No, don’t give up / in to everything. Just choose your battles.

My wife and I didn’t argue enough in the early days. Instead we’d store up little niggles until the dam wall burst and then it would all flood out. A happy medium is far healthier, a bit of give and take over little stuff, and a decent ruck only when justified.

Trouble now is that when I do something minor, and just do the ‘yes dear, you’re right / I’m sorry’ it defuses the situation great. When she’s in the wrong – there’s always a reason, sometimes an extraneous outside influence, which if it isn’t me usually ends up being related to me so I get the blame anyway.

Eg: you didn’t record Britain’s got the x-factor for me like I asked! Me: sorry, I forgot, I’ll find it on catch up for you.

Vs

You haven’t taken the shirts out of the wash like I asked, now they’ll take twice as much ironing. Her: well I would have done but then your mum phoned and she always goes on for ages just like all your family and by then it was too late and….. Me: sorry, I’ll do it now.

On the plus side, after Eurovision I’ve threatened to take them down to the Polish laundry and watch them being get them washed there instead. Whilst churning my own butter.

One word for both the OP and his partner to be mindful of: Ego.

Best advice with wives and in-laws – smile, agree, ignore – works 100%

The serious advice, well slightly more serious as “SAI” works, was given earlier.

No help – but perhaps your application of logic is your first failing?

This, and no kidding I find is the usual ‘starter’ in our house.

But does depend on ‘timing’… 👿

Two things, there is something underlying- you disagreed on something big and she feels its unresolved, cant move on until its sorted. Weird I know but sit down. Talk ask her. Get it off her chest- once the air is cleared, breath the air again. Its like that at work isn’t it too sometimes?

It could also be really basic- she thinks you are riding too much/not enough other stuff.

Talking really helps.

Finally, it could be that you just don’t get on anymore but I’m going with the basics, what it normally is.

And in the middle of all of this is our beautiful little boy. Think I’m going to be a ‘yes darling’ person from now on. It’s just not worth it is it?

Might have a chat with her dad about it this weekend.. He’s a good bloke and whilst being the apple of my partners eye, might be able to fill in a few blanks for me,which might help me understand what the heck has happened or is going on !

It’s all I can do as my dad lives overseas and my ma passed away several years ago.

Might have a chat with her dad about it this weekend.

That will be interesting when it gets back to her, as it inevitably will!

You should note that it is OK for a woman to moan about her partner to friends, family and strangers, but this is not an option open to a man… 🙂

Might have a chat with her dad about it this weekend.. He’s a good bloke and whilst being the apple of my partners eye, might be able to fill in a few blanks for me,which might help me understand what the heck has happened or is going on !

I think this is possibly the worst course of action you could possibly take.

Either you accept how your partner is or you don’t. Getting your father-in-law to agree that his daughter is batshit isn’t going to change your daily life and is likely to only either antagonise him (who has loved her for longer than you and put up with whatever foibles she has for her whole life) or get back to her and cause you more problems.

If you have a real problem with your wife talk to her, not her relatives.

+ 1 for the smile,agree,then go do your own thing.
My wife has to have the last word.She’ll ask what time are we leaving ? I say 8 o’clock.She’ll say no ,five to eight.She asks for advice on buying things she has no knowledge of then ignores it and wastes money.
If I said something on every occasion there would be continual arguing.In the end I say very little then she wants to argue about why I have no opinion !

I totally get the not talking to the father in law thing…trouble is there is a real issue here. And I don’t know who to talk to it about as I have no family.

I really do think it will see us separate. How on earth do you reason with someone who probably put psychological barriers up many years before I arrived on the scene ?

how on earth do you reason with someone who probably put psychological barriers up many years before I arrived on the scene

not by talking to the person they were living with when the barriers went up. Have you considered that your father-in-law may be part of the problem, not the solution.

If you want change you have to involve your wife. Talk to her about it.

Getting your father-in-law to agree that his daughter is batshit isn’t going to change your daily life and is likely to only either antagonise him (who has loved her for longer than you and put up with whatever foibles she has for her whole life) or get back to her and cause you more problems.

Wwaswas, you talk some shit on this forum but this has to be the icing on the cake.
Batshit? How sad that these kind of lables are used for ill people on this forum.
You really know how to make the op feel better.

iolo, who says she’s ill ? She just sounds like a perfectly normal slightly irrational woman, who the OP ends up arguing a lot with.

There may well be some other issues underlying this that need properly sorted, but, particularly if you are arguing a lot at the moment the best way out of that one was right at the beginning when you could have either not asked what the temperature was, or replied “O.K, not too bad then, hopefully that’ll help him feel better”. You did start out from the standpoint of trying to prove that you were right and get her to admit she was wrong, which isn’t going to help if you look at it from her point of view.

