Slightly off-topic, but when I hear “it’s on his honey-do list!” I get homicidal.
Don’t drink? Well shit! You just knocked out 90% of the source of wife arguments right there!
If you consider doing whatever the hell you want all day every day a “downside” then you are correct.
Of course, empty and insincere palliatives are just that – empty. There’s clearly something bothering the other person, and should be worked out. It’s the way this comes up that is “sneerworthy”.
I have been in this scenario before with my wife, albeit not often (certainly not anywhere near as often as some men claim happen to them). I had totally “moved on” from whatever the earlier spat was about, yet here she is a few hours later digging it up again. So it feels like she is basically trying to start a fight, i.e., by reviving one already (in my mind) done and finished with.
That’s irritating enough, and it gets worse when it feels like it’s really a pretext argument for something else that’s bothering her, which gets me even more upset because of the implicit dishonesty: if you have a problem regarding X, please talk about X, don’t start ranting about Y or Z instead so that by the time we get around to the real problem, X, we are both very short on temper!
Now I dislike dealing in gender generalizations, so I’d prefer not to couch this as a “he said/she said” divide. It’s just that in my particular relationship, it’s my wife who does this type of thing from time to time, and I of course am completely innocent of any emotionally manipulative or dishonest act like this whatsoever, being a possessor of a Y chromosome.
…Yes, that was intended as irony. I’m sure I’ve done stuff like this too, but she’s not on this board to post about it, and by definition when people do stuff like this it’s an unconscious rather than deliberate act.
Have you told her? This is something I’ve noticed a lot in my relationship over the years - sometimes we expect things from the other that we never told them.
Mis-communication, again. We had your issue too, and we have agreed to come to each other only on the situation that is bothering us, and we do call each other out when we don’t.
Assuming we’re reading the OP correctly, the wife is approaching with “we need to talk” under the guise of talking about HIS feelings, not hers. In that case he is justified in saying there is nothing about his feelings that need discussing, if that’s the case.
Of course there could have been something omitted in the OP… perhaps he is sulking around the house like a 3rd-grader and she wants to know what the fuck is going on. But if he’s acting normal, why is she entitled to dredge up HIS feelings and refuse to take as an answer “I feel like we already talked about my previous feelings and I do not feel like re-feeling them for whatever reason.”
In 43 years of wedded bliss (more or less bliss) I have learned that there are only two acceptable answers to the “we’ve got to talk” thing. Both are delivered one octave above the normal speaking tone. Number one is “Yes, dear.” Number two is “It’s my fault, dear.”
Mrs. G for her part has learned than her husband doesn’t have any feelings that are worth discussing. Hunger, lust, fear and rage just about cover it. This does cut down on the incidents of feelings discussion.
Are you serious? I mean, is this really how it goes? Because this would not cut it for me at all.
Look. I really want us to be equal partners. I won’t use the “we’ve got to talk” thing, but sometimes, I really need to talk.
Granted, he needs to talk much less than I do, but sometimes he does. And sometimes I really want to know how he feels on a given topic. Like…how do I explain? Maybe I really disagree with some viewpoint of his. But we talk, and he tells me his reasons. I may still disagree with his viewpoint but at least I understand his reasons. I don’t even have to agree with them, just respect them, but how can I respect them if I don’t even know them?
How can we be equals if he always says it’s his fault? At least 50% of the time it’s my fault, and I have a hard time believing it’s often only one person’s fault.
Yeah, we’re both people who pride ourselves on having standards of reasonable and logical actions. If either of us sees the other “proxying” in this way, calling it out would an immediate end to it.
Of course there are still times when it happens. We ARE normal “external stresses in our lives, three small kids in the back seat” kind of people.
Well put, sir.
Extra bonus points for when she chooses to tell you what you were feeling.
“You sounded mad when you said that.”
And when you sincerely examine your thoughts and actions, and presume to differ, “Um, sorry if I sounded mad. I might have been distracted, but I was just trying to convey information,” she helpfully informs you that you are either mistaken or lying, which is another thing to talk about…
Oh, man. You have my admiration if you really have 3 kids. Whoa. 
I call bullshit. She’s not looking for a deep meaningful dialog; she’s playing a little power game in which his anger validates her stance, so she’ll push the necessary buttons, get him angry, claim her victory and start planning the next round.
Maybe SHE’S the one who needs to talk (rather than she implying that YOU need to talk). Just maybe. I don’t know either of you. How about
Wow, I can’t speak for all women, but I highly doubt that most women (even those who pull out the “We need to talk” line) are really playing these kinds of games.
