It ISN’T over. It’s over for YOU. It ain’t over for ME. See? THAT’S why I wanna discuss it. Your “It’s my way or the highway” attitude doesn’t really work all that well in the real world.
Nah, I tell her exactly what I’ve said here and I’m done with it. I don’t dwell on it; it’s just one of the (very few) things that my wife bugs me with. I only relate it here because I’m commiserating. And it’s not like she dwells on stuff, either; it’s just one of the problems with having Type A personality disorder, always expecting things of other people. 
Let’s go back to the couple–the guy said that he wanted his wife to work more.
What kind of logical leap is that from his feeling out of sorts that morning? Who is he to push that shit onto anyone? If he was grumpy that morning, he should be able to communicate that to his wife. But no, he drags an irrelevant issue into the fray, gives her no chance to gather more data and then expects to walk away from this without more discussion? He is insane. Where are the consequences–he acted in such a way that logically resulted in hurt feelings, anxiety and rancour. Logically, he should expect to either have to defend the “you need to make more money/work more” position or he needs to explain what would lead him to say such a thing. It doesn’t have to be a group hug, navel gazing marathon–but he’s got some talking to do.
“I’m sorry” really doesn’t do much. It can, but only in an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect. Since this guy just damaged both of those things, those little words aren’t going to be enough to regain the status quo.
Just out of curiousity, (and I’m asking this sincerely), what is there to discuss, other than you saying, “It hurt me when you said X” and him saying, “I’m sorry I said X and hurt you, and I won’t do it again.”?
Well, it seems ovvious to me what would lead him to say such a thing…either he really does think she needs to work more, or he was pissed off by stuff, got mad that she wasn’t as worked up by his battery dying as he was, and decided to say something to hurt her/get her as pissed off as he was.
If he really does think she needs to work more and lied and said he didn’t, they have a problem.
If he really doesn’t think she needs to work more but he likes to say things in order to hurt her, they have a problem.
Neither of these problems goes away by virtue of him saying “Sorry!”
Just out of curiosity, would those saying the husband apologized so nothing further is necessary say that if he had struck her?
He needs to tell her that he is pissed that she is not as worked up as he is re the battery. IOW, he needs to be able to identify his feelings and NOT take them out on her. (and she needs to do the same thing). Problem is, a lot of the time, people aren’t sure why they’re mad at any given point-hence the need to talk/discuss/analyze.
The “if you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you” shit is just that-passive/aggressive crap that is immature and manipulative. Anyone using it should be called on it immediately.
But shit like this guy pulled? He (because he had a bad morning?) dumps major, MAJOR stuff on his wife and wants it to blow over?
how about next time she’s pissed about something, she mentions in passing that he’s a poor provider, a lazy ass or bad in bed? Would that be Ok as long as she said sorry? Hell, no!
How is any of this fair or good for communication?
I don’t believe you. There is very little money left over for separate funds if you are just starting out, buying a home/car/furnishings, and paying for kid(s), unless you’re both doing quite well. But I know you’re going to insist that you’re right and I’m wrong, so it’s not worth arguing about it with you. And since you’re super-logical, I know you’ll drop it immediately.
Do you have a mortgage, 2 car payments, and other monthly payments? If you did, maybe you’d need that second name on the application. It’s all about your debt to income ratio. My credit is fantastic, so I was able to afford the mortgage and the first car by myself, but not the second car, and not the other things. But my marriage is young; maybe if we were together for decades and making more money, I could.
In fessie’s example, no one was harping for a month. It was one day. The guy said something nasty about changing the entire way they structured their lives, came home, said, “Whoops, sorry, forget I said that.” His wife suffered over it all day because, by his own admission, he lashed out in anger and said something he didn’t mean. All he has to say is “my bad” and it’s over? That’s not logical, sorry. That’s ridiculous.
Maybe the wife wants to talk about HER feelings, not his. She has a right to tell him how bad he made her feel, and ascertain if maybe there is a kernel of truth to his supposedly off-the-cuff comment. Also, I bet he has a habit of saying mean things in anger. Not cool.
Is it? I didn’t say it applied to all women in any case, just many. It is an objetive experience and in fact, something that has been told to me by more than one woman on more than one occasion.
Doesn’t it? Three words: Chicks Dig Jerks. Why? Social programming? Natural selection? I would say a measure of both. Only when logic kicks in do they pick the ‘nice’ guy instead of the pseudo bad-ass loser.
The rate of domestic violence doesn’t seem to bear that out. Push someone’s buttons hard enough and that logic will be traded for the “fight mode”. Granted it IS better to talk first than fight, that’s the logical response, but when all of the talk is exhausted, and there is nothing left but to go into ‘‘fight mode’’ that becomes the time when both men AND women lay down logic in favor of emotion.
Except that it isn’t always an emotional thing. Sometimes it is, but sometimes, you can do this…
Problem + emotions ÷ people x situation - logical solution = fight
or
Problem ÷ people x situation + logical solution = happiness
First, that was the middle of the sentence. Second, there are only a few ways to say “emotions solve nothing of consequence for men, generally speaking, so we don’t lean on them the same way women do” I should have chosen that instead of “comfortable” apologies.
It’s not that emotions “get in the way” for many women, it’s that there is nothing BUT emotion that leads to the problem.
Scenario; man comes home, leaves his briefcase, shoes and jacket on the back of a chair.
Woman says: “Damn it! I just cleaned here, take your shit and put it away!”
