Anonymous wrote:Today my wife sends an email to our apartment leasing office asking them why they can't understand her previous two emails. She actually wrote something like," I don't know why it's so hard to understand? I've asked for the paint color twice." Apparently she had asked for the paint color in two separate emails and they haven't given her an answer. They told her not to worry about paint touch up because unless we have damaged the walls we won't be charged when we move. And another example- about a week ago she flips out because the server at a restaurant did not get to our table until 20 minutes after we were seated. He was helping tables that were seated after her. I think he was waiting until I arrived but anyway she was beyond pissed about it because our toddler was hungry. The manager ended up paying for our bill and this was a fancy restaurant! How can I get my wife to chill out? She's always stressed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, she is right in both cases. Apartment Building companies are well known for charging people for minor things. Hungry toddler should not have to wait for food because you are at a fancy restaurant and it takes them 20+ minuets to come around.

+1

But you don't need to lash out about it. You can be polite, you know.

Wow, you really aren't on your wife's side about anything, are you?

Get to counseling fast, you need to get to the root of your anger issues OP. Before your further frustrate your wife and before you get any more delusional about your behavior.

This sort of illustrates the point. PP2 disagrees with PP1 which is fine. But instead of saying, "I disagree, here's why," she (or possibly he) leaps immediately to the "wow" and extrapolates from what we know and leaps to the conclusion that OP is never on his wife's side. She then concludes that he has "anger issues" and is "delusional." Some people aren't comfortable with varying degrees of disagreement and a level of confrontation proportional to the dispute. Everything has to be more clear cut in a good versus evil kind of way, justifying rapid escalation in any dispute.

Hi OP! How's it going? Everything peaceful in your zero conflict resolution utopia where you keep your head stuck in the sand and pat yourself on the back for being such a nice guy?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
don't confuse asking someone nicely for something repeatedly to no avail and then angrily expressing frustration and need for action with exploding right off the bat.

Nice. Nice. Explode isn't any rational kind of approach.

Nice -Neutral-Irritated-Frustrated-Mad is a more reasonable progression.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, she is right in both cases. Apartment Building companies are well known for charging people for minor things. Hungry toddler should not have to wait for food because you are at a fancy restaurant and it takes them 20+ minuets to come around.

+1

But you don't need to lash out about it. You can be polite, you know.

Wow, you really aren't on your wife's side about anything, are you?

Get to counseling fast, you need to get to the root of your anger issues OP. Before your further frustrate your wife and before you get any more delusional about your behavior.

This sort of illustrates the point. PP2 disagrees with PP1 which is fine. But instead of saying, "I disagree, here's why," she (or possibly he) leaps immediately to the "wow" and extrapolates from what we know and leaps to the conclusion that OP is never on his wife's side. She then concludes that he has "anger issues" and is "delusional." Some people aren't comfortable with varying degrees of disagreement and a level of confrontation proportional to the dispute. Everything has to be more clear cut in a good versus evil kind of way, justifying rapid escalation in any dispute.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, she is right in both cases. Apartment Building companies are well known for charging people for minor things. Hungry toddler should not have to wait for food because you are at a fancy restaurant and it takes them 20+ minuets to come around.

+1

But you don't need to lash out about it. You can be polite, you know.

Wow, you really aren't on your wife's side about anything, are you?

Get to counseling fast, you need to get to the root of your anger issues OP. Before your further frustrate your wife and before you get any more delusional about your behavior.

This sort of illustrates the point. PP2 disagrees with PP1 which is fine. But instead of saying, "I disagree, here's why," she (or possibly he) leaps immediately to the "wow" and extrapolates from what we know and leaps to the conclusion that OP is never on his wife's side. She then concludes that he has "anger issues" and is "delusional." Some people aren't comfortable with varying degrees of disagreement and a level of confrontation proportional to the dispute. Everything has to be more clear cut in a good versus evil kind of way, justifying rapid escalation in any dispute.

Anonymous wrote:
don't confuse asking someone nicely for something repeatedly to no avail and then angrily expressing frustration and need for action with exploding right off the bat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, she is right in both cases. Apartment Building companies are well known for charging people for minor things. Hungry toddler should not have to wait for food because you are at a fancy restaurant and it takes them 20+ minuets to come around.

+1

But you don't need to lash out about it. You can be polite, you know.

Wow, you really aren't on your wife's side about anything, are you?

Get to counseling fast, you need to get to the root of your anger issues OP. Before your further frustrate your wife and before you get any more delusional about your behavior.

