Do you ever shouty argue with you partner

[AgntOso]

We argue but sometimes like this morning we have raised voices. Not throwing things, not violent, not vile or degrading, not full on top of our voices but loud with each other. Lockdown stress arguing over housework and childcare. I realised that the neighbours probably heard and felt embarrassed. Do other people argue? My gut says everyone must at some stage but behind closed doors, like us. Is this right or are we turning into the Clampets?
Yanbu- yes it's normal, couples raise their voices every now and then
Yabu- it's not healthy/ normal
I'm hoping for a hand hold tbh in that it's normal.

No we don’t shout at each other, we disagree about stuff sometimes of course, but never in an aggressive or disrespectful way. We don’t say things we don’t mean either. I really do feel that if you really love one another you respect each other too much to get to that stage. We are both easy going types which helps I guess.

Plus our dogs would get really scared if we raised our voices!

My parents had shouty arguments. I wasn't harmed by that and neither was my brother.

Surely we call all agree that witnesing an occasional argument between parents is not the same as growing up in a house full of shouting.

And it begins..."the only possible alternative to shouting is simmering resentment", and downplaying shouting to "occasional argument".

I've heard this all before. I said earlier that there's no point asking shouters about this because like my parents, they always just downplay and make it out to be the healthy and honest and oh so loving and passionate approach, because there's no alternative except just silent hatred. What do you expect? Like smacking, it's not an approach borne of thought, introspection or anything other than indulging your negative emotions in the moment in a way that satisfies you short term. Why would anyone expect an intelligent and constructive reasoning?

Well, this is one way I avoid lots of SHOUTING...by picking my battles. I shouldn't have come into this one, because I should have known what I'd see, given how much I've seen it before. Yeah yeah, the kids don't mind, the kids aren't affected, it's the only healthy way to resolve conflict, we're just such passionate people, whatever. This one isn't worth it. You can't reason with it.

@Same4Walls

Your issues with your family are not everyone's issues. You're projecting.

I have to agree. It's clear you had a difficult childhood but I honesty don't think your parents not shouting at each other would have made it any less unhappy.

Precisely.

It never bothered me because there was never any abuse in my family, and nobody typically hit below the belt and dragged other people into their fights. Even now I occasionally rock up to my parents house whilst they're in the midst of a screaming match and just roll my eyes and play around with my phone until it's over. It's hardly traumatic.

We raise our voices in the "oh for goodness sake" way, or "for the last time get your shoes on" way but we don't tend to full on yell...apart from a couple of "No! Stop!" times if the DC are about to do something dangerous.

I'm Italian though and I'm loud and gesticulate a lot, when me and my mum bicker DH worries we are having a full on row but really we are bickering over tiny things like the best way to make sauce or not bickering at all and just gossiping (loudly)

DS1 is now loud and gesticultes a lot - but speaks English so he just seems cross even though he's happily telling a story about cars or superheroes.

GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom I'm not going to get into a discussion about it because its obviously triggered something in you that you've been trying to deal with and I really hope you're getting support for your difficult childhood.

I do think you should probably leave the thread though as it's clear being here is just going to upset you.

@GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom

I'd ask all these "shouting is so healthy" people what their kids think but there's no point because they'll only say what my parents always said...essentially that it did us no harm, we didn't mind, it was so healthy, it was a sign of how much they loved each other, all the screaming and shouting shouting shouting.

Suffice to say, they were wrong about everything.

It sounds like you grew up in an abusive home

That is not the same thing as a healthy, happy home with the odd shouty argument. Please don't compare the two.

I think if you’ve had an abusive childhood any arguing can be very triggering and it can be very difficult to accept arguing as part of a normal relationship. I really struggle with this on a personal level.

I’ve been with DP 5 years and we have one or two shouty arguments a year I’d say. We bicker and sulk with each other more regularly though (maybe a couple of times a month when we’re tired and stressed).

Not with current DP no. He is so laid back I don’t think you could get him to that point!
I did with an ex but that was clinging on to the embers of something that was dying

Voices have definitely been raised in our relationship. But not anymore. We just argue quietly now!