Sounds like a typical woman to me. You learn how to deal with it .. after 20 years or so.

Typical one yesterday. Wife comes home with car bumper hanging off.
She tells me she bumped the car .. a cyclist cut in front of a car I front of her, forcing driver to brake suddenly and causing her to back end it.
Hmmmm?
Knowing how she drives, I ask a little more detail.
She & other car were both on junction she says….
So how did you back end it I ask?
Other car was I frontage says …
So other car was on junction, and you were behind I ask?
No .. yes .. no .. Ummm? She adds.
So where was the cyclist coming from I ask?
From up the hills she says.
It’s the cyclists right of way I say.
But he came speeding past she says.
What, up that hill?? At 10mph at best???
Yes she says …
So – a car I front of you stops on a junction to allow a cyclist to pass, you back end the car .. but cyclist is to blame?
Yes she says .. he was riding like an idiot she adds.

Bloody idiot cyclists I say to her.
25 years of experience has taught me how to avoid an argument ..

She doesn’t sound rational at all from the OP’s initial description.
Then he goes on to describe the birth mother’s history of mental illness.
Then the apparent bullying and what not.
Theres’s no wonder the poor woman is in such a state.
At best she’s probably got depression which needs fixing asap. At worse – who knows.
And then for someone to use the word “batshit”.
Well it shows everyone how much respect mental illnesses has in society.
If she had leukemia or lost a leg or whatever would there be such a stigma.

Wwaswas, you talk some shit on this forum but this has to be the icing on the cake.
Batshit? How sad that these kind of lables are used for ill people on this forum.
You really know how to make the op feel better.

Perhaps I should elaborate;

1) it was a poor choice of word, sorry. I deliberately didn’t put the last word of the phrase in perhaps I should have avoided the first one too. I was more trying to illustrate how difficult it was going to be to get any father to take his son in laws ‘side’ against his daughter. As a father of a daughter it isn’t going to happen, sorry.

2) I don’t think the OP’s wife has a mental illness. Frankly, I argue with my wife about stupid inconsequential stuff like this on a regular basis. This does not make me question her mental health either.

3) I’ll rephrase it;

Getting your father-in-law to agree that his daughter is batshit behaving in an unreasonable manner isn’t going to change your daily life and is likely to only either antagonise him (who has loved her for longer than you and put up with whatever foibles she has for her whole life) or get back to her and cause you more problems.

4) If the OP *really* believes his wife *is* mentally ill then, again, talking to his FIL is unlikely to help her. He needs to talk to his wife.

She doesn’t sound rational at all from the OP’s initial description.

I’d say she was operating within a spectrum of what might be considered ‘normal’. I am not a mental health professional, though.

reading most of his posts I think IOLO has more chance of needing sectioning that this blokes wife.

she may just be sensitive to disagreement and may take offense at it, as she may feel threatened / criticised?? Maybe reassure her that her opinion is valued / respected and just as valid as yours, although maybe you both can agree to disagree sometimes and find interest in your sometimes different views.

reading most of his posts I think IOLO has more chance of needing sectioning that this blokes wife.

I think his personal history makes him more sensitive to these issues than some of us.

Me- that’s not a temperature is it ?

OP: this is the moment where it started to go pear-shaped. She did something and you questioned it which leads to defensiveness & confrontation

My BIL & SIL are *exactly* the same. She says something completely (or fairly) innocuous and he immediately questions it. It’s like lighting the blue touch paper. Over-analysing everything and questioning everything. A fight for the sake of it.

Just let it go

Best advice with wives and in-laws – smile, agree, ignore – works 100%

^^ this

I think his personal history makes him more sensitive to these issues than some of us.

Indeed. And to be fair, he’s never been less than quite open about his condition. And for that open-ness, and STW being a pretty understanding place most of the time, most folk tend to cut him some slack. He does use up quite a bit of that slack though from time to time.

OP, walk away now.

Both better off in the long run.

However..

Bickering = light hearted banter with an edge
Arguing = deeper more intense and meaningfull often with serious underlying issues that have not yet been sorted out

I’d walk, lifes too short.

I’m all for slack. But he seems to be to me like the Ex-smoker or the ex-druggie, the way they think everyone else is a complete disaster and must be ‘saved’ … or the ex-fattie who tells everyone else how they have a problem or a ‘condition’ that must be fixed… rather than just accepting that the person just likes a bit too much food.

I sectioned Mrs Weeksy Mk1 back in the day… she was a nutter… totally batshit… however, that doesn’t mean I think for a second that the OP’s is a fruitloop and needs ‘help’.

