Marriage advice from a father-in-law, from Our Town (Lux Radio Theater 1940, about 25 minutes into the recording).

Father-in-law: George, I was rememberin' the other night the advice my father gave me when I got married. Yes, he said, start right off showin who's boss. First thing to do is to give an order about something, even if it don't make sense, just so she'll learn to obey. Then he said, if anything about her irritates you, her conversation or anything, get right up and leave the house. That'll make it clear to her. Oh yes, and he said never let your wife know how much money you have. Never...

Young groom: Oh, but I couldn't do that.

Father-in-law: ...So I took the opposite of his advice and I've been happy ever since.



Actually I noticed that my father did this sort of "fight or flight" response to make a point. Not that he was fleeing in fear of the situation, but in fear of what he might do. Sometimes when he was at the end of his temper, he would leave the situation, knowing that if he stayed any longer, he'd blow up. I've done it sometimes too. But in the course of doing it, I realized that leaving like this implies that you might leave permanently. It's like a threat that you're going to run away, the same way that breaking a lamp or plate is an implied threat.

On the one hand, it allows the situation to cool down, and you can usually straighten things out later. But when I'm off somewhere brooding, waiting to cool down because an argument seemed impossible to resolve, I always feel that childish tantrum-throwing part of me saying, "That'll show you!" Meanwhile, the other parts of me are saying: walking away from the problem doesn't solve it. Get back there and talk it through.