In the quiet of the morning, after the kids had been shuffled off to school and I had dropped my husband off at work, I was treated to the acoustics of an argument of monumental proportions.
It was so quiet in my house. No TV, no radio, no dryer running, no kids chattering, or video games blaring. I could hear them as if I were in the room with them. I didn't just hear muffled shouting. I heard recognizable voices and specific phrases.
This couple fights a lot. The wife has joked that she gets a new wedding ring every year because she throws hers away when they fight. They yell. They yell at their children and they yell at each other. Honestly, they are vulgar people.
She's had 8 affairs...seven that he knows about. She is obsessed with keeping the house clean and staying thin and pays little attention to their 3 daughters. He takes care of the kids, but like her, he verbally abuses them.
A few months back he had to go to the mainland for training, and while he was away he made sure to even the score. He's told her that it was only a BJ, but I think she's the only one who actually believes it.
Maybe they love each other, maybe they don't. I don't know. But they plan to stay together and had a renewal of vows ceremony (ha, like the one I wanted to have but didn't) on their recent 10th anniversary.
They have a volatile relationship. Angry, selfish, passionate. But they've made it ten years.
This morning their voices filled my living room.
I heard him yelling, "It's the same fucking thing! Always the same fucking thing!" He said this at least five or six times with her interjecting profane screams of her own. Then he screamed at her...
"Shut your fucking mouth!"
I know their two year old was home with them. I know she had to have heard all this, and I'm sure it was scary for her.
Who behaves like this? How little respect must you have for spouse to tell him or her to "shut your fucking mouth"?
My husband and I don't fight very much. We don't fight about money or sex or any of the common stuff. Usually an argument is started when one of us says something off-handedly that offends the other person. Then there's a lot of "but YOU" and "YOU never" or "YOU always". Raised voices are a no-go. I don't like yelling. I won't be screamed at. I get pouty and tears run down my cheeks and then one of us apologizes and says, "I don't want to fight."
My husband has NEVER called me a bitch. We don't scream profanities or name call (except when we're playing). We could fight better. We could learn to resolve our conflicts in more constructive ways. But the day my husband tells me to "shut your fucking mouth" is the day I take my babies and get on a plane headed for Texas.
We all make mistakes or do careless things to hurt the people we love. But there should be some level of respect and a sense of care for the other person's feelings that keeps us from intentionally belittling them or willfully and directly abusing them just so that we can purge our negative feelings about them or their actions.
Perhaps they're "just words"...and maybe they have an understanding about treating each other that way. I just can't imagine it though. Not between two people who love each other.
Maybe I'm being too judgmental about this. I don't know.