Women and men simply have different communication styles, so what you read as head games is actually something important for women to feel close to their SOs and other loved ones.
I don’t often bring up something after my BF thinks it’s already over, if only for the fact that I want the situation dealt with now. That’s why it’s so frustrating when he (or other guys in the past) have tried to walk out on an argument. From his standpoint, if he goes out for a while with his friends or goes for a walk, he’ll stop being angry and everything will be fine. From my standpoint, it seems like he’s uncomfortable dealing with these sorts of emotions, and if he does leave it’ll only piss me off more.
I want to explain how I feel until he understands it, and I want him to explain things from his point of view so I understand it, too. If an argument wasn’t resolved immediately, I’d bring it up later because the unsettled business would drive me nuts. I don’t do it to pick a fight, and I doubt most women do.
How about, um, telling your wife that? She’s your wife. Don’t you think she’s entitled to hear what you really think?
For years, my dad would get me started in those kinds of conversations, where anything I said at all was just going to bury me deeper. So I “learned” to just stay completely silent until he decided he was done talking to a brick wall. I got tired of that after about 5 years and started just telling him that I wanted to get out of the conversation:
Dad: How do you think you’re going to graduate if you do X instead of Y?
Me: I don’t want to start this conversation, because it’s not going to get either of us anywhere.
Dad: Seriously, though, how do you think etc.
Me: I’m not going to talk about this with you, because it’s not going to help either of us.
I don’t see why you can’t adapt this kind of solution to your problem. Maybe you can try
Wife: We need to talk about X.
You: Honestly, I really don’t want to do that, because I feel like we resolved the problem already.
instead of
Wife: We need to talk about X.
You: No we don’t!
The honest approach might actually get you out of the conversation. Or, at worst, she might say, “OK, but here’s Y aspect of X, which I don’t think we really covered, and that’s important to me”. And hopefully you can then have one meaningful conversation instead of 20,000 infuriating little games of cat-and-mouse.
Bitter, are we?
What? You don’t hafta work for a living like the rest of us peons?? 
Seriously, my hubby is in charge of his own schedule. It’s enough keeping up with myself! So yeah, outside of work he does whatever the hell he wants to all day every day.
Back to the OP: I think a lot of women aren’t raised to be direct in their communication (come to think of it, some men aren’t either). It seems like this was this issue - she’s asking you about Issue A when in actuality it was Issue B that she was concerned with. That drives me batty, when people do that.
My husband and I have had a similar-sounding argument to the OP. The issue is something rather hurtful that he said to me in an argument shortly after my car accident in May (so we were both under a bit of stress). I have tried “dropping it”, but it doesn’t seem to be working…he probably thinks it’s fine since I haven’t brought it up lately, but I could feel tears coming up as I read the OP, so I guess I’m not really fine.
“Dropping it” feels just as phony as “Yes, dear. You’re absolutely right. I was wrong. I’ll never do it again.”
I know if I say anything, he’ll just get angry at me again. (“I’m angry because you keep bringing it up!”)
I’m guessing that the OP’s wife feels that something is not resolved and the OP is blowing her off. She lets it go for a while because talking to him is like beating her head against a brick wall.
So, now that school’s back in, how is your wife enjoying the 7th grade?
I’m not even trying to speak for all women, or even some women, just the one particular woman described in the OP. Granted, we’re only hearing his side, and I presume his transcript of a typical conversation isn’t based on an accurate audio recording, but this pattern is something he described happening repeatedly over the course of his marriage. If his wife really did want a “deep, meaningful dialog”, I would assume she’d have clued in long ago that this wasn’t the way to get one. I further assume she isn’t an idiot, so the pattern must be serving some emotional purpose.
Of course, if this only happens to the OP once every few years, he should probably just learn to cope with it. If it’s weekly, I’d suggest counseling. Daily, divorce.
Not in the least. I just dislike attempts at manipulation and suggest the OP consider the possibility that manipulation, rather a sincere need to talk things out or some ill-defined compulsion women have to irritate men, is a factor in this pattern. I further suggest he not repeatedly recite his half of the script, in which he gets snappish and irritable and further aggravates the situation.
Of course, he should also consider the low value of this advice, insofar as I don’t know him or his wife.
I don’t ever have this problem. Mine is more like if I don’t have an excited smile on my face: “Are you OK?” “Yes.”
Later:
“Are you OK?” “Yes.”
Later:
“Are you sure you’re OK?” “Yes.”
If I was fine the first time, then the rest seem unnecessary and infuriating.