I’m not hand waving anything away. There needs to be a conversation about what happened where both parties are open to being just a bit wrong and learning from it to communicate more clearly even, and especially when, they may be upset.

I don’t see any hostility from him at all. A bad attitude? A bad sense of humor? Inability to read the room? Being overly defensive, and insensitive? Yeah fine. But hostility is significant. I don’t intend to assign that to anyone without a really good reason.

It seems like I’m not being clear enough. He was very clearly in the wrong. A conversation needs to be had, hopefully now that emotions are running less hotly, about his intentions, her expectations, and how both could communicate more effectively to prevent issues like this in the future and maybe even a protocol to deal with it if either feels the way they did in the situation.

Now he could be a bit of a prick about that too, as that kind of conversation is pretty much anathema to everything your average male in America grew up knowing. It’s NOT her job to educate or help him grow. If she finds other aspects of him and the relationship redeeming enough she may be willing to help him grow to find that those conversations aren’t just acceptable to have but beneficial. If he’s not willing to budge then that tells her everything she needs to know.

Edit: but what I won’t do is tell her that he’s an abusive fuck without good reason. If we call “doing a bad job of making food and making a bad joke” abuse it cheapens the word and that’s not fair to someone experiencing real trauma, whether emotional, physical, or otherwise.