However, Tracijo67 is very, very lucky that she happened to marry an enlightened Buddhist monk like herself. To think that these two folks – one who has never yelled in years of marriage, including through a period of understandable extreme stress; the other who imagines herself ending the marriage were her partner to yell on just two occasions – wow. It is truly a statistical improbability that they found each other on this wide planet and fell in love. But it happened, and more power to 'em. (Most of this post was not meant as a snark…but I do find Tracijo67’s low tolerance extreme, and I wonder if she’d really follow through on her threat; and, I sincerely hope she knows how fortunate is this lock-and-key compatibility she shares with her mate.)
It wasn’t yelling that he did. It was harsh, cruel name calling, precisely targeted at my known vulnerabilities. Ya, you betcha, I’ll never allow that to happen again.
We have actually NEVER yelled at each other, unless I am misunderstanding the generally known definition of yelling. I have raised my voice a few decibels above normal at times, but mostly directed at my son, who loses focus of everything around him when he is immersed in a video game. I do not remember a single incident of my husband ever yelling, and he actually gets annoyed at me when I raise my voice to be heard by our son.
And I don’t believe that we are in a small minority. I am fortunate that my husband shares similar values about what respect and healthy communication is all about, although he wouldn’t BE my husband if we weren’t suitably matched. We don’t always get it right, but we don’t yell at each other. Yes, I consider that verbal abuse. I suspect that people who are routinely yelled at (in anger, rather than to get attention) would ALSO consider that verbal abuse.
Honey, is that you?
A few minutes ago my husband came to give me a kiss while I was cooking dinner. I turned around and told him “don’t fuck with the woman with a knife in her hands”. We kissed and laughed.
We have both been plenty pissed off at each other in 19 years. We have yet to yell at each other in anger.
I’m certainly not going to say that either you or your husband has ever yelled at the other- but “to yell” or “to shout” is generally defined as “to say something in loud voice” - pretty much exactly how you describe speaking to your son when he is immersed in a video game. I’m not really sure how you define yelling, although I suspect it’s different.
And to be honest, I'd rather be yelled at regularly for two decades , knowing that whatever my husband says and his volume is an impulsive expression of anger (and not what he really thinks) than spend an hour hearing him calmly, deliberately and cruelly calling me names and targeting my insecurities.
I consider yelling to be raising one’s voice while angry, and at a volume where people not in the immediate vicinity can hear. That is the kind of “yelling” that I was raised with, and it was every day, many times a day.
If yelling is raising one’s voice in a deliberate, not angry, way in order to be heard … then damn, I’m guilty. I try NOT to do this because it upsets my husband (child is indifferent, natch :D).
I agree with your second paragraph. It was quite the event, and I was hardly blameless. We got through it because we were genuinely remorseful, and had been under a great deal of relentless stress.
Nope, it’s yelling when I raise my voice, even if it’s to cheer at the baseball game or because I’m speaking to my deaf grandfather. I can understand why you would dislike yelling, but I’m sure you realize that there is a whole lot of room between yelling in anger many times every day and never yelling in 20 years. I suspect that most , if not all , of the people who believe yelling is not necessarily abuse have experienced something in between those two extremes.
[quote=“doreen, post:106, topic:104101”]
Nope, it’s yelling when I raise my voice, even if it’s to cheer at the baseball game or because I’m speaking to my deaf grandfather. I can understand why you would dislike yelling, but I’m sure you realize that there is a whole lot of room between yelling in anger many times every day and never yelling in 20 years. I suspect that most , if not all , of the people who believe yelling is not necessarily abuse have experienced something in between those two extremes.[:mad:/QUOTE]
That definition of yelling is harmless to me, and sure, I yell at games or amusement parks and I certainly raise my voice in order to be heard, whether that is an absorbed child or a hard of hearing person (though mostly I just try to enunciate clearly because I’ve learned that with many hearing impaired people, volume doesn’t help much; they rely more on lip reading to fill in blanks).
I took this thread to mean yelling with the element of anger involved; certainly, just about every example discussed here has an undertone of anger.
I was clear to say that, given my upbringing, I know that I am sensitive to volume/tone as a vehicle of expressing anger, and that I would take that into careful consideration if I had married someone who had a less rigid viewpoint. I understand imperfect behaviors, and display them far too often myself. There is a difference between raising a voice, even shouting, in the heat of the moment and under stressful conditions (“You cheated on me” or “You emptied our bank account and all of our savings to gamble/snort coke” etc … can’t imagine I could deliver such a message calmly). I can forgive a lot of an otherwise loving and thoughtful companion. But routine yelling would be an altogether different thing for me. To me, that is abuse. Others are free to consider it differently; I won’t argue. I agree that with yelling, there can be various shades of gray … unlike with physical violence, which I hope we can ALL agree is never justified.
Thanks, Tracijo67, for explaining those nuances. Makes sense. I’m pretty sure I would have failed your test after about a week, and it really is up to me to change this habit of mine – no point in faulting you or others like you for your “intolerance.” My wife is more or less in your camp, but I’m grateful that she’s willing to put up with a certain frequency of raised voice moments – as long as I show continuous (even if slow) improvement and increased self-awareness. But I sill feel miffed when she tries to steer our arguments away from the “content” and towards the “methods” (e.g., my raising my voice.) Well, it’s up to me to stop giving her the opportunity to make that move.
Just to clarify: I do not engage in “harsh, cruel name-calling” toward my wife, the way Tracijo67’s father did toward her mother. My worse style of argument lies somewhere between this and the simple and forgivable raising of voice volume just for practical purposes. So, maybe I would have lasted more than a week with her. A month, perhaps.
Without faulting you or your wife, I just want to explain what happens to me when a tone is raised beyond hearing to understand, AND there is anger involved. I shut down. It is involuntary, at least initially. The voluntary part is my refusal to participate in the conversation any further. I may acknowledge that content is important, and that I was wrong. But I won’t be shouted at. I just won’t. I was sensitive to it as a kid, and had no control over it. I exercise that control now.
Hopefully, your wife tells you that she is willing to discuss the matter, that she wants to, and if she’s clearly wrong, that she is sorry. And that she will discuss it, now, if you lower your voice … or later, when you are both calmer. If she’s not meeting you halfway, then yes, she may be attempting to obscure the issue with the tone vs content justification. But if your routine style is to yell, and she is sensitive to yelling as I am, AND you cannot control that impulse, there may be some real compatibility issues.
My sister yells all the time, to me, at me, to her kids when she is on the phone with me. She yells in anger, excitement, boredom, or just to yell for the sake of yelling 
Most of the time, I don’t think she even realizes that she is yelling. Her kids are certainly indifferent to it, and her husband just yells back. They are a family of shouting yelling yellers, and they are all just fine with it. More power to them. I would not presume to make a comment about their emotional health; they are probably better off than I am in that regard. They get it all out, then they forget all about it. My husband and I both require some time to process when we are angry. We don’t hold onto it any longer than they do (at least I don’t think so) but we may avoid discussing it right in the moment when one acts like an ass and the other is righteously pissed.
Thanks again, Tracijo. That is very helpful advice. I think we’re working it out okay. You are spot on when you point out that there are certain things which trigger in each of us a “shut down” response, after which communication is impossible (for a while).