I can remember a time when I had a heated argument with my wife. The source of most of my conflicts. It's only natural that we do get in the most quarrels because it is the one person I spend the most time with. Anyway, on to the conflict.
Recently, I had requested that we take our 15 month old son to go see his grandparents and his great-grandmother. It was basically a spur of the moment plan I had and so my wife was taken by surprise by it. Naturally, I thought she would go along with the plan but complained that there wasn't enough time. His nap would be affected and then would everything would sprial out of control. I was deeply hurt. I told her that she didn't respect me and my wishes. That she didn't want to go just becuase it was my family and not hers we were going to see.
I later thought about it and realized my anger was not about any of the emotions I thought I had at the moment. I had forgotten the real reason why I wanted to take my son in the first place. A few weeks earlier, my wife's grandmother had passed away. She was my son's great grandmother on his mother's side. That got me thinking and made me realize that my own grandmother had a limited time as well to see her great grandson. And so I wanted to take him to see her as much as possible. The hurt that I felt with not being able to take him came out as anger towards my wife.
If I could go back to the incident, I would phrase my request differently. I would make sure it was known to her why I wanted to take our son to see his great grandmother. The thing I learned most about this conflict was that communication and honesty would have been the key things to make sure that the conflict didn't happen.