Couples arguing in Public.

[girlfriend44]

Couple arguing in cafe today sounds awful. Do nt they realise everyone else can hear?
Do you argue in public?

Have done - not ideal certainly but if you were married to my ex you would have done as well.

Not anymore, but I cringe when I think back to my first real relationship and the arguments we've had in public. I'm a completely different person now and can't fathom why I didn't care at all that people were witnessing everything.

Not ideal but you never know when a comment etc can push you over the edge! I probably wouldn't refrain from speaking my mind because I was in public.

Depends on what type of argument. Shouting and flailing arms about - no. But yes ill do it in public if it arises, which is rare.

My parents used to do this. Not yelling and swearing or anything like that, but hissing loudly, looking furious etc. I honestly think they thought randoms were going to turn round and say 'she's right you know, now catch yourself on' but of course they didn't.

My brother in law is married to a crazy woman who kicks off in public and thinks nothing about shouting and screaming at him and other family members in broad daylight.

The family is sick & tired of it so no one has anything to do with her anymore. They have kids to, it's shocking!

I'd imagine they do know people can hear them it's just not significant to them at that moment.
Were they making a disturbance or was it simply that you could over hear? I might haved intervened, depending how i felt.

We have never had an all blazing row in public or even in the garden, maybe a few terse words over frustrations or a sarky comment, but no outright arguments except at home. I have heard other couples muttering under their breathe about things and it's like when you see someone else's child playing up in public and think 'thank goodness it's not just us!!'

I have seen one or two outright rows between younger couples out for a 'fun' night out and have given them a very wide berth - once people are at the point of shouting and hitting in public they are usually well past the point of caring what anyone else thinks and you could be next in the firing line!

I did especially enjoy hearing my neighbour telling his vile wife to 'shut up' once... she deserves it!

I saw an elderly couple arguing bitterly in public at the theatre. It made me feel so sad that people plod along in shit relationships into old age and never think life could be better.

It also gave me a huge burst of anxiety because of horrible memories of my parents doing this (they still do). And, yes, I think it's trashy when my parents do it. I'm determined not to live like them.

Personally no, but I view it as a bit of free entertainment when others do!

I live in an area where it is not uncommon for adults to physically attack each other in the street, even in front of kids, and nobody else would even think of getting involved or calling the police. Everyone just stands around and watches- some of us from inside the house and the more nosey from right beside these scraps!😆

So a situation as described in your OP would be very mild to me in terms of drama.

Yeah gotta admit I love to rubberneck these situations (obviously not clearly abusive ones), but petty arguments are free entertainment as PP noted!

Just because older people exchange a few terse words in public doesn't mean they have wasted their lives staying together. I also regard it as free entertainment but I'm not judgemental. Obviously a full scale loss of control argument is another level and I'd give them a wide berth.

It's kind of life affirming that old people can still be arsed to bicker with each other

I think most people have had a moment when their oh has really pissed them off - it's unfortunate if this happened to occur in public. It's also very hard to not have a furiously whispered row of one party won't just stfu and is determined to have their say. It's not ideal though.

Never with my ExH but I did with abusive exP. Couple of times. We were on a day out to the coast, having lunch he started slagging off my family (who are lovely and who he tried to isolate me from). So I walked out of the restaurant. He followed me and the argument started. He walked off and left me there. I had to get a train home (2hrs). I still went back to him. What a mug.

Other time was again in a pub/restaurant for dinner. He accused me of staring at a young man's bum who was at the bar - I wasn't and he was young enough to be my son! I'd just had enough by then and wasn't going to take anymore of his BS accusations. I walked out and got an Uber home. Yes, I went back to him 🤦🏻‍♀️ but split up soon after. He was cheating (funny that!) Thankfully, three years on, I'm with someone who I can't imagine arguing with in public as I don't think we'd have issues that would cause such arguments. When you see red, the environment doesn't matter.

We don't argue in public, to be fair we don't really argue at all.
When I first got married, we lived in married quarters and some of the blazing rows going off around us were legendary.
I remember one in particular where a heavy frying pan complete with its contents, went crashing through the kitchen window of a couple opposite, followed by more screeching and shouting.
I think it's safe to say that there was no dinner on the table that evening 😂

A long time ago in the 90s and we're in our early 30s.
My friend once, when her husband (and my husband at the time) had stayed out clubbing all night and stayed at another friend's house, then were in the local pub the next day, she went to the pub as suspected they'd be there - and threw his Sunday roast at him. I applauded her! They all came home after that and she made him put together a climbing frame for their kids. He didn't do it again.....neither did mine. They've been together 30odd years now.

We might occasionally snap at each other in the supermarket but we've never had an all-out row.

The saddest one I saw was a very well-heeled-looking older couple who pulled up in front of us in a service station car-park, absolutely yelling at each other. She got out of the car and stormed into the building; he sat there and sobbed for a few minutes with his head in his hands and then drove off, presumably back onto the motorway, without her. I wanted to wait and see her reaction when she came back out, but we'd finished our lunch so DH wouldn't let me!

Not exactly intentionally in public, but I was parked next to a couple one Saturday morning at a supermarket and the woman was giving it hell for leather at the bloke.

She went on and on and on and when I occasionally sneaked a look over, he remained completely silent and looked abjectly miserable.
He did try to leave the car at one point to start the shop, but she was having none of it.
Not saying he was blameless obviously, he could have been completely deserving of a lecture..

Moral: Voices carry easily through car doors 😂

I think the thing is in those situations the anger and emotional intensity has over taken any sense of social propriety.

I was once having dinner with a bf in a full restaurant we started to disagree about something and he said something to me so horribly nasty, vile and cruel and really directed at something he knew was very agonisingly painful for me that I couldn't cope. Not just the pain of what he'd said but that someone who supposedly loved me would stomp so viciously on a raw spot. I started crying - seriously crying - and ran out of the restaurant. I was crying so much I couldn't really see.

I'm sure it was a scene - more me sobbing than arguing - but I needed to get away because I felt LIke I'd been punched in the guts and had a knife rotated into them. That overrode any internal embarrassment. I've never had a huge argument the way you describe but based on what I experienced that time, my guess is that in the same way the anger overrides any sense of embarrasment.

I haven't thought about this for a long time. He was a nasty bullying cunt that man.

Nope, but on a friday/Saturday night the arguments can be funny when the pubs shut.

We don't argue in public, but we don't argue in private either really.

Sometimes something just pisses you off at the wrong time.

Not in public, we have too much respect for each other. We would leave whatever the issue was until we got home (if we remembered!)

Totally. We were hissing at one another in strangled undertones in a tile shop last week (two years into a house renovation which resembles the glummer bits of The Money Pit), when we caught the appalled eye of an architect we know showing flooring options to some very genteel clients, and went off to laugh in the car…

Went out for a meal a while ago and the couple next to us probably in their 60;s) argued and bickered throughout. I felt that this was their normal and it ruined my meal - this was because it reminded me of being out with my parents who hated each other though which may have been why.

Some arguments are quite funny though - I take the view that it's ok to look!