Based on all the complaining in this thread that he was condescending and talked down to her like she was a little child, wouldn’t “calm the fuck down” and “you’re behaving like a child and I am not going to discuss anything with you until you can get yourself under control” be further instances of him being condescending?
As far as I know, telling someone in that state to “calm down” is never a good idea.
As a general question, for the people who are claiming he was “taunting” her “while calm and cool and collected”, or he was “pushing her buttons”, or “winding her up”, what sort of response would have been more appropriate when she started behaving like that?
Seeing so many posts trying to spin it so many different ways, to take responsibility off her for her emotionally-stunted, severely disturbed womanchild behavior has been sad to watch.
OK, technically you are not outright stating it, but the implication is completely clear.
And you must be right. There’s no way that people could be mature enough to provide nuanced views of a situation. Anyone who fails to see something and reach your same conclusion must be guilty.
He’s a jerk because he’s got her trapped in the car. She’s a whiny brat who needs to grow up and deal with her substance problems, but she doesn’t deserve to be trapped in a car.
When we were kids, we used to design brilliant kid ways of taunting and tormenting each other all while our behaviors passed parental inspection. Mom would never know why, for example, my sister was all kinds of a sobbing mess because our brother was rubbing his eyebrow or sucking in air through his teeth. The moment she’d figure out the taunt code, a new one would be devised.
His behavior reminds me of that, only it’s not a code, it is flatly deliberate. He isn’t trying to justify himself with his calm ‘daddy’ tone. He isn’t seeking her understanding. He is deliberately winding her up. What would NOT deliberately provoking her look like, while also not feeling that he needs to roll over and display his soft underside? “Crazybitch (or whatever her name is), I am NOT going to discuss this with you until you calm down.” … and then proceeding to shut up, not video record the meltdown, let her continue to moan and rock in probable withdrawal (he did firmly and fairly set the parameters for when they’d speak again). Would she have continued to screech and howl? Probably. Until she figured out that it wasn’t getting her anywhere. Her behavior, in any event, would not be relevant. He could tell himself that he really IS the adult, question how and why he got himself into Crazytown, and just done what he needed to do to reduce the population by one.
If anyone still thinks that I am apologist for WIFE based on her gender, I would suggest that your own bias may be creeping in. I flatly dismiss her as irredeemable, until she gets a handle on the rage issues and the chemical dependency. I wouldn’t rattle her cage though, just to watch her perform.
“Hon, I can tell that you are really upset about this, and you must be really disappointed about how the day is going. I’d like to talk about it, but it’s hard to communicate with you like this right now. I am going to pull over for a few minutes and take a walk around the block while you calm down. When I get back, we can figure out our game plan.”
And since she can turn it on and off at will, as witnessed by her typing on her phone in mid-rant, she would simply turn the tantrum off while he was out of the car and start up again on his return.
Of course, on Facebook it would be “he ABANDONED ME IN TRAFFIC AND I CAN’T DRIVE!!!”
This isn’t about her reaction. It is about what one can reasonably control, which is his/her OWN emotions, and to behave accordingly. His response was just as ugly as hers (both in how he behaved and then in his shocking choice to upload it for millions of viewers to see). That makes him a bad guy too.
For the record, “Calm Down” usually drives people crazy because the person using it uses it on people who are NOT in the throes of a nuclear melt down! When someone really is totally losing their shit and screeching at the top of their lungs and literally in full blown tantrum mode, I don’t think saying ‘calm down’ will really cause them to freak out even more. She was at level 11 already.
Maybe it’s because I’m in a calm state now, but just reading that makes my blood pressure rise a bit as it sounds a bit condescending and artificial–you know, like that Jim and Pam scene from the Office where they go to therapy and start talking in that affected manner that no actual humans I know do, so much so that Clark thinks they’re on drugs and asks them for some.I mean, really? “You must be really disappointed about how the day is going”? That just sounds forced, insincere, and condescending to me, no matter what tone of voice you apply to it. Maybe you can say that to a 5-year-old, but a grown person, no matter how childish they’re acting, is a bit much.
Anyhow, the guy is a giant douchebag for recording this and putting it on the Internet for all to see.
Maybe he thought letting someone totally out of control out of the car could create a public safety problem, and that that might take precedence over catering to the tantrum and rewarding her by giving in?
Oh wait, he has a penis. This automatically makes him the villain of the piece.
I think anyone painting him as the villain of the piece needs to seriously examine the way they view the World! A grown-up woman behaving in a way that most people wouldn’t find as acceptable (though perhaps not unexpected behaviour) from a 5 year-old has no excuses whatsoever as there is never a reason to behave like that.
Sounds like tit-for-tat if you believe his side of the story that she was demonizing him on social media, which she practically admitted to doing so in the video.
I’d be pissed, but then I don’t make it a habit of airing my marital spats on social media. It would seem, however, that’s par for the course for Mrs. Meltdown.
Bolding mine. So, these two are barely out of the honeymoon period and she has already established a pattern of trash talking him on FB? Wow. That’s an impressive level of dysfunction.
As a woman here, I seem to mostly be on the opposite side of the misogyny wars, and I found these two to completely deserve each other. But I gotta ask; do you really think the above is majority stance of posters in this thread? If I squint my eyes right and cock my head, I can believe it of one or two, but it looks like most people seem to have legitimate gripes against both factions.
Looks to me like the majority of posters are bending over backward to put the majority of the fault on the husband. Closer to 60/40 her, IMO. Sure, videoing something like this and posting it is a jerk move, no argument there, but I can see his point about documenting her behavior to show the people she’s been bad-mouthing him to just what he’s dealing with and hopefully show her just how much she needs to dry out. (Still wondering, if she’s a nurse, what her employers think about her substance issues and lack of maturity/self-control?)
I still wouldn’t want to have to put up with either of them.