to ask what you think is normal

[GorgonzolaTombola]

Quite often on here people advise LTB and NC. Many people seem to have very high standards in terms of personal relationships. That's fine, great actually, but I wonder if it's really normal to have such a blissful life that almost any problem means not tolerating someone and cutting them out of your life.

I do not have a normal family and I have never had a romantic relationship without things going on that would get immediate LTBs on here.

So my question, more succinctly, is.. if you feel like you have a good family life and a good relationship what constitutes a bad day?

If you tell people to LTB on here, what does a bad day in your relationship go like, as in a bad day that you can tolerate as some rough with the smooth.

My reason for asking is that I had (another) horrible row with my partner of 7 years last night and I am in 2 minds (as he probably is) what to do now.

Our relationship is not perfect. I would never ever put up with any violence. Any affair or texting other women would be us over. We try and respect each other and do things to help each other. We do have arguments usually over minor things. He does his fair share of household stuff and looking after our children. We work as a team.

I’d say a bad day in my marriage might be both of us in a bad mood and the kids are winding us or each other up and dh and I disagree how to handle it so snap at each other and/or storm off in a huff.
We calm down and apologise and talk about it.
Our core beliefs align and we treat each other with respect but we also accept that nobody is perfect and we forgive each other for messing up sometimes.

There is no normal.

You need to do whatever works for you.

Horrible rows aren’t normal. If you can’t disagree without being horrible to each other then you have a huge problem.

What I would not tolerate is if dh raised his voice or behaved in any way aggressively towards me or the dc or if he refused to admit his mistakes or forgive me for mine.

Agree with velveteen if you can’t disagree calmly then there’s a problem (it may be solvable though if you both work on it)

Btw - our life is not blissful and sometimes I think I can’t stand my dh a moment longer but I know that those thoughts are fleeting and I would never voice them. No relationship is all good or all bad. Cutting someone off for one disagreement is not healthy either. Some conflict is normal in every relationship because we are all individuals and have different perspectives. Compromise is key.

I am often surprised at how easily people go 'no contact'. I can understand people going 'low contact' sometimes to have some space to think things through. NC is a big step to take and, while I can understand it in abusive relationships, I do sometimes think that people just aren't prepared to communicate to sort out differences of opinion. Sometimes it is done for the most childish and pathetic of reasons.

I think it depends on what a "horrible row" constitutes.

Well we’ve never had a ‘horrible row’ for a start. We’ve had disagreements, and we’ve had times when we’re both tired and grumpy and snap at each other over minor things (we have three children, all of which have been appalling sleepers as babies so plenty of tired and grumpy times!). We have never raised our voices at each other, or called each other names etc.
A ‘bad day’ for us is when we’re knackered, the children are playing up and everyone is grumpy with each other.

Many people seem to have very high standards in terms of personal relationships

I think, more so, that many people seem to have such low standards.

I still struggle with this. My exH was horribly abusive and my last relationship ended badly. Because she was much nicer and kinder than him I put up with a lot of bad behaviour on her part and I wasn't assertive enough about my own needs.
I think if, like me, you had parents who were emotionally negligent, you tend to have a low bar.
People say that in a good relationship, things are good 80% of the time. I'd probably think that should be 90%.
Things like sulking, withdrawal of affection, raised voices, manipulation aren't acceptable on a regular basis.
I also think that it's a myth that relationships should require a lot of work. There should be a general alignment of views and values and if they are aligned, there should be very little work involved. You should Ideally be with your best friend.

I had an abusive childhood and, in retrospect, an abusive first marriage, the things I put up with in my first marriage (sexual coercion and coercive control) I now realise are not normal. I am now in a relationship which isn't all roses and chocolates but there is no control, no harassment, no fear and I realise that this is what 'normal' is. Yes, we argue, yes he can be a bit of a pain in the arse sometimes but so can I, he has his faults and I have mine but we are happy most of the time.

A bad day for us is usually when either one or both of us are in a bad mood so we just get on each other's nerves and spend the day bickering. What neither of us would ever tolerate is lying, violence or any kind of physical/ emotional affair. Our relationship is good and fulfilling overall. He's a good dad, he's intelligent, reliable and funny

Although I have only done it rarely, I have raised my voice to my DH in frustration. I don't see that failure to remain calm is necessarily a sign of problems (although it can be).

How are defining a horrible row?

I agree bimum people always go on about how relationships are hard work but I think they understand that wrongly; it doesn't mean that it should be hard to be with and communicate with the person you're with, to me it means life throws stuff at you and you have to face it together. For example, mental illness, family issues, deaths etc. Ideally if you're a good match, you can help each others through those tough things but the relationship itself should not be constant work imo. I do agree people seem to go NC rather easily with relatives on this site; if I did the same as posters on here I probably wouldn't talk to any of my relatives! LC sometimes definitely though. I do have one relative I'm NC with but that is for very good reasons and issues that go back years and are definitely not solvable by talking it out.

A lot of it seems to be disagreements with MILs around parenting; maybe since I don't have DC i avoid those conflicts.

