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5 Reasons Why You’re So Bitchy (and What To Do About It)
25 Years of Marriage Reveals the Top Reasons Why We Quibble
It happens on road trips. Or doing the dishes. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere for no apparent reason at all: the witty light banter we readily enjoy gets supplanted with a dig, a heightened response to the slight, a defensive response to the response, and before we know it our good mood has devolved into the muck over a rattling and seemingly unavoidable argument. Over nothing.
Why?
My husband and I have enjoyed over 25 years of marital happiness. Like most long-term couples we’ve had our share of ups and downs, but we’ve always confronted the external threats as a team (family malfeasance, health snags, money shortages, a pipe burst that destroyed our home). Our internal compromises are recognized and treated as such and we generally respect each other’s space, routines and independent projects while manifesting our unified goals and dreams. I cannot recount a single day since our first date back in 1994 where we haven’t laughed, hugged, or said I Love You.
But we also experience terrible misunderstandings and misalignments that drag us into some rather dark spaces. Like the innocuous time I pulled up an episode of The Office because he wanted to watch a comedy. “But this is one of my shows.” “What do you…