Anonymous wrote:I think your wife has a communication style issue. Is she politely advocating for herself first and then getting mad or is she communicating poorly and then exploding when no one read her mind?

The paint thing sounds like the leasing office didn’t understand the question. They thought she was worried about being charged and she wants her wall to look nice.

At the restaurant did she flag someone down and get a milk and bread for the kid? Waitstaff can’t read minds and many parents bring snacks for their kids.

If this is a recent change, I would think about hormone changes. You have a toddler. Did she recently wean from breastfeeding or pumping? That can cause some extreme emotional swings for a few weeks. I know it caught me by surprise. Is she using hormonal birth control? I had a lot of anger issues with a widely used BC pill and I thought I was going crazy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today my wife sends an email to our apartment leasing office asking them why they can't understand her previous two emails. She actually wrote something like," I don't know why it's so hard to understand? I've asked for the paint color twice." Apparently she had asked for the paint color in two separate emails and they haven't given her an answer. They told her not to worry about paint touch up because unless we have damaged the walls we won't be charged when we move. And another example- about a week ago she flips out because the server at a restaurant did not get to our table until 20 minutes after we were seated. He was helping tables that were seated after her. I think he was waiting until I arrived but anyway she was beyond pissed about it because our toddler was hungry. The manager ended up paying for our bill and this was a fancy restaurant! How can I get my wife to chill out? She's always stressed.

You sound like my conflict averse husband. He just hates conflict outside of work situations or at home. But sometimes you need to get assertive in certain situations. I would have behaved just like your wife in the above scenarios. I don't mind that my husband is more laid back in cases like these, but I do mind that he also tries to make me feel bad about it. Get off her back.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, she is right in both cases. Apartment Building companies are well known for charging people for minor things. Hungry toddler should not have to wait for food because you are at a fancy restaurant and it takes them 20+ minuets to come around.

+1

But you don't need to lash out about it. You can be polite, you know.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did I miss it? When was your wife lashing out? The examples you gave seem like reasonable responses to situations.

Having your meal comped when the wait staff is trained to have the entire party present before ordering is not reasonable.

Anonymous wrote:Today my wife sends an email to our apartment leasing office asking them why they can't understand her previous two emails. She actually wrote something like," I don't know why it's so hard to understand? I've asked for the paint color twice." Apparently she had asked for the paint color in two separate emails and they haven't given her an answer. They told her not to worry about paint touch up because unless we have damaged the walls we won't be charged when we move. And another example- about a week ago she flips out because the server at a restaurant did not get to our table until 20 minutes after we were seated. He was helping tables that were seated after her. I think he was waiting until I arrived but anyway she was beyond pissed about it because our toddler was hungry. The manager ended up paying for our bill and this was a fancy restaurant! How can I get my wife to chill out? She's always stressed.

Anonymous wrote:Today my wife sends an email to our apartment leasing office asking them why they can't understand her previous two emails. She actually wrote something like," I don't know why it's so hard to understand? I've asked for the paint color twice." Apparently she had asked for the paint color in two separate emails and they haven't given her an answer. They told her not to worry about paint touch up because unless we have damaged the walls we won't be charged when we move. And another example- about a week ago she flips out because the server at a restaurant did not get to our table until 20 minutes after we were seated. He was helping tables that were seated after her. I think he was waiting until I arrived but anyway she was beyond pissed about it because our toddler was hungry. The manager ended up paying for our bill and this was a fancy restaurant! How can I get my wife to chill out? She's always stressed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your wife has a communication style issue. Is she politely advocating for herself first and then getting mad or is she communicating poorly and then exploding when no one read her mind?

The paint thing sounds like the leasing office didn’t understand the question. They thought she was worried about being charged and she wants her wall to look nice.

At the restaurant did she flag someone down and get a milk and bread for the kid? Waitstaff can’t read minds and many parents bring snacks for their kids.

If this is a recent change, I would think about hormone changes. You have a toddler. Did she recently wean from breastfeeding or pumping? That can cause some extreme emotional swings for a few weeks. I know it caught me by surprise. Is she using hormonal birth control? I had a lot of anger issues with a widely used BC pill and I thought I was going crazy.

Op here: She did not get bread but she did get one tiny appetizer. It was a Spanish tapas restaurant. Apparently my wife said I would be joining and she told the waiter she had questions about the menu. He said he would be right with her. She waited 20 minutes and then started to leave the restaurant. The waiter saw her and she asked for the check. The manager came over and made a big deal about everything. They begged her to stay. Next thing I know tons of tapas we did not order showed up at the table!