Tldr: my wife and I get into verbal fights quite often (once a month or so) I get over it in an hour and it takes her days. Both of us think that the other’s timeline isn’t normal. What’s typical/normal?
I’m ADHD (my current therapist thinks it’s AuDHD) so I’m prone to emotional deregulation and pretty crazy mood swings. I’m pretty sure my parents are somehow ND as well so I don’t have the best basis. My wife is also ND, but it’s audio processing not emotionally related
My wife and I get into fights and arguments sometimes over petty stuff. I feel I hear her out but it’s difficult for her to listen to me straight through as I tend to take a while to get to my point. She interrupts me a lot with either snide comments or questions that if she just waited a sec I’d answer. This leads me to getting frustrated and raising my voice and yelling, which gets her pissed off and raises her voice and suddenly we’re in a shouting match.
Eventually one of us gives up or realizes they’re wrong and we end the fight and go to our separate (safe) areas.
After about an hour I feel I’m back to normal and can talk about other things. (We usually have something we need to do with our kids or work or the house that we need to communicate on).
My wife feels it takes her a day or two to come down from a fight so shes very short with me until that time, where I feel I can talk after an hour or so… She feels that it’s not normal to change in that short of time.
What do people think?
Forget about what’s normal for getting over a fight. You know what’s not normal? Getting into a screaming match with your partner every month.
I really can’t stress enough, that’s not ok. Not a healthy relationship, not a safe environment for your children, and not a good example for them to follow in the future.
You need couple’s counselling ASAP because this pattern has to stop.
Those poor kids
It really depends on the specifics of the fight and the person (neurotypical or not). Perhaps some couple counselling with a professional would be helpful to understand each other better?
I’m ADHD, and a fight will ruin my day. I mean it will literally prevent me from accomplishing ANYTHING besides mindless tasks.
A few hours afterwards I’m often found staring into space reflecting on who said what, what I should say/do if it comes up again, and how it will affect tomorrow or the day after that. For bigger issues, the reflection will gradually reduce over the next few days.
Dude. I’m ADHD and I’m the exact same way. I hate it cause it’s all I can think about.
That sounds more like a minor trauma or so.
Neutorypical here (possibly a touch of undiagnosed autism but not a lot)- I don’t get into them.
My wife and I take a very proactive approach to communication. We talk through decisions before either of us gets emotionally attached to an answer. We trust each other to have good decision making processes when that isn’t an option. We have thoroughly established that both of us are putting the interests of the household first. We know both of us are acting in good faith, we both apologize, and we accept each other’s apologies.
In previous, less healthy relationships, I realized what made a “fight” was that her or I wanted it to be. Maybe one of us wanted attention or affirmation or had some inner problems was taking out on the other. Perhaps we just didn’t feel like we were properly heard unless we were angry. Whatever the actual fight about was usually something that could’ve been resolved without emotional energy.
As for how long to recover after… When it happened it always depends on the specific fight. Sometimes hours, sometimes days, eventually the big one was that we broke up permanently. If the issue has been resolved and someone is harboring resentment because the other party disagreed with them, there’s more underlying emotional issues that need to be resolved.
There really isn’t a norm. I don’t get mad very easily- I brush off thighs that upset other people - but if I get mad it takes a long time to get over it. I had a gf once who got mad at the slitest thing (often really mad), but would get over it really quickly. There’s a lot of variation. And, of course, it can depend on the issue, too. A guy leaving the toilet set up is different from a guy kissing his gf’s sister.
You brush off thighs?
I love thighs myself, but that’s just me.
You misunderstand: I love them so much that when I see any kind of dust or anything on them, I brush them off.
“Things;” I’m leaving that typo, but fixed two others. Proof reading for the win!
I get the best of both worlds, it takes sustained pressure for a LONG time for me to get angry about something and when I finally do get angry it fizzles out and I’m over it in a matter of minutes to a max of about an hour.
But then again, most of my “negative” emotions are like that, grief, sadness, anger etc fizzle out quickly and I’m back to “baseline”. It’s like there’s a switch on brain that goes “Ok, that’s enough of that, back to normal”, not sure how normal that is in relation to others LMAO
That’s great, at least as long as you’re truly letting go of it and not pushing it down someplace.
It’s pretty easy for me to feel sadness, but anger is just a very unnatural state for me. Probably to an unhealthy degree in that there are probably times when I should be mad, but instead just get despondent.
I don’t believe there’s a consistent difference between ND and NT. Everybody’s handling conflicts differently.
