I have to say I don't think I've ever been 'bitchy or disrespectful'. Does that mean I cower in some corner and never say 'Boo!"? Hardly! Oh, we have SO much fun bantering back and forth but even bystanders would be warmed by the words and not some 'hostile tension'. We truly are Best Friends that have so many common interests.

My 'mess ups' are my freak outs when I think I haven't done something as well as I wanted for him or otherwise. I showed up 5 mins late to a date we had and I was almost hyperventilating from being so upset. This is when his soothing calm and tone of voice just cools me right down. We've had a few (very funny) misunderstandings but we talk them right out.

At one point I was really sick and on cold meds, he had a gig in which he sang so I was worried I would give it to him if he stopped by (which he would a lot without calling first and I loved it) My auto correct turned "Gotta stay away for a bit have t virus, let you know when safe" Into something about "needing space" At this point we had been together about 3 years so needless to say he was confused and immediately called me. Considering my warm but very congested greeting of "Hey Sweetlove!" He knew right off there was nothing wrong. We laugh about it now :) Sometimes things are just a time factor of knowing the patterns of your partner and he knew such 'mind game texts' were totally out of character for me.

I think that's important to keep in mind for relationship reactions, remembering the love and respect you have to your Better Half might lessen these 'altercations' and need for 'cool downs'.

Smash something. :(

It depends. Sometimes he will ignore me and leave the room or just shut me out (i.e. I didn't take care of my car like he told me to, and he refused to speak to me when we went to fix it). Other times he will tell me I'm being irrational and either to come talk to him when I'm ready to stop being bitchy, or just say something along the lines of "this is what I've decided, so suck it up and deal with it."

Probably his most common method is to make fun of me, as it usually works pretty well. As a nonspecific example, if I don't want to go to some event he has planned and I'm pouting about it or being grumpy, I'll get an "awww, is life just so hard? Do we need to get your sippy cup before we leave?" It almost always gets me to laugh and reminds me of how ridiculous I'm being, while reinforcing that he refuses to take me seriously at all or have any sort of discussion when I'm being that way.

I'm lucky in that he knows me well enough to tell the difference between being bitchy and having some sort of episode (mental health issues, unfortunately) and will do whatever needs to be done and walk away until I've collected myself. A good example of that is when I got lost coming home from work because a road was blocked due to an accident. I called him for help and started ranting and yelling (not anger directed toward him, just anger about the situation). When I walked in the front door he immediately put a Xanax and a glass of water in my hands, gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and went in the other room.

He is so patient and kind with me, without letting me walk all over him. If there is something he can legitimately do to help, NOT to just pander to me and give me what I want, he will do what I need and only that. When he does these small gestures without yelling at me I feel safe to be honest with him, and it immediately makes me feel bad for how I was acting. Basically, he is pragmatic in his approach, but never lets me draw him in and fuck up his day.

When I get out of line, C does a variety of things depending on what happened:

Scenario 1: I screwed up.

• Freezes me out (won't talk, touch me, etc.) Most effective

• Sternly tells me I screwed up Effective

• Reminds me not to do it again Usually follows one or two

(Combination of the three really makes me apologize sincerely because I get emotional if I even think he's considering dropping me over a screw up.)

• Some other punishment (no treats (sugary stuff), withholding sex (works REALLY well since I'm hypersexual), etc.) May or may not be effective

Scenario 2: I'm upset over something and start being moody because of it.

• Hugs me

• Quiets me somehow (usually telling me to shush)

• Has me take a shower (showers are very calming for me)

• Spanks me (catches me off guard so I quit thinking about what bothered me)

• Makes me dance to some silly song (so I start laughing)

I'm a lot better with policing myself now. It usually takes anywhere from an hour to a day or two to get better (depending on the severity of my mess up)

When we see the other stepping a bit out of line we suggest time off. The rule here is if anyone suggests time off, we have to take it.

So we take some hours way from each other and go do something else and discuss whatever we were doing before with a cool head

As a guy, I just stop giving the girl attention. I'm not a child, that shit is childish, so I ignore it like I would a toddler crying for attention. Farthest I've ever had to go is removing the girl from my vicinity, not unlike I would to punish a puppy. (I realize how bad that sounds, but I promise I don't mean it in that degrading of a way, just can't really think of another example.)

If there's a legitimate reason behind mood swings, or a poor mood, you're human, express it...but within reason, have some self control about it.

I'd like to preface this by saying I don't depend on him to sort my moods out. I'm constantly working to check myself and be in control of how I express myself.

If I'm just being a bit daft or grumpy, he usually just says my name in a firm but humorous way, gives me 'that' look, and I either apologise or we both burst out laughing. Or he tickles me :p

If it's a bit worse and I'm upset about something and need to calm down so we can talk about it properly, he hugs me to him really close and won't let me go even if I struggle. This helps a lot.

I know if I've really done something bad, if he just goes quiet or ignores me. Then I get worried, my bad mood usually goes straight away cs I'm so busy apologising and trying to make it up to him/ talk about it with him.

He's smart though and knows me better than I know myself. He can tell the difference between me being bitchy/stroppy, and when there is something genuinely wrong. He never dismisses my feelings in the case of the latter, and does what he can to help. As I do for him.

Usually when either one of us feels the other is being out of line (it doesn't happen often), we pretty much just say when we think the other person said something out of line.

The most recent example, I think, was when the cat was doing something really annoying (I believe it was that she was trying to force herself behind the blinds to sit at the window) and he grabbed her harder than I felt was necessary (she cried out in a sound that wasn't normal) so I told him I didn't think he should be so rough with her. He responded by saying I shouldn't tell him how to discipline his cat, that he wasn't hurting her, and that she doesn't learn if we just shoo her away. I've commented on things like this before, so he was a bit defensive about it. I'm taking behavioral psychology right now so I explained a few reasons as to why physical punishment tended to be less effective than reinforcement and he responded by belittling the science and saying it didn't apply to cats.

It was such a silly little spat but it was one of the few times where we both felt the other was out of line. What happened was we wound up taking a few moments to cool off, we explained how we felt (I showed him a line from my textbook, he told me something he learned years ago), and then afterwards essentially went back to normal.

Honestly, we don't really have a special thing he does with me. Since breaking up with my ex, I've really worked on myself to make sure I'm not being irrational or needlessly angry wherever possible. When I'm feeling abnormally irrational for any reason, I warn him beforehand and assure him I'll do my best not to let it influence the way I behave.

Man chiming in -

I tell her what she did wrong and give her the opportunity to stop and/or apologise. That almost always works, if it doesn't then I withdraw attention to some degree until it does work.

I can't speak for her regarding whether she likes the approach but it certainly works and she's never actively complained about it.

He goes on ignoring me and my bad mood or he teases me about being "crabby"

That being said, I'm rarely in a bad mood and when I am it is not extreme and it is very short-lived.

I honestly don't speak to him this way very often at all. When I slip he either will give me a stern look, or he'll make a joke about it. The latter happens because he knows I never intend to challenge him in any way, but sometimes I don't always phrase things in the best way possible. He knows that there's nothing wrong with my attitude, just my phrasing choices, so he'll sometimes give me a reminder in a joking way, rather than a stern way.

My boyfriend and I rarely argue, and as someone else said, I try to be vigilant about regulating my own mood and behavior. However, when it comes to smaller transgressions, like leaving the cabinets open when he has reminded me not to do that, he will sometimes spank me! Mind you, this is intended to be playful, but he acts like he's legitimately upset with me, and I usually enjoy it, hehe...