Pysch, I'm reading yet another book right now (How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It) and it's quite interesting.
Here’s a brief summary of some of the basic premises found in the book (Although, I've only read about a quarter of the book):
Men and women have biological differences in their reactions to stimulus; these are enhanced through patterns of socialization. As a result, women largely seek to avoid fear, and men largely seek to avoid shame.
The worst thing women do in their relationships with men is to shame them in many little (and sometimes larger) ways — correct them, criticize them, nag them, etc.
The worst thing men do in their relationships is to leave their wives “married but alone" --” failing to include their wives in their activities and decision-making, or trigger their wives feelings of fear and lack of safety via angry outburts and stonewalling.
It’s disconnection, not lack of communication, which results in many issues between spouses.
In the situation you described above, it seems clear your W is reacting to your past behaviour (the angry outburts that you mentioned) and therefore her level of anxiety was raised by her feeling that you were disrespecting her. She "interprets" this behaviour as more of the same.
Yes, her reaction was over the top (and she shouldn't be swearing at you) but her response was quite possibly fear based and resulted from the cumulation of issues. (I believe you did admit that you shouldn't have woken her so no 2x4 from me.)
Also interesting, the book has a list of traumatic experiences/issues that women mark with a true or false answer. The more true items, the greater a woman's fear/anxiety based responses. Based on your wife's childhood history and your past history of angry outburts, I'm going to guess that she could probably mark a lot of true answers, including: living with an angry person, living with a controlling or anxious person, physical abuse in childhood, etc.
The greater number of True answers = the higher your sensitivity to fear and anxiety. (I had a high number of True answers, not surprisingly.)
That said, I believe you already understand all of this (you're extremely intelligent and self-aware despite the fact you feel like an alien). I guess aliens are brilliant.
Anyway, I found it also interesting (for lack of a better word) that your response today seemed to be that of shame because according to the book men struggle with not being able to make their wives happy, which results in them stonewalling or withdrawing, and also of course angry outburts (which you seem to have under control) due to shame. However, the slightest incident of disrespect seems to send your W back to that time period, and coupled with her past history, her reaction is extreme (telling you to F off twice. Yikes). On some level, however I do understand her reaction and it's something I've struggled with as well. Many times my reactions to my H were aggressive and uncalled for but I realize now that they were reactions to fear. I felt disrespected and unsafe. That doesn't excuse them in the least, but somehow understanding what triggers them gives me an even greater ability to control them.
According to the book, talking about issues doesn't help the R but that the changes come with emotional attunement and connection, which is not achieved by words but by actions. Even small gestures. Yes, perhaps your W offering you the sheet was an olive branch? It's probably best to see things as positives rather than negatives if they will bring us closer to our goals. (Still struggling with this myself.)
Well, I'm not sure if any of this will make sense (or even help) because I'm not always best at explaining myself in the written word, but your incident reminded me of some of what I had read today, and I thought I'd share.
