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It’s hard to be at home, when all my parents do lately is fight with eachother.  It’s usually about money or dad misinterpreting mom’s expressions into anger, and then becoming angry himself.  After which he tells her that she’s been angry lately, with an ‘I’m right’ tone, which she denies because she’s not, and then he keeps going at it.  I try and intercede, telling him to stop, that he’s wrong, and just trying to get them to stop fighting.  Then he yells at me, telling me to stay out of it.  The dinner table turns into a bubble of silence, weighted by tension and anger, discomfort.  He finishes quickly and clears his dishes, storming quietly up the stairs to sulk in his room.  I tell mom, “Don’t apologize.  If he comes to you looking for one, ignore him and walk away, even if he starts yelling at you.” I then walk upstairs and write a note for dad: “Cool your head, & then go apologize to mom.  Reflect on your actions & you’ll hopefully understand why.”  A few minutes later, he comes down and says, “I don’t get it,” as if he were a child doing a wrong for the first time.  This is a man who is 48.  Not a child who is 4.  Situations similar to this happen at least three times a week, maybe more.  I can’t eat dinner comfortably, or without wanting to put down my food and leave them to figure it out on there own, abandoning some bit of hope that they’d listen to me.