Throwaway because wife is a redditor.
Pretty mundane until the end but hang in there:
While driving home and glancing in my rearview I noticed what I thought was a dime sized blemish on my forehead right above my eyebrow. I have vitiligo on concealed parts of my body and getting a spot on my face would be concerning. We were stopped at a light when I thought I saw the blemish and my wife did the thing where they exclaim “Green light!” moments after it turns green. (I know it had only been moments because the car on my right’s rear door was in-line with my passenger door.) We start rolling forward and I flip my mirror on my sun visor to see if it was actually a blemish. Before I can actually look, my wife has reached over and shut my visor, flipped up my sun visor. She begins lecturing me on how I need to pay attention and the dangers of distracted driving. I lightheartedly explained that glancing in my sun visor mirror no longer than I would look at my side-view mirror or radio to see if there was something on my face did not really meet the standard of “distracted driving.”
I will say that I do have the tendency to attempt to diffuse situations with humor and laughing. My wife insists that is a trauma response from my childhood and should seek therapy to address it.
She argued that me doing that “made her feel uncomfortable” and I explained that I am not challenging that she feels uncomfortable but that my driving is actually very safe. I have been driving since I was 14 (spent my teens in another country, long story) and have never caused a car accident. We are not constantly having “near misses” etc, I am actually extremely proud of my driving record. I’m a very defensive driver and my record is squeaky clean. She said “ I have a clean driving record too, that doesn’t mean anything.” (My wife has never had a driver’s license so she’s technically right that her record is clean). So I explained that her latching onto this because she feels she’s technically right to lecture me makes me uncomfortable and that her feelings shouldn’t trump mine. She said “so you’re saying my feelings don’t matter?” and I replied “Your feelings matter but they are not ALL that matters. And your feelings can’t trump everything including my feelings.” She wanted an apology but I did not feel like I had genuinely done anything wrong.
Here’s where things jump the rails: to this she replies “We’ll see how that logic works out for you.” I immediately say “Now you’re threatening me?” She says “Well when I go fuck a guy I’ve been wanting to fuck then you can’t say anything because your feelings matter but they’re not ALL that matters.” At this point I realize the conversation is no longer going to be constructive so I say “do whatever you feel is appropriate” and walk off. She goes into the bedroom, cries, and eventually falls asleep watching tv. We haven’t talked to each other since (we’re both at work now). That last exchange has really been bothering me.
Any advice on how to proceed? Outside Perspective? I feel like a line has been crossed but I can guarantee she feels like she didn’t nothing wrong and that anything wrong she did was justified because I was in the wrong too. (A common pattern in our arguments honestly where she goes scorched earth and then wants to call it a wash when I admit any fault). Thanks, really.
10 comments
> “We’ll see how that logic works out for you.” I immediately say “Now you’re threatening me?” She says “Well when I go fuck a guy I’ve been wanting to fuck then you can’t say anything because your feelings matter but they’re not ALL that matters.”
Does your wife normally derail arguments or conversations we with extreme off the wall comments. Like if you are sharing a concern/dislike about her will she flip and make you the bad guy?
I’d be concerned about the guy she’s been wanting to fuck. I didn’t catch the part where she made that a hypothetical. Did she?
The whole “all feelings are valid” play, when abused, is exhausting. Your argument took the turn so many do, to straight pointless verbal jousting. If you’re good enough at it, basically you never need to be “wrong.”
What I think of as reasoning, sometimes makes my wife want to murder me.
My wife also goes nuclear real fast if she gets frustrated. If you love her you’ll have to adopt some strategies solely to avoid defcon … Whatever the bad defcon is. Don’t over-logic these situations. Hear and acknowledge. Don’t let her bully you, but be equals and consider backing down when something is important to her. Perfectly logical to you or not.
I’m not saying she’s right to go over the top and threaten. I’m familiar with the strategy. It’s a coping mechanism. You can’t fix her. If you’re supportive she might eventually start making an effort to improve. Mine did. I’ve had to acknowledge some of my more annoying personality issues as well. I think that was key, her feeling like I was making an honest effort to improve too.
It might be best to just abide by some of her driving requests without complaint for a while. This is not a huge ask. No need to dig in your heels here. Once she trusts your driving more, or feels like you value her input, it’ll probably get better.
