So, a mile down the road, he turned the car around and came home, ostensibly to comfort her, but in actuality to catch her in the act of doing something that he felt was pretty bizarre. He hoped a confrontation might cause a breakthrough.

“Carolyn, what are you doing down there?”

“Nothing, I was just cleaning up,” she said as she shoved the answering machine beneath the couch while Mitch bounded down the stairs.

“Were you listening to Rachel’s message again?”

“No, what makes you think that? I hardly ever listen to it anymore, you know that!”

“Actually I don’t think that’s true and it bothers me that you’re not being honest with me about it.” He glanced down and saw the edge of the answering machine peeking out from beneath the couch. She grew furious when she followed his line of sight and realized she had been caught.

“Okay, Mitch, so I did listen to the message. What’s so bad about that? It’s just comforting to hear Rachel’s voice. You don’t understand what I’m going through. Why do you have to be such a bully about it?”

“Don’t understand? All I’ve been doing is living this nightmare since that day last November. It hasn’t been easy on me either, but I’m determined to move on. It’s really sick and unhealthy to listen to that tape over and over.” He was shouting now and so she shouted back.

“I don’t listen to it over and over. I just listened to it once, and I hav—”

“That’s a lie. I was standing upstairs before and heard you play it about a dozen times!”

“You think I’m sick? What about you creeping around checking up on me in the middle of the day? Why don’t you just leave me alone? You can’t think about anybody but yourself! You don’t understand what I’m going through and you don’t even try!” She pushed past him and ran up the stairs.

Mitch started to follow her, with the intention of winning the argument, when it dawned on him that he was being a bully. He was doing more harm than good and he needed to back off. This wasn’t one of those problems that he could wrestle to the ground and solve.

Later that night, after they had given each other the silent treatment through dinner and long past the time they had put the kids to bed, Mitch finally saw the light and apologized. He felt bad about their argument earlier in the day, and knew he had only made matters worse. He knew that at times he could be impatient, and that was not going to help matters.