TLDR had a very good outcome after passing epic shit tests, and a thank you to this forum.

I live close to work, so I can come home for lunch and enjoy a wife-made sammich, check on homeschool, and just generally enjoy myself for 20 minutes.

Yesterday my stay-at-home wife was having a bad day. She was coming off being sick the day before, and our little girl was throwing fits because mommy wanted to stay in bed. I helped the situation via text from work and wife was grateful.

But she still had a headache. (Anyone else have the migraine demon in their home?) When I came home for lunch, things felt grim. She proceeded to trouble me with household concerns that were apparently on her mind. I tried to engage but there was no time to address anything. In the end it was just stress I didn't need on precious break time.

Then she took it to a whole new level. She started going into this whole thing about how I opened up a bag of chips that she was saving because they're SEASONAL (they were stale) and blah blah and how I'm not considering her feelings. At first I engaged a little, and when I saw she was escalating, I looked at the time, my break was ending soon, I realized I was more stressed after my lunch break than if I would have just gone to McDonalds. I got angry and loudly spoke "It's just fucking chips!" or something. And then announced I was going back to work (I made it back early.) I hear her saying as I went out: "You're just going to leave the chips on the table..??"

She texted while I was driving and here is what I texted back: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xamng9_IG-dzUsrax1DLubi8YrNT0Mug/view?usp=sharing Not proud of all this so far, but it's the truth. I shut my phone off so I could concentrate at work. I also made time to read about anger here because I thought I may have really screwed up. There seems to be some debate about what role, if any, male anger can play in RP life.

I worked the rest of my day with my phone off and it was nice not having to engage with her over text and just concentrating on my job. I knew there was going to be a shitstorm waiting when I got home, but I resolved to maintain a frame of amused mastery NO MATTER WHAT when I got back in there. I'll admit, I still have to fake it.

I turned on the phone to see a flood of enraged ranting on her end. Didn't engage with any of that. It was the same attacks I've seen so many times when we fight. Insults that seem so real, if a man said them to me,we'd have to have damn duel. Yet I know it's all bullshit. A desperate attempt to try and move me, to control me.

I get home and get a beer and sit down to relax and look at the news on my phone. She comes around and resumed something in the kitchen, and as she worked I see her from the corner of my eye mustering an attack for me. She starts:

-Did you get my texts? -Yup. -The way you walked out and slammed the door, is there something else going on you wanna tell me? Are you angry? -Nope I'm fine. (I smile at her) Actually I would like to mention something. My lunch break is a time of relaxation for me. I don't to be troubled. If that's a problem.. -Troubled? What was troubling? You couldn't even be troubled to talk to me with your face in your phone.. -Did you say anything interesting? I remember you brought up X, Y, and Z annoying thing. I started a convo about Elizabeth Warren which was cool for a minute, and then you started in with the chips thing.

That's when she started going sour. Launching a ton of fallacies meant to get me mad and defending myself. I held frame. I engaged none of it. I said "Ok then." Took my beer and went upstairs to change.

Now I noticed something. A large amount of housework had been done. Our room was looking better than it has for a while. She picked all her shit up. In fact, she'd been hard at work for hours all around. Hmm!

She followed! She started changing too (we take the kid to ballet on Tuesdays) She's naked in front of me. And she's still launching extremely titillating salvos of strawmen and attacks, desperately trying to get under my skin so I will engage. I tell you, inside I was nervous the whole time, but I faked it and held frame.

I go "OK, guys have fun at ballet!" As I'm going downstairs she goes "Are you going somewhere??" I say "I'll be in the basement working on my project" (musical hobby.)

They went. I didn't have to tend to them. I got a great chunk of time in on my project. I was feeling good.

They got home a couple hours later, and I felt satisfied enough that I could check on the lady and stop working for the evening if need be and it would be no great loss. The thing is, the amount of cans of worms she opened with her attacks, two rational people would have to spend hours working through all the seemingly unresolved drama. But I had a theory that wasn't going to be the case.

Sure enough. I get up there. She's already in the kitchen working on a stellar dinner. I give her a kiss on the head. ITS LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED. She's chipper. She starts telling me stories. I sit down and we have a good time. She NEVER brings up the shit. We have a great dinner, and kid bed time, and fun chillouts. And she initiates a passionate session.

So, yea, that was a landmark for me. For the years since we've been married, I've tried to live by RP principles. I do OK. I've been training her. I am lucky to have a lady that is much better than the average. But she's a fighter, and I've done a bad job at not falling for her tactics when she's in a mood and wants a fight. She hooks me in with outrageous accusations that I KNOW I could beat if i engaged. wrong.

There was a post on here about how marriage is like unexpectedly getting punched in the gut once a month. That's accurate. But I'm optimistic that consistently passing shit-tests will more than mitigate this condition.

I posted a couple years back here, probably under another name, my story about how I left my wife in another city because we had a fight in the car on the way to a show. I got righteously lit up of course. That night was emblematic of just how many problems I had not dealt with in my journey. And I was too butthurt to see it. I heard what yall were saying and yet I couldn't internalize it. I had also been listening to Stefan Molyneux and trying to wrangle his ideas with RP philosophy.

So thanks for being here. I have some posts in my mind that hopefully yall will enjoy or debate. I don't see a ton of new posts on here, so I'll hold back until I get the lay of the land.

Cheers.