She just seems to be a little defensive when it comes to her looking after her nipper… which is totally rational to me.

Something overall underlying

and

don’t use logic in arguments, even counselling sessions will tell you this! Logic does not compute, you must “engage the emotion in the argument”…. mleh

wwaswas had it right the first time…

It’s difficult , isn’t it?

I don’t want the kind of relationship where I just shut up and smile and say “yes, dear” and then do my own thing. And how much do you risk challenging your partner when they are spouting rubbish, when you know damn well they’d challenge you? But if you question them you know it will be WW 3.

The bloke-disappears-into-his-potting-shed relationship model isn’t what I want, but I can see how it happens.

Didn’t read all the thread so maybe it has been said before. But you do sound as bad as her, I bet that you know what is going to cause a reaction but can’t help yourself to ask and poke and see if you get one because you want to be right as well. Maybe you are right in some cases but it is just the way you go about asking? And if there is a cause to the constant wanting to be right form both of you then it is worth talking about with each other to find out what it is, even if it does cause someone to get upset…

weeksy – Member
reading most of his posts I think IOLO has more chance of needing sectioning that this blokes wife

I have been. 3 times.

OP can I suggest you try to avoid backing her into a corner when arguing? In your example you sound like you were trying to get her to say she was wrong to give calpol, and in doing so you’ll have made her feel very defensive about her mothering abilities and she’ll want to say anything to make you stop. A change of tack would work much better, focus on what’s important here. Eg asking if your son is feeling better for some calpol?

You do not need to become submissive and ‘yes dear’, that’ll annoy her even more if she’s anything like me! But you do need to learn how to defuse situations. As does she of course, I’m not saying this is all down to you. If you’re really feeling like you can’t cope any more then try Relate or similar for counselling. Do not talk to her family behind her back.

store it all up and then go for some serious angry sex 🙂

or

do as the others say, pick your battles, don’t try and win all the time(in this example your point was that 37 wasn’t a real temperature – you could have safely left it there). crankygirl’s post seems all good to me

To be fair, I can see how that dialog led to an argument. Looking after a child is an extremely stressful 24-7 job. You question a decision she made and she went defensive. Children put a strain on a relationship, there is no doubt about that. Slight cracks become huge chasms.

I would certainly recommend getting counselling, but you need to be careful how you approach the subject with your partner. I think you need to recognise that it’s not just her arguing, its both of you.

As you can gather, it is not an unusual situation. I had exactly that and my lovely wife was what the doctor described as “the extreme side of normal”. It was doing me no good, but eventually I learnt to deal with it and could prevent the argument from developing. Funnily enough, I think that was when our relationship failed – she was picking a fight because she wanted/need to lay into me.

Good luck.

I don’t want the kind of relationship where I just shut up and smile and say “yes, dear” and then do my own thing.

I think you’ll find that liberal deployment of the phrase ‘yes dear’ by both parties lies at the heart of every successful relationship.

OP,was she always like this? I would assume not. When did the arguing start?

reading most of his posts I think IOLO has more chance of needing sectioning that this blokes wife.

While I find much that iolo posts is ill-considered and stupid, I also find that around issues of mental health his experience is brought to bear with insight, courage and sensitivity, the latter of which many other posters might benefit from reflecting on before using mental health difficulties as something to mock others about.

But she has started lashing out at me.

Do you mean physically, if so that is a whole different perspective on things?

Yeah my partner has always been like this, and lashing out is hitting. Not often but when very angry yeah she hits.

I think the OP has described my OH pretty closely.
Even her own mother & sister acknowledge she can be stubborn, wont listen to others properly and never admits when she’s in the wrong. Plus she’s of a certain age in her life when things start changing hormonally. Its a bit of a rollercoaster for me at the moment. *sighs*

OP, it just sounds like you both need to learn how to relate to each other better.

Worth mentioning, if you’re always arguing your son will likely grow up believing that ‘having a go over nothing’ is a perfectly acceptable way to behave to people.

Think of the children!

Not often but when very angry yeah she hits.

Then I do not think this is a ‘just a grumpy woman’ and we argue thing that most people can relate to.

Violence is a line that should not be crossed, both she and your relationship needs help. No point trying to analyse it on a forum, that may be helpful for bickering and arguing but not for violence. Get professional advice.

There is a risk that as this is woman on man violence it is excused (by you). It should not be excused, it is not normal or right.

Not often but when very angry yeah she hits.

This is more than just a ‘we’re both stressed and having a barney’ behaviour.

You need to talk to your wife about this. I’d suggest with some 3rd party support.