Hurtmywife27,
Here is a word of advice from a man who snapped too many times
1. Expect to be hurt again. My wife told me many times things that I couldn’t imagine. Yes I have deserved all of them, but I couldn’t imagine them. Every time a new “biggest of all” insult flew in my face, I lost cool. I told myself many times “she can not say anything worse than this” and every time, there were worse things to say. I told myself I will be prepared next time, but I was not. The pain we WS’s have caused is so huge and so deep, that we can not imagine the effects it causes on our beloved ones. What complicates things more is that we are, if we are truly remorseful, in the constant emotional state of emitting love and sorrow, which puts us at the completely opposite spectrum of emotions. That is why it hurts 10 times more than it would normally do. So, if you don’t want to snap again, get prepared for even worse insults.
2. Every time the serious insult comes, you lose your cool, but during the argument, it looks to you like this is a “final straw”, deal breaker, and you are ready to say what you don’t even seriously think. Like a proper fight, every time you engage fully, you are not going to fight with one hand only, but, you will came at your opponent with everything you have. And, it is human nature, some of your most powerful weapons are insults and things we don’t really think but we are sure, even on subconscious level, that will hurt the most. So, those insults are not a “final straw” and you are not prepared to walk out and