Man says: “Hoo boy, here we go”
Woman thinks: “Asshole. Doesn’t he care that I worked all day cleaning?”
Man thinks: “I’m really beat, I’ll get that stuff later”
Woman thinks: “He’s going to put his stuff away, i’m not going to do it, and I’ll make him do it because I spent the entire day cleaning this place and he’s not going to come home in five minutes and destroy it, ok, ok, what was that thing he did, oh right, my sister’s friend said he was looking at her boobs at the wedding, I can use that”
You can see it coming from a mile away. There’s nothing wrong with his stuff being there temporarily, he’ll put it away soon enough, it doesn’t hurt anything, where it is and he’s tired. On the other hand, she’s tired too, because she’s spent the entire day cleaning. Logic in this case seems to say that conflict at the time of the offense is unnecssary and that if the items are not removed in short order, that the woman is right to complain, and the man is in the wrong for not moving the items.
That’s not how it’ll play out though, is it?
Then discuss it THAT night–or give the guy a signal that you are not done talking about it. Unless I read fessie’s example wrong the wife accepted the apology (or at least didn’t raise any objection) and the next morning she was WTF when he wished her a Happy Anniversary. Her last signal to him was that it was over.
Apology extended–no sharp objects returned! Everything is fine. You do know that sometimes an apology is all that is needed. Sometimes it takes more then that, but again you have to convey that information if you want someone to respond.
If she wished to continue to discuss it she needed to convey that to the other party. I have no problem discussing feelings as I have them too. I don’t buy the logical vs emotional bullshit here. But if I apologize to my wife and she gives me no indication that she is still upset how am I to know that?
As I mentioned above, luckily my wife if she still needs to talk and is too upset at that time to talk will just say something like ‘I hear your apology, but I am not ready to accept it and I want to talk about it further, but I am too upset right now’. So I know we still need to talk about it and I wouldn’t get up all chirpy the next day thinking all is well, and I know that we still have this discussion ahead of us. But conversely once she has had her say–she drops it. She doesn’t bring it up in discussions EVER again. She had her say and sometimes we agree to disagree-but we resolve it and move on.
That approach seems to much more logical and less stressful then stewing over an issue forever or simplistically thinking that a quick apology will get you off the hook.
People–work together man. It really ain’t that difficult! 
They maybe have a problem, but it doesn’t go away with a discussion, either. Assuming he said it in order to hurt her, then either it was a one time thing, or it’s a pattern of behavior. If it’s a one time thing, then it’s an abberation, and nothing much to worry about. If it’s a pattern of behavior, then she has to decide if she wants to stay married to someone who is verbally abusive to her, or not.
It’s the same thing in the other situation, you laid out. If he hit her, she doesn’t need to discuss it with him. She needs to call the cops and get out of that marriage.
Hijack
First off I rarely agree with catsix on issues, but I don’t think she is way off on this one. Most people do finances the way you have described–but it is possible for a married couple to have separate finances. My wife and I do. We each have separate checking accounts and a joint account. Same with credit cards, individual and joint. Any common purchases we pull from the joint account. We make roughly equivalent money, but she loves jewelry and I like my toys and by having our own money we can spend what we want without remorse or recrimination.
The only issue would be if we didn’t have enough money in the joint account to cover our common bills–that has never happened.
We are both 47 by the way, so perhaps that has some bearing on it.
end of Hijack
A conversation won’t necessarily fix it, but I’ve been involved in times when it did.
You seem to be saying that if a couple has a problem they have no options for dealing with it other than ignoring it.
Well, most of the time when couples are fighting about money it’s because there isn’t an abundance of it and decisions need to be made about how things like common bills get paid.
I don’t disagree. But in my situation if one of us didn’t have the money to put into the joint account we would discuss it and resolve it. Let’s say it was her, I would front her the money and she would have to pay me back–in other words she wouldn’t have extra money to buy jewelry or whatever. If the roles were reversed I would have to give up any of the toys/junk I like. In our household we pay the joint account first and whatever is left is ours. My first marriage was a joint account only and trust me there was a lot more resentment about money there then in my current marriage!
No - actually he blew off her attempts to delve that night. He did state clearly that he did NOT actually want her to get a job (something they’d discussed and agreed upon in the past), and that he DOES realize that her WAHM situation is difficult and not something he’d want to do. But that was the end of the discussion. His mood was OK the rest of that night, and downright chipper the next day.
Sorry for not making that more clear.
Something that guys and women w/out kids might not realize, but telling a WAHM (or a SAHM) to get a job and start pulling her own weight is a HARSH insult. Everybody has a story about a leech, and I’m sure it happens, but most of us are very uneasy about being economically dependent on our husbands.
BTW, I sent her a link to this thread, she found it really interesting.
Works just as well for either sex, to boot.
I’ve been following this thread with no real dog in the fight, but this jumped out at me. Er, are you saying that domestic violence is often caused by one partner annoying another enough to provoke physical violence?
Well, no. If a couple has a problem, obviously, they need to deal with it, which can include talking about it. For instance, if there are financial problems, talking about how to bring in more money or how to cut expenditures is worthwhile. But talking about how you feel about being poor is just self-indulgence, and doesn’t help solve the problem.
Likewise, if you have a problem with something your spouse is doing, tell him or her that and ask them to stop it. But it doesn’t do any good cluttering the conversation up with feelings. Expressing your feelings is something that children do. Adults should know better than to assume that how they feel makes any difference.