Same here. Now I’m older and don’t live at home they’ve let their guard down a bit and I have seen some of their fights(especially at Christmas!), and I just have to laugh. Neither of them are hot-tempered, angry people. They just snipe at each other and they tend to be quite quick-witted. If it gets awkward, I annouce that it’s awkward, then I leave the room.
My stepdad was the Devil. Even when he was “happy”, we all laid low. Him and Mom fighting would have been indistinguishable from any ordinary day.
I picked ignore it as that’s closest - generally I just stayed as quiet as possible and waited for it to blow over. Though in fact there was far more in the way of cold silence and passive agressiveness than out and out fights. Not really a problem these days as they are now divorced.
The only fighting my parents ever did was icy stares and cold, cold silence. I would have run if my dad ever started yelling.
My parent’s divorce when I was 11 blindsided me because I never saw them fight or argue or disagree or anything. Apparently they did, but they made sure not to do it when I was around. They thought they were doing it right by not letting me see them argue.
Which is why, I think, as a teenager and adult I stayed in unhealthy relationships too long - because in my mind if you had one little argument that meant the relationship was over. I didn’t know that you could fight, argue, disagree, whatever and work it out and still love each other. No clue. So I put up with being treated like dirt by boyfriends because in my mind if I stuck up for myself I thought he would immediately break up with me and it would be all over.
Now I am happily married to a wonderful man who truly loves me (just got married a few weeks ago, yay!) and when we do have the occasional argument or disagreement it still takes all I got to not have a panic attack.
I’m lucky enough to have been raised in a happy home. They don’t really fight, just a bit of sniping sometimes. If they’re being silly I’ll tell them so, or I’ll leave the room and put “their song” on so that they can hear it. Then I don’t go back into the room, because they’ll be smooching. Ugh! 
My parents are generally happily married but both have fairly fiery tempers, so there was quite a lot of shouting on occasion. When I was a child I hated it. It frightened me, so I’d misbehave or give my opinions or anything I could think of to draw their attention to me and get them to be angry and yell at me instead. It was better than them yelling at each other. I think they would be appalled and guilty if they knew this now.
I’m an only child - when did I acquire a sibling?
Thanks for writing my post for me, except your enlightenment didn’t reach me until long after I was out of the house, and not long before I essentially kicked them out of my life.
However, your last paragraph really hit home - it’s both helped and hindered me, too. Mr. Horseshoe says I run away from problems when I try this strategy. 
Anyway, this is why one of my personal pet peeeves - and a guaranteed way to get my climbin’ up on the old soapbox - is people who stay married “for the sake of the child(ren).”
So, PSA, people: if that’s you, don’t do it. Don’t think you’re successfully shielding your children from your marital problems, don’t think they’re necessarily better off in a two-person household just for the sake of it being a two-person household, and don’t think that just because they’re in bed and the door’s closed that they don’t hear you shredding each other.
When I read this I laughed out loud, (coworkers are now looking at me stranger than normal). Parents are both deceased. Mom was buried on top of Dad. Military cemetery. But I pictured in my mind mom rolling over and facing down and scolding my dad for something (probably the fart he just let loose) and dad going wasn’t me. Yeah a mind is a terrible thing not to twist.
I’d go out and cry.
Guess it depends on your definition of fighting. My parents had disagreements, but they talked through them and moved on. It was good role modelling for us kids.
The same dynamic exists in my house. Dad is always eager to do what mom wants, but he can never figure out what she wants on his own. Mom. unfortunately, wants dad to figure things out on his own.
So mom gets mad at something dad does, and then gets mad that he can’t figure out what he did wrong, which clearly implies that dad doesn’t love or care about her and never has.
She thinks that if she doesn’t tell him that he’ll eventually learn to figure things out on his own, but this hasn’t worked for the last 25 years.
In mom’s defense, it’s pretty easy to see what she’s upset about. The reason dad can’t do it is because he’s all too ready to assume mom is being irrational and that she’ll get mad at him no matter what he does.
Unlike your dad Mosier, mine isn’t very patient. Small fights tend escalate very quickly.
you must be really young—and scared.
Remember your parents are people, and have a whole history of life before you came along.
In a healthy, non-subjugated (sp totally off) relationship things come out. Unlike living in your family of origin (which you know you’re going to leave) marriages are frozen in a time frame of acceptance…which doesn’t always come easy.
They’re either “making love” (mentally stretching & reaching out for more) or working out a problem that’s very real and potentially final.
At any rate, you’re an apostrophe in their sentance.
Don’t take it personally & just turn up the music.
And don’t judge. You don’t know what you’ll be like in ten years.
My mum’s last marriage was to a verbally abusive drunk. I wish I could say I intervened more, but I mostly stayed nearby to make sure things didn’t escalate. I only called the cops on him once, but that actually began the cycle that led to their divorce, so I definitely wish I’d made that call sooner.
Like others exposed to too much unhealthy fighting, it’s definitely had repercussions on my relationships. I get panicky and shut down if a disagreement leads to raised voices and often need to take it pretty slow or double-check myself if I’m arguing with someone because my goal isn’t to “win” or be right; it’s to make it stop.
I hhide their colostomy bags.
I’ve never been in a room with both of my parents at the same time so I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid parental fighting.