Had a blow up today. Wife spent most of the day in a foul mood and directed much of this anger and frustration at me. I endured hearing how no one understands or sympathizes with her, how men dont care about anything, being told "I dont know whats wrong with you", having my driving critiqued and even being told "the kids are with me 99.999 percent of the time" (which by the way is a huge lie, the kids are always following me when i'm at home, shes the "homemaker" so her perspective is different). I used the tools i've learned so far and didnt engage, at one point i found myself laughing as i saw how ridiculous these things were, and saw how things were being projected onto me. I was accused of being smug and looking down on her ( she's the one that looks down on people) and i was reminded of how tired she was. I told her to relax once we got home, to which she replied " I cant relax, I have too much ___ to do". This is where i lost it. I told her that it makes no sense to complain about being tired and then when i tell you to relax and enjoy yourself get mad and say there was too much to do. I said many other things to address the venom she was spewing and of course i was so irrate that i blew up and wasnt the nicest person while doing so. This is where i feel i've made progress though. Normally after calming down i would apologize for my temper but not today. After a few silent moments she looked at me and said " you should be ashamed of yourself"
. I told her "nope, I'm not ashamed of anything". Then after more silence she said she didnt like how i talked to her, and instead of me apologizing or justifying my actions i simply said "I understand", letting her know i understood she didnt like it but I wasnt backing down one bit. After this we had a pretty decent day... So now I know that if i do get mad and blow up, I have no need to apologize for the anger caused by her antics and I have no need to justify it either... .
