I knew it couldn't last forever. My husband came in tonight and blasted me with rage about some small thing. This has been a big problem for us in our marriage. Worse since he left, but has been better the last couple weeks. Literally, a small chord plugged into my computer knocked over a couple of things on his desk, none broken, and he went ballistic, in front of S. At first I got defensive and raised my voice, and we started down our old pattern. He started blaming me and saying how "I failed" and "This is why he doesn't like to come home because he doesn't like to see how I mess things up>" It was really hurtful.
After a couple minutes of arguing, I did my 180 - I left the house for 15 minutes to calm down. I told him I would be back in 15 minutes and I was. He was still beligerent after putting S to bed, but I calmly defended myself and said divorced or not, we're going to have to deal with these things respectfully. If I make mistakes I don't want to feel persecuted. I made him see how he jumps to conclusions about how I am somehow a flake who doesn't pay attention to things. I stood my ground.
And miracle of miracles, he eventually calmed down, admitted he hadn't been respectful, and we worked out a solution with the chord and desk so it won't happen again.
It was not perfect, but it went pretty darn well. In the past, this could have escalated into a fight that lasted all night!
