calm down, unlock the door after I've fallen asleep, and get in the guest room bed with me and sleep there.

So, when she is upset about something, your response is to completely disengage, then wonder why she continues to escalate? She wants to talk to you. It doesn't sound to me like either of you are good at controlling your emotions. It just looks different when you feel out of control.

DH here. DW can always outlast me in a fight. No matter how exhausted she is, she'll keep yelling, and keep escalating. Not great at controlling her emotions. Best case scenario is she cries herself to sleep.

On the flip side, if I'm pissed at her, I'll go sleep in the guest room, and lock the door. Sure, she could (and does occasionally) unlock it with a paper clip, but it's a strong message that I'm disengaging and won't keep fighting. I have never locked her out of our room.

Not a perfect solution, but better than the alternative given she can't control her anger and emotions. Occasionally, if she knows she is at fault, she will calm down, unlock the door after I've fallen asleep, and get in the guest room bed with me and sleep there.

Stoch flu? You sleep in the same bed?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I caught him having an affair, he had a choice the nanny suite or a hotel. You think that is out of line? If he wants to see the kids he should stay in the suite, if he wants to flee the kids go to a hotel.

I never made him stay in the suite, I just would not allow him in my room.

This is OP, and yes, I do think it's out of line. Obviously, so was the affair! IMO it would be fine if you negotiated with him to stay in the nanny suite otherwise you will leave the home or file for separation or whatever. In that case, he is agreeing to it because the alternative is worse. But neither the house nor the kids belong to you alone, so you can't demand that he sleep in the nanny suite if he doesn't want to, nor can you say "if he wants to see the kids, he must...."

Leave the home? NOT! You can be a doormat if you want.

So if your H beat you it would be inappropriate to have him sleep in another room and lock your door? Of course you are rich do you would "just" get s jolted, but not everybody has that option.

What if he has a mental illness, stopped taking his meds and was acting wack?

Your comments are similar to "I never go to bed angry" ... translation, I've never had big problems.

Anonymous wrote:We never kick the other person out. Once in a blue moon, the angry person is the one who will choose to sleep on the couch.

Same here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I caught him having an affair, he had a choice the nanny suite or a hotel. You think that is out of line? If he wants to see the kids he should stay in the suite, if he wants to flee the kids go to a hotel.

I never made him stay in the suite, I just would not allow him in my room.

NP, if I caught my DH having an affair, no way would he be allowed in my room. And yes, I would claim it was MY room, MY bed, MY house. He would lose all ownership rights by sticking his junk in someone else.

Property and family law doesn't work that way over a garden-variety affair.

In my state I could have kicked him out and he would see his kids every other weekend and Wednesday's until
He established a home (which he could not until we sold ours).

After that I could have easily bought him out of his portion of the house, taken 1/2 his pension and collected child support.

Letting him stay was actually the kindest response.

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone else agree that this is not acceptable? I cannot imagine telling my husband he can't come into a room in his house or sleep in his bed. I would also have a good long laugh if he tried this on me. It's a shared house. YOU can always choose to leave, but you cannot make the other person leave. This is absent physical violence, which we've never experienced, though we've had plenty of arguments over our 20 years together. I'm always astounded by the idea that someone would accept this.

I totally agree with you. It amazes me that anyone stands for this type of treatment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I caught him having an affair, he had a choice the nanny suite or a hotel. You think that is out of line? If he wants to see the kids he should stay in the suite, if he wants to flee the kids go to a hotel.

I never made him stay in the suite, I just would not allow him in my room.

NP, if I caught my DH having an affair, no way would he be allowed in my room. And yes, I would claim it was MY room, MY bed, MY house. He would lose all ownership rights by sticking his junk in someone else.

Actually, no he won't. Even proven adultery has no bearing on division of marital assets in court.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I caught him having an affair, he had a choice the nanny suite or a hotel. You think that is out of line? If he wants to see the kids he should stay in the suite, if he wants to flee the kids go to a hotel.

I never made him stay in the suite, I just would not allow him in my room.

This is OP, and yes, I do think it's out of line. Obviously, so was the affair! IMO it would be fine if you negotiated with him to stay in the nanny suite otherwise you will leave the home or file for separation or whatever. In that case, he is agreeing to it because the alternative is worse. But neither the house nor the kids belong to you alone, so you can't demand that he sleep in the nanny suite if he doesn't want to, nor can you say "if he wants to see the kids, he must...."

I have to say that it would take a lot of guts to file for separation the day you found out about an affair. I think most people need a few hours or days to process things. And it might not be something that you want to tell your children about. They are much more likely to notice the fact that they live in a hotel now than that dad has been on a business trip for a few days.

I think a number of the wives who file for divorce immediately were looking for a get out of marriage free card. Their husbands just gave them a gold-plated invitation to dump their husbands as adultery is a shocking thing unlike being annoying, being lazy, and other things that tend to wear a spouse down over time but that can't be neatly summarized in an elevator pitch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I caught him having an affair, he had a choice the nanny suite or a hotel. You think that is out of line? If he wants to see the kids he should stay in the suite, if he wants to flee the kids go to a hotel.

I never made him stay in the suite, I just would not allow him in my room.

NP, if I caught my DH having an affair, no way would he be allowed in my room. And yes, I would claim it was MY room, MY bed, MY house. He would lose all ownership rights by sticking his junk in someone else.

Property and family law doesn't work that way over a garden-variety affair.