We don’t row at all, a horrible day for us would be if I want to do a certain job but he has another job to do and so we disagree which is the priority. But, being adults we talk and sort it out. Dh is very caring, kind and proactive around the house and with the dc, so in turn I don’t nag him. That’s our normal, I can honestly say in 13 years together and 7years married we have never called each other a name, stormed off or raised our voices, imo that is NOT Normal or acceptable.

Sometimes NC is necessary because the other person is unwilling or incapable of communicating respectfully. I think there’s a lot of criticism of NC from people who haven’t ever had close relationships with people who are horrible to them and refuse to change.

I’m not someone to jump straight to LTB, but it does irritate me sometimes how low some people’s standards are when they complain about their spouses - I don’t understand getting into a relationship with a lazy waste of space and then complaining that they don’t help/support/make you happy my reaction isn’t necessarily LTB but I do very often think ‘why did you get with/live with/ have children with this person in the first place??’ Everyone’s quick to say he’s a lazy bastard, the set up is unfair, what an arsehole... yeah there are many arseholes out there but unless it’s a forced marriage, you chose to be with them and you need to take responsibility for your own choices. If your standards are low don’t be surprised if your stuck in an unhappy relationship. A ‘bad’ day for me? We disagree about something, I go in a bit of a huff for about 15 minutes and then we just get over it because neither of us are very good at/can be bothered to argue. We don’t really do much to piss each other off which I suppose is just lucky - or down to us actually loving each other properly/ being compatible and not just getting into a relationship for the sake of it as many others seem to do (although I appreciate that finding someone so compatible is down to luck - but that doesn’t mean you should just settle for anyone when you can’t find that.) The first years of our relationship were long distance, we didn’t get to actually see each other much at all, and I think maybe that helps us appreciate that we want to enjoy each other’s company. Some people seem to have blow out arguments about the tiniest things but I think that’s down to other underlying issues in the relationship.

Nobody has a perfect relationship and they'd be lying if they said they did.
Like others have said, any violence or cheating would be a my limit and he'd be gone.
We have little disagreements like anyone else, usually because I suffer with my nerves and I get impatient and I panic and he tells me there's no need to panic and then I tell him the reasons why I'm panicking. (Which I really should listen to him because he's so calm and level and talks sense 99.9% of the time.)
There's times when he does stupid things that piss me off (like leaving all the doors in the house open when he was knocking all the walls out downstairs which caused dust in EVERY SINGLE ROOM that I had to come home to and clean after a 12hr shift) but then I'm pretty certain I piss him off sometimes too.
But. We talk about things. We don't leave them fester.
Neither of us drink. I don't mind the odd one or two at Christmas but he's teetotal from something he had to deal with as a kid - and he doesn't like seeing drunk people. I think drink has a lot to do with a lot of people's arguments and violence (from what I've read anyway).
We also don't have Facebook. I've seen loads of people argue over something they've seen on Facebook.

It is a lie, no one has the perfect relationship. I believe the most successful relationships are the ones there are lots of overlooking involved. Set your own boundaries and make it clear the ones that are dealbreak and the ones you can't overlook. It might suprise you, because sometimes reality and what you actually feel can be very different. For example, I have an aunty who forgave her dh after he had an affair but their relationship crumbled when he lost his job a decade later. Their one survived an affair but not him losing his job. For a lot of people it is the other way round. She has her own job and income but he didn't want to scale down and spend less while he was searching for another job. They had used up all their savings and she refused to help him further by getting into debt and the marriage broke down.

You are not me and you don't have my life experience, so we would probably handle things in life differently. In my marriage, the biggest sign of a big disagreement is dh walks away. He leave the room or house, then I would have to wait until the next day or when he has calmed down enough to continue the discussion. I tend not to just sit there patiently, but get very annoyed/ angry when that happens. So I tend to spend that time writing down what happened and my perspective of what needs to be done.

We get on quite well generally, and rarely argue. Even when we do it's not that bad, and we've made up quickly.

Our last one was this Saturday. We were going out with friends and they wanted to get food before, but my partner didn't want to do that, so I said we could meet them at the event. On the night he started going on about what we were going to eat before we left and I made an (admittedly a bit bitchy) comment saying we had the opportunity to go out for a meal and he said we couldn't.. then he started having a go at me for not saying I really wanted to go as he thought I wasn't bothered, saying I should talk to him properly rather than just silently sulk.. then I started crying as he always sounds nasty when he has a go at me, and we never argue so it feels wrong..

Anyway we were just sort of awkward for a few hours but were fine by the time we were out, cuddled and kissed and made up.

I couldn't cope with a relationship where that kind of argument was every day though. I have anxiety and depression so arguments feel worse than they should to me. I always feel like he will break up with me even though that'd be silly over one argument haha.

We don't have horrible rows. We don't shout at each other. We just talk like rational human beings. That to me is what normal is.

Oh, that is not to say we have a perfect relationship BTW. I'm sure we both simmer/seethe internally when we annoy each other. But we just get over it. That wouldn't necessarily work for others who need to shout it all out.