We don’t shout at each other or raise voices but we do bicker and snipe more than we would. We both love to have the last word and always think we are right!

Yes. We never call each other names or make it personal. It tends to be frustration over different ways of approaching problems, if anything. Kids always see us come down from it and make up (not in a soppy way).

I grew up in a house of brooding resentment and mum telling us how awful our dad was. That made for a childhood with a lot of atmospheres in the house and I think damaged our relationship with our dad. Our rows flare up, we shout, it's done. We move on.

My DH was brought up in a family where no one dared to upset MIL, she would spend weeks giving them the silent treatment, her approach is that they would eventually realise what they had done to upset her. She has actually told me that this is the best way to treat people in her opinion.
Early in our relationship DH would try this technique but I’m from the opposite camp. I need to know what I have done wrong and sort it out then move on. I think it was a breath of fresh air for DH, he is not a natural seether, although still has to to it with his family because thats the way they roll.
If you are not speaking to someone in my family it just means you either have nothing to say or that everything is fine. In DHs family it usually indicates you have upset someone and creates paranoia.
DH often winds me up just to make sure that I’m not sulking if I’m quiet.
It took a while for us to work out that shouty arguments are actually a healthy way for us to sort out our differences quickly and then move on. Simmering resentment just doesn’t work for us.
However, we argue much less and discuss much more after 30 yrs together.

Thank you all for your replies, I do feel less Clampet like now. Our neighbours all seem so catalogue perfect if you know what I mean.

I like the make up with food idea.

My DH and I don’t row, but we do bicker sometimes. But that’s down to personality, particularly where my DH is concerned. He’s yelled at me just once in our whole 17 year marriage, and that was just after he’d lost his dad in a car accident.

There are plenty of couples in healthy relationships who argue regularly. It’s when it descends into verbal abuse and point scoring that it’s unhealthy.

You’d probably think we were perfect, OP, as you’d never hear us raising our voices. Far from it, though, we just handle our differences differently. No couple is never going to disagree on anything.

Yes we shouty argue now and again.

It's interesting that pretty much 1 in 2 marriages end in divorce yet when asked about arguing mumsnet mainly claim never to argue.

I shout at him but he doesn’t shout at me

I am loud and from a loud shouty family.
Where he is so relaxed he’s almost asleep most of the time and is from a very quiet family.

We bicker quite a bit - dh is fairly quick to snap but also very quick to calm down whereas I am slower to anger but hold on to the anger. His way is annoying but more healthy I think.

We argue about politics and it can get quite heated and I have been known to stomp out. However we have never gone to bed on a row and mostly agree to differ. His family was big and boisterous and communicated by shouting over each other so these kind of rows are genuinely like water of a ducks back to him.

On the big important things though - kids, money, morals and values etc, never.

We raise voices, even swear. I have a temper.
We still have a happy marriage compared to most of mn it seems. It always last a minute and then the frustration is out and done with. No issue. We are not throwing things at each other, or anything like that, that would be a line.

Yes we do. We know it's not the right way to resolve problems and we never mean anything we say in an argument, but we do shout and name call and hurl insults at each other. We are trying to not do it anymore though and discuss and problems calmly and rationally, but in the heat of the moment it can be easier said than done

@Plussizejumpsuit

It's interesting that pretty much 1 in 2 marriages end in divorce yet when asked about arguing mumsnet mainly claim never to argue.

Ex dh and I never used to argue. We didn’t have much of a relationship either though really. Just like two housemates happily living together. At the time I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that but he then said he didn’t love me anymore and went off with an ex he’d found on the internet (!) and disappeared.

I’ve been married to now dh for many years now and as I said upthread we do argue a fair bit but there’s also more closeness and passion between us. We are both quite firey and say how we feel and don’t let things simmer away. And I think that’s healthier.

DH and I are both quite passionate opinionated people, so yes raised voices, we have made a really conscious effort not to since we've had DS which essentially means is we ranty argue it's on days when he's at nursery and we are both WFH, or sometimes text. It has actually helped both is us be less reactive, so whilst we still disagree by the time we have a chance to discuss something we've both calmed down anyway.