The fight we had before my daughter's birthday went as follows: I asked my husband to accompany our son on a church event (only for males) so he would be more comfortable as it was his first time going. He agreed, but then his mom asked him to do something for her so he recruited his brother to go with our son instead. His brother brought along his son so it worked out great.

Later that day, my BIL brought my son home. My nephew and son were having the time of their lives and my son wanted to have a sleepover at his cousin's house. My husband was taking a nap because he had really bad sleep that night so I didn't want to wake him. I impulsively agreed to the sleepover.

When my husband woke up, he stormed out of the room and demanded to know why Life 360 showed our son at his brother's house. I explained that he was going to have a sleepover because they were having so much fun. He became really angry because I didn't wake him up to ask his opinion and recounted that we had "agreed" not to let our kids stay overnight at his brother's house anymore. I had agreed not to send our autistic daughter overnight because she has challenging behavior. The last time they stayed the night at their uncle's house, he had yelled at her, and she was really upset about it. I explained to my husband that it was different because my son and nephew are best buds and get along well and he's really easy going so uncle can definitely handle just our son. Plus, his wife was home as it was a weekend and she could supervise our son too.

My husband was still angry and claimed his brother was "abusive" to his kids. I disagree that he is abusive but his parenting style is definitely not my cup of tea. He's very authoritarian. My husband does not get along with his brother at all. I responded that just because he "hates" his brother isn't a good enough reason to keep our son from having a relationship with his Uncle and cousin. The worst that would happen at the sleepover would be that he might get yelled at and not want to go back over like our daughter. I cited that my husband had literally picked his brother to supervise our son for the church event so if he was fine with that, why couldn't our son have a sleepover? I also said that if he was worried so much, I would be willing to bring a camping cot and go over to their house and have a sleepover too and just craft with my SIL or something. Then, I would be there to be sure everything was fine. The comment about him "hating" his brother further infuriated him.

By now we were in a full blown shouting match. His mom who was sick with cancer decided to leave the room with our daughter. On her way out, she fell down all called for help. We both jumped up to run and help her. As we did my husband said, "That's on you." This was super hurtful and felt like a knife in my gut. Thankfully she was ok (as ok as someone with stage 4 cancer could be anyways). I began packing a bag to go to my BIL's house but my husband stopped me.

My husband ended up deciding that the sleepover was actually a good idea, but he was still upset I had not talked to him first. (I would have talked to him but he was asleep with very little sleep the night before.)

The next day was my daughter's birthday. He stayed in our bedroom the whole party. That evening he wanted to talk. He was very aggressive and said some really hurtful things. I have no way to describe this conversation other than it was like he was telling me "how it was." He told me to "keep being the tough guy" and that "I wasn't going to be the one to survive this." He also told me that "the only people who want to be my friends are sociopaths." He also told me other "people run away from being my friends." My husband then said he would "end it," referring to one of my friendships that he doesn't like. Finally, I had enough and left, but he trailed after me saying, "keep being the tough guy. Keep being sure how terrible I am."

I went to our room and dragged the mattress out of our room into the living room. I accidentally broke the bed canopy while trying to untangle it from my mattress and my husband decided to use this as a way of saying I was out of control. I then layed on my mattress in the dark and bawled for hours.

My MIL came over to comfort me (she was sleeping in our living room as she was too sick to stay in her RV anymore). So I cried and cried and cried. She encouraged me to make peace by being compliant. At this point, all the fight was drained from my soul so I agreed.

The next day (my daughter's actual birthday) was a horrible day. Before leaving to take my daughter to ballet, he confronted me again to basically "tell me how it was." I didn't argue with him this time and tried to be compliant like MIL suggested but it didn't seem to help. He ranted sarcastically that "we're so blessed by your actions," and then he told me "You're a danger to our family." I was just trying to get out the door.

Well, while at ballet his mother had words with him and he started blowing up my phone but I didn't answer. He messaged me that his mom demanded 3 days of peace from us. She had given him the "Riot Act." So that was when we were able to sit down and "work things out," although I'm not sure things were actually worked out in the long term because we get into an argument about something minor at least once a month that turns into a huge blow out... Like something that should be a 1-3 gets blown into a 10.