This weekend I had a big row with my wife, and I was interested in hearing thoughts about the best way to work to improve the way we work together and communicate.
For background, I work at home, and my wife works outside, so I tend to do more of the housework but my wife has quite high standards. This Saturday, we had invited guests for dinner, so on Friday, I went to the supermarket. I was a bit in a rush. My wife came home late on Friday evening after a work dinner, and I'd bought the wrong meat. She went absolutely balistic, shouting and telling me it was a big "f**k you" to her, and showed disrespect. I didn't see it as a big problem. I could go on Saturday morning to the Supermarket and buy different meat, and I honestly didn't see the problem.
My wife cares a lot about food and hosting guests, so for her, this is something she considers very important. However, I felt her behaviour was almost abusive. Later on Sunday, I tried to get her to understand this, how her anger was hurtful, but she thought I wasn't seeing her point.
This isn't the first time we've had such arguments. For full disclosure, I do my fair share of the housework, but I can be a bit sloppy (but the house is usually pretty clean, the lawn is mowed, and the cars are serviced).