Hi Kerrie-Ann,

Here's the story I said I'd tell you.

You would understand when I say that the spouse is very committed to avoiding as many blow ups as possible because the back draft is so debilitating on everyone! But with the best will in the world you just can't avoid all situations.
Well consider this; for many years GT and I used to play a game called "Hunt the Veteran". It went like this. We'd have a major league barney and as the tension got too much he'd head out and go to ground somewhere on our 15 acres fully confident in the knowledge that unless he wished to be found he wouldn't be. I'd trail around in the dark calling out to him because I wanted him home probably because I was feeling guilty or because I felt I'd lost the advantage or some such stupid thing. Who knows?
Years before we'd agreed not to drive off in a vehicle due to the potential for disaster in a heightened emotional state. So hiding from me was obviously the only escape he had recourse to.
I, of course took this as a personal rejection.
And so it went until just recently when he disappeared for a number of hours and nothing I did could persuade him to come out. He stubbornly remained out of reach. He came in 4 hours later very cold but Calm.
The next day we talked things through as was our usual routine and in the course of the conversation he suggested getting a bedroll together for just such emergencies. Well of course I bristled at this. However, I thought about it before opening my mouth to offer a curt suggestion as to what I thought about his idea. The idea when viewed from the experience of the night before seemed to have much more merit when viewed with less emotion. It was a good idea if only to provide us both with space to calm down.
We've since had occasion to test the "bedroll strategy" and with great success all round.
Just think I'd been doing just the opposite to what I should have been doing all these years. Who said you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks!

Cheers LT