There is also an element of projection where the wife accuses the husband of the very behaviors she engages in.
Interestingly, it is because my parents didn’t fight (and neither did the parents of my current wife). However, hers did, and now she does, with whatever boyfriend she has. I get this information from my daughters, who volunteer it.
We were just a bad mix and my Christian beliefs and respect for my three daughters is what kept it together, and would have to this day, had she not pulled the plug on it.
My mother and father fought like cats and dogs for a good portion of their life. My mother was Armenian/Italian, and my father was French/Scottish/English.
You get one guess who was the hair on fire, blazing-hot-poker in hand screamer, and who was the unflappable, quiet, never raising the voice side...:)
My parents did make it to the end of their lives without divorcing, though there were many “almosts” in there. Years later, when my mother talked about it, her eyes would blaze and she would say “No matter what I said or did, that B*****D would just sit there with his cigarette and cup of coffee, and never say a word, knowing full well it would make me madder and madder!”
She would say this, getting madder and madder, then take a puff on her cigarette and smirk...and say with some affection: “He sure did know how to push my buttons, and I could never push his!”
My dad passed on first, and is buried in Arlington. She went a few years later, and is buried on top of him for eternity...much to the amusement of his children!