We stare at each other from across the room. His arms folded against his chest. Mine straight by my side, ending in fists. My chest is heaving, his jaw is clenched.
We’ve just spent the last part of the day heaving insults, and ripping old wounds open.
Rubbing a little salt into them, just for good measure.

We’ll both feel bad about it later. We’ll both apologies for the nastiness we spewed at each other, and for the over-the-top dramatics.

I know this, because this is what we do. Periodically, the insanity in our house escapes it’s little box, and infects us both. Turns us into wickedly smart beings, who know just what to say to hurt the other one. To escalate things.

It may not sound like it, but this is an improvement.

When we were first married, we would be at each others throats at least every other day. It probably would have been every day, if he wasn’t working 24 hour shifts.

Then it was less often, and then even less often. Then we moved. And there was crappy minimum wage jobs for me, and infrequent, but well-paying, jobs for him. So I left my barely-covering-gas paycheck behind and started school. And the fighting got worse. And more often.

Until we were screaming threats of divorce, and over-my-dead-body and that-can-be-arranged.

Until we were calmly sitting down, while not even in the grip of that blind red rage, and discussing who would take what responsibilities.

Until we both broke down under the thought of being apart, and decided to try desperate-last-resort sort of measures.

Counseling. Medication. We had separate issues to work through. Separate issues. Both of us come from different places. Both of us come equally damaged.

We worked hard. Hard at communicating. Hard at compromising. Hard at changing expectations. We circled the dangerous areas for awhile. Sidestepping hot topics that we knew would lead to arguments. Then we carefully broached them. Dipped our toes into those inexplicably controversial topics between us. And survived. We didn’t always reach a resolution, but we could argue without resorting to lashing out, and hurting it each other.

And so, it has improved, though it may not seem like it to those outside.

Because this last fight, where we said and did things we’re ashamed of after the fact, is the first one like it since August. And in a perverse sort of way, I’m proud of us.

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