“Where do you want to go for dinner,” he asked.
“Wherever you choose.”
“Should we go to Shahi Maharani?”
“Indian food is only carbs. You know I am doing keto.”
“Oh. Then how about Soup Spoon.”
“8 years of marriage and you still don’t know that I don’t like soup. I guess that’s what happens when you stop taking interest in me.”
“What! But I asked you to choose?
“Why should I plan everything? I plan all our birthdays, anniversaries, vacations. Cant you decide on a dinner also?”
He goes quiet and shakes his head.
“Don’t use those passive aggressive tactics on me. Am I saying something wrong? Since my marriage until this day, you haven’t planned a single thing for me. ”
“What I don’t have the freedom to shake my head now?”
“Of course you have the freedom to do whatever you want. Doesn’t everything in this house go exactly the way you want? All men are selfish.”
Silence.
“See this is the problem. You don’t fight fair. Trying to have a conversation with you is like talking to the wall. Even the wall might respond to me, but you won’t.”
He looks at the wall.
“Don’t try to be funny now. You NEVER validate my feelings. As if ignoring will take it all away. Nothing between us ever gets resolved.”
“Uff when did I not validate your feelings?”
“Ok let me give you the latest example. Yesterday, when I wore the new dress, you said ‘This dress looks so pretty on you.’”
“So?”
“If you cared about my feelings, you would say, “You look so pretty in the dress.”
“Uff this is enough,” stands up and throws down the TV remote on the couch. “I am going out. You should give lessons on making a mountain out of a mole-hill.”
“And you should give lessons on giving snide remarks! Where did you pick up that skill—from your mother?”
“Why do you always have to pull my mother into the picture?”
“Wah nice. Always so defensive about her? Have you ever defended me in front of her? Try that also sometimes.”
He leaves, banging the door loudly on the way out.
After 2 hours, he walks in again.
Now from this point onwards, different couples take different routes. Discussing various routes below:
- Makeup sex-Quiet and most effective in diffusing the anger; may give illusion of the problem having been solved.
- Wife maintains silence, Husband says sorry several times to make the peace.
- Husband is the stubborn one, so wife ends up saying sorry.
- Rare scenario—both say sorry
- Both behave as though nothing happened—and things go back to normal until the next fight. But takes a while for the raw feeling to dissipate.
- Several days of deep freeze until things somehow limp back to normal
The challenge is to go back and solve the problem without triggering another fight. Usually, the main issue gets buried in the torrent of anger, and emotions that come flooding forth. And if the ego comes in the picture—”who will say sorry first?”—the stalemate becomes bigger than the problem itself.
This is something that has helped me, after years of stumbling through fights—focusing on finding a solution, instead of the hurtful words that were said. It doesn’t always work, but mostly it does.
“Let’s go to Shahi Maharani. I can always eat paneer tikka and raita,” might be a solution-oriented approach.
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