Keep getting angry over minor things

[Rudymudy]

I'm generally pretty mellow, I get annoyed by colleagues and friends on occasion like everyone does, but nothing major!

Unfortunately though I get really angry about situations with my husband. It's always minor things, but I just feel a rage and we end up arguing over tiny things. I feel like he doesn't listen to me. Example from today. We were talking about wrapping paper the other day, I said we had a nice roll from last year and we could get some other similar ones. We could use up the old less nice half rolls on edible gifts as we generally keep them on a cupboard as our tree is next to the stove and no one wants a melted selection box!

Today I came home and he's wrapped up gifts for three people in a random old paper but more annoyingly he's taped chocolate to the front of each one which means they now need to be kept in the cupboard taking up space when I hoped to wrap and get stuff under the tree and out the way at the weekend. They are toys and bulky! It's minor but it's just so annoying as we had a conversation about it only two days ago. He didn't even use the nice roll that I had previously mentioned. Of course he thinks I'm being ridiculous which I concede I am to a certain extent but why does he do these things? It's always something small but it really gives me the rage. He's now stormed off upstairs and won't talk to me about it. Can anyone relate or am I just a terrible person? How do I deal with the rage and why am I able to cope with other people doing annoying things without getting worked up?

Listened to a program on radio 4 I think where they found that men literally do not hear a large proportion of what is said to them

Gosh, this must have really held men back over the Millenia. No wonder they never managed to form armies, conquer countries, establish empires, build the pyramids, engineer bridges, buildings and vehicles, invent modern science and medicine and send men to the moon, or ever write a decent piece of literature. Not being able to hear a large proportion of what is said is quite the disability, isn't it?

Or did you mean this disability only manifests when women they don't really respect are talking to them?

I didn’t really understand the wrapping instructions, is it possible he didn’t either?

I think it's something that manifests in both men and women when someone (man or woman) is telling them something they're not interested in. Or have you never tuned out a boring colleague or date or relative before?

It sounds like you really care about wrapping paper and he doesn't. In this case you'd be a bit OTT if you start an argument over it. Save your gunpowder for a big thing.

We might disagree on how something is done or I might ask why he’d done it that way when we’d discussed something different (although I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t bother for something like wrapping paper) but there would be no rage or storming out.

We very, very rarely argue in that way. DH once stormed out over something minor 20 years ago, taking me utterly by surprise but we put it down to the side effects of some Sudafed he’d had for a cold 😂 (I know!) and he was completely mortified and apologetic on his return. We laugh about it now. There have also been a few times where I’ve got very upset and cried during a serious discussion but it’s extremely rare because serious issues are few and far between and we don’t bicker at all over minor stuff. DH has never raised his voice to me and I’ve only done it a couple of times to him in the early days of our relationship. We’ve been married for 32 years and have had at most 8 arguments like this in all that time. That being said, I’m currently menopausal and far more likely to overreact or cry over something minor at the moment. I’m trying to manage it because it’s not fair on DH and he’s being kind, understanding and his usual calm self so even then we’re not falling out over things. I want a peaceful home where we’re considerate of each other and there’s lots of love and care, I couldn’t live in an argumentative atmosphere.

It sounds like this argument wasn’t really about wrapping paper but about deeper ongoing issues where you don’t feel
listened to and he feels micro-managed. In which case it would probably be better to have a calm discussion at a neutral time about how you communicate and listen to each other more generally.

But if the talk is all mindless drivel instructions anyone would turn off maybe he resents being micro managed

Wtf does this even mean?

Example from today. We were talking about wrapping paper the other day, I said we had a nice roll from last year and we could get some other similar ones. We could use up the old less nice half rolls on edible gifts as we generally keep them on a cupboard as our tree is next to the stove and no one wants a melted selection box!

Doubtful, I would just buy gifts and wrap them, we didn’t have discussions about it

I agree that it’s not actually about the wrapping paper and also agree that there’s a strong possibility that he’s not listening well to her and that’s built up and led to resentment. However it’s unlikely that’s the sum total of it. When couples end up like this it’s probably because both are contributing to the disharmony. Obviously we only have one side of this so that’s all we can respond to but in my experience there’s almost always work to be done by both parties to sort it out and to work towards better communication in the future. Unless he’s always been an absolutely terrible listener, I would suspect he’s feeling resentful about something with OP too which is leading to some stubbornness and ‘selective listening’.

When I’ve been cross or upset with DH over something or other that he’s doing or not doing and we’ve had to have a discussion about it, we almost always come away from
it with both of us realising we’ve not treated the other one properly in some way. It works the same the other way around when he’s upset with me. Issues like this are very rarely the sole fault of one party.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Ok. I’m not about to repeat myself.

I’m not suggesting it’s one sided. I’m commenting on the one side that I’ve been given. I agree there probably is issues on both sides. This whole thing is an issue with communication.

Will it spark an incandescent rage because I'm not listening or will you shrug it off?

These comments have cheered me up no end after a really crap commute.

We have a rock solid relationship, he is pulls his weight with the household bits. In fact he probably does more than me.

We've talked about it and agreed on things we can do to avoid these situations in future, from both sides.

I do think the people who are saying they don't ever argue are unusual, most of my work chat is about similar things and I work in a team of 15!