Notwithstanding the hyper exponential nature of the argument and her reaction, could it be that since she doesn’t drive she got really anxious with your distraction with your blemish as a risk for both of you?
Take the threat literally. If she threatens to fuck a guy she likes, be sure she will do it.
That is an off the wall comment & not something that a person would actually think of unless she has recently done it & this was a way to get it off her chest or she is about to do it .
It’s a logic point about something you would care very much about, not a threat to go and fuck someone. And you did get totally distracted and upset, so it worked, but probably too well.
You both hit upset. She felt you dismissed her feelings so she tried to give you an equivalent feeling. The communication isn’t great but don’t get freaked out by the comment about the other guy — talk to your wife some time when you’re both calm.
She has zero respect for you. How do you not see this?
She criticizes your driving then threatens to go fuck a guy? Most relationships would end here.
This isn’t about the driving incident. As someone with a similar personality to your wife I’m guessing she was triggered by being told her feelings weren’t all that mattered and in her warped mind that converted to her feelings don’t matter. The quip about stepping out is a call for help, and when you dismissed it her feelings of you not caring about her feelings were further validated. This needs a deeper discussion about what’s going on and how she’s feeling. I hate to say it because it’s unfair, but you may have to placate her to get her to open up about the real issues. If you’re not willing to do that I think she may need to talk to a therapist to get to the root of what’s going on.
Objectively speaking, looking in a mirror at yourself while the car is in motion is unsafe driving. Your objectively good driving record has nothing to do with whether or not your action was good driving behavior. Neither does her lack of driving record mean that her critique is invalid. I would be frustrated living with someone whom expected me to drive them places but that is another issue altogether.
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Honestly, you both handled this conflict pretty poorly. Looking in the mirror at your blemish is going to take longer than you thought to actually get a good look and isn’t defensive nor good driving if not absolutely necessary. The way your wife handled it by reaching over and flipping up the visor though was aggressive and unnecessary. That would have put me on the defensive immediately so I get where you are coming from. From there you both escalated each other little by little to get to her final point. I don’t get the impression that she actually meant her last comment and used it more as hyperbole based on the rest of the interaction. It was still highly inappropriate though.
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I’m going to focus more on your actions because you are the one here looking for advice. I think your wife is more to blame for the way she started the situation but you had multiple chances to defuse it as well and fanned the flames. Stop trying to win arguments and instead try to understand your wife.
>So I explained that her latching onto this because she feels she’s technically right to lecture me makes me uncomfortable and that her feelings shouldn’t trump mine.
She was upset because she felt unsafe in the car. Feelings are valid and important to understand and focus on. However, at this point you completely ignored her original point and are changing the subject of focus. Boiling it down to feelings basically shuts down the conversation regarding whether or not looking at yourself in the mirror is safe. By doing so you are basically invalidating her feelings. Instead of trying to come up with a solution you are simply trying to win the argument. With all of the extra explaining done in your post it comes across as if you are simply trying to win us over as well and prove her wrong. You bring up objective facts when they suit your narrative then feelings when they suit yours as well. If you agree that you wife was correct acknowledge that. “You are right I shouldn’t be looking in the mirror while driving.” Once you acknowledge that you can then bring up the conversation that the way she handled the situation was rude.
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Since you are here I think it is important that you have a conversation with your wife about the situation. Acknowledge where she is right. Even if she overstepped in her behavior you can tell her that she is right while still saying that you felt disrespected by the way she went about it. Stop trying to simply win arguments. Clearly, it isn’t working. Winning on a technicality or by using argumentative tactics such as switching the argument away from the situation at hand to the emotions does not work in marriage. There is no audience to win over. Even if you win that particular argument in the moment it will leave her feeling resentful once she has time to think over how the conversation went and realize what happened.
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ETA: Something I have found instrumental to keeping the conversation on topic. When my wife tries to change up the issue during an argument I simply listen. Once she is done talking I validate her feelings and say they are important but request that we finish up what we are currently discussing and move on to that afterwards. This has done wonders for us.
This is all super childish. Obviously you guys have a lot more going on to pick major fights out of nothing.