Bob's anger problems do sound pretty disturbing. Barnes describes him flipping off old women, beating sprinklers into submission, and, in one outburst, shattering their breakfast table, grabbing her by the arms, and asking, "Why are you making me do this?" Finally, with therapy, Bob learned to control his temper. But when a friend asks Barnes what "flaw" she would choose if her marriage had to have one, she says, "Anything but wrath."

It's an interesting commentary on what we can and can't accept in relationships. Even though Barnes has learned to deal with her husband's temper, she still thinks of "wrath" as the worst thing that can enter a marriage. Many people who watched their parents fight a lot, or who have been contentious relationships in the past, similarly think of anger as relationship-kryptonite, and some seek out calm partners as a result. But for others, early experiences of conflict seemed to normalize it — and some even miss it when it's gone.

It's important here to distinguish between anger and abuse, a line Bob's behavior seems to walk. People who were abused as children sometimes become abusive themselves, or enter a pattern of abusive relationships, and this is obviously unhealthy. But there's a certain amount of garden-variety yelling in every relationship, and people's appetite and tolerance for it varies widely. I've only really yelled at a boyfriend once — because he criticized my parking — but a friend of mine doesn't feel she's truly close to a partner until they can have a good fight. Whether you believe there's such a thing as a "good fight" at all may depend both on your natural temperament and whether you've had a lot of "bad fights" in your life.

So what's a "bad fight?" One that includes physical violence, obviously. One that involves emotional abuse, which HelpGuide.org defines as words designed "to chip away at your feelings of self-worth and independence." Beyond that, though, it's hard to distinguish between a fight that clears the air and one that just leaves it cloudy with resentment. Maybe the answer is different for every couple. Or maybe I just don't know the answer because I'm not much good at fighting.

One thing that's clear from Barnes's piece is how little our own love lives tell us about other people's. Barnes's friend Lacey tells her, "I want a husband like yours. Someone who reads me love poems over breakfast." She is unaware that Bob once broke their breakfast table, but her perception of Barnes's marriage is also colored by her own anger over her husband's porn viewing. Barnes's essay didn't really teach me how much "wrath" is too much — though Bob's clearly was, for them — but it is a good illustration of the fact that we tend to judge other people's relationships by what we can and can't handle in our own. And that this method, like many we use when trying to understand other people's private lives, isn't terribly effective.

With This Rage, I Thee Wed [Oprah.com, via CNN]

Apter claims that the tension between female in-laws is often linked to competition for the "mother" role in the family: While a daughter-in-law expects that she will be the decision maker in traditionally female areas like housework and child-care, a mother in law may expect deference because of her established maternal expertise. As she explains, "Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law conflict often emerges from an expectation that each is criticising or undermining the other, but this mutual unease may have less to do with actual attitudes and far more to do with persistent female norms that few of us manage to shake off completely."

Apter also claims that "an element of romance" often present in the mother/son relationship is also part of the problem. When the daughter-in-law enters the picture, she expects to be the most important woman in her husband's life, which may make the mother feel that she is trying to sever her maternal relationship with her son. Rather than battling with their wife's mother, more men are having problems maintaining and differentiating their relationships between their own mothers and their wives. "The only realistic way to approach marriage is to accept that there will be six people in the marriage bed," advises Apter. Sounds... hideously kinky!

In-Law tensions Hit Women The Hardest [The Guardian]

However! It's interesting to look at the polls to see which issues come up most frequently. Maybe it's because of the recession, but in my perusal of Side Taker, it seems that the issue most plaguing the modern, narcissistic couple is money: Money is the biggest tag in the tag cloud and of the recent polls, here's a smattering of titles: "Money! Money! Money! It's All He Cares About!", "Never Flushes The Toilet (Not Lazy - Cheap)", and "His Unemployed Ass Drives The Newer Car". It's almost always men complaining that their wives are spendthrifts, but the voters don't always side with the penny-pinching husbands.

But then there's this poll, which just made me sad. The boyfriend says, "My girlfriend is gaining weight. It's an issue for me. I've busted my butt to maintain a good body for her and I expect her to do the same. She won't go to the gym. She's eating very unhealthy. Plus she smokes. I've lost a lot of my sex drive towards her and see myself looking at other women at the gym. I'm no cheater, but I have never had the wandering eye til now."

The girlfriend says, "What an a$$hole. You'd think you'd have a little more restraint in describing it like that. I am only 10 pounds over my ideal weight (I'm 5' 8" 145lbs). And that's a fault for you? I've been in a funk. So what? You are so overbearing on me I can't take it. You are like that guy in Sleeping With The Enemy that has to have everything perfect. Nobody is!" Oh honey, instead of putting up this silly little poll and taking advice from the internet peanut gallery, you should take advice from Dan Savage and Dump The Motherfucker!!

Fighting With Your Man? This Crazy New Website Will Tell You Who's Right And Wrong... [Glamour]
Side Taker [Official Site]

Apparently we're not the only couple who squabble while on (or en route to) vacation, but the reasons discussed in this IHT article about vacations stressing relationships seem more problematic than "planes make me want to die."

"Periods of unstructured time - the break from routine - can play havoc with relationships," Roger Collis writes in the IHT. "If you are used to having time apart, being together all day, every day, for several days can send the best relationship into an acrimonious tailspin." Basically, some couples have structured their daily lives around spending time apart, and sometimes, when they are forced together for extended periods of time, they realize they have nothing in common. D'oh!

Collis gives some suggestions for keeping the peace while on holiday — Agree on things beforehand! Try something different! — but mostly you're just supposed to "expect the unexpected, and for things to go wrong." And when things do go wrong, at least it makes for a good anecdote. Like the time the dude and I went for a romantic weekend in Newport, Rhode Island…which was romantic until he got the flu and was delirious in bed and I was in the hallway yelling at the drunken sailors who were having a semi-formal in the hotel ballroom and decided to run through the hotel screaming at 2 am. Romantical!

Honey, Did You Pack The Divorce Papers? [IHT]
Earlier: How Do You Break The Poop Ice With A New Paramour?

Interestingly, yesterday morning, the Today Show was all over what they've dubbed the "thermostat wars", interviewing a number couples on the street about their sleep habits. ("I'm always hot, he's always cold," one woman declared. "He usually just does what I want, and that solves [the temperature problem] just fine.") Then Meredith Vieira interviewed psychologist Jeff Gardere, who threw out some stats, like that fact that 75% of women like their sleep environments warm, while only 25% of men do. He goes on to say that men are hotter because they have a higher body mass and a higher metabolism, so their "furnace burns" much more. Then Gardere added: "Women have higher body fat. Wink wink." (Wink wink? Is he verbally winking because body fat = boobs? Or because he's afraid Meredith is going to yell at him for talking about female fat? It was weird.)

Anyway, the Today Show's solution to a détente in the thermostat wars? "Spend your way out of this argument!" The show suggested number of products, some useful, like "Split the Sheets" bedding made of half flannel and half cotton, some outlandishly expensive, like Vera Wang's Serta natural foam bed, and some ridiculously obvious, like flannel PJ's. Short of purchasing new bedding or shooting up a flat screen TV, what's the answer to brokering peace in a shared bed?

Fight Over Heat Makes Wife Hot [CBS News]
Video: Hot and Cold in the Bedroom? [Today]
Tips On How To Rest In Temperature Peace [MSNBC]