12 Easy Steps to Fighting with My Husband

After thirteen years of marriage, Chris and I have our fighting down to a well-oiled process that makes us laugh.  You know, when we are speaking again…

Step One:  He does or says something that makes me mad.

Step Two: I get quiet.  Eerily quiet.  Deathly quiet.

(Let the record reflect that this deadly silence is not intentional.  I am not punishing Chris.  I am simply trying to get over my anger without picking a fight.  I tend to speak really harshly when I am angry and so I try to just STOP TALKING before I make things worse.)

Step Three:  Chris senses a disturbance in the force and begins to act extra nice and chatty.  Like, obnoxiously chatty.  Especially when I have zero desire to speak to him because I am still mad.  He chats and chats and chats now, even though, ten minutes before, he was hardly saying a word.  Now, suddenly you can’t shut him up.  It’s like he knows his life is in danger and he gets nervous.

Step Four:  Since Chris has made an effort to be supportive or talkative or whatever for, like, two minutes, he now will snap at me, “What’s wrong with YOU?”  Turning the issue into MY problem instead of HIS.

Step Five:  I explode at his attitude.  Words are said.  Many words.  Words. Words. Words.  I am now irrationally angry because a) he has not taken ownership for his original actions and b) he has turned this around on me.

Step Six:  Chris will argue back using words.  These words will include the following phrases:  “Oh, so now it’s MY fault?” and “You always do this, Katie” and “So, I can’t do ANYTHING right now?”  He will also throw in the occasional, “You’re acting ridiculous,” but he uses this phrase sparingly after the Great Fight of ’07 which I am not allowed to bring up.  So don’t ask me.  (But I was right.)

Step Seven:  Chris will storm away.

Step Eight:  I will silently seethe.

And here we have two alternate endings, depending on how big of a deal we are fighting over and how mad I am.

Option Nine A: I will then stomp down to wherever he has retreated to and will then proceed to ream him again there.

Option Nine B: I will find something to do until I am not angry anymore.

Step Ten:  One of us will find the other and will join them in whatever activity they are doing to pass the time until the fight blows over (watching TV, working on our laptops, hanging with the kiddos) and then we will just go on as if nothing has happened.

Step Eleven:  The next day, one of us will text an apology to the other in which we take no responsibility for our actions and don’t hold the other responsible for their actions.  This text usually follows the format of “I’m sorry we fought…”

Step Twelve:  The other will respond in kind with a similar generic, non-responsibility-taking, non-blame-placing apology.

I’m just keeping this on record for either when I need a therapist, a lawyer, or a bail bondsman.