My husband and I had an argument and I’m trying to understand if I’m overreacting or if this is a communication issue. We have had so many arguments like this and sometimes they get really bad. I feel like if I try to say too much he just gets meaner, but then I wonder if I’m the mean one. My sister recommended I start to record our conversations. So the write up below is a summary of a transcript of our current ongoing issue.
Yesterday in the car (with our kids in the back), I was in a really good, playful mood—singing along to a song. He said, “I don’t think that song is appropriate” (because of the lyrics and the kids being there). That’s fair, but the way he said it came across annoyed to me. When I tried to explain that, he said something like “you can decide if you want to get over it or not.”
During that same conversation, he also commented on my “energy” a couple of times and even asked if I had been drinking (I hadn’t), which made me feel pretty invalidated.
I was still hurt later at a friend’s house and was quieter than usual. He said I seemed “pouty” and hard to read, but from my side I was just upset about earlier.
Then today, we argued again about a soccer schedule. I was asking questions because I was confused, but he said it feels like I talk to him like he’s “a fucking idiot loser.” From my perspective, it sometimes feels like he talks to me that way—short or critical in tone.
The main issue is that when I try to say “your tone hurt my feelings,” it turns into an argument about whether he was “mad” or not, instead of how it came across.
Now he says it feels like I don’t even like him, and I feel like I’m being dismissed when I try to explain my feelings.
Are we both just misreading each other’s tone here, or does this sound like one person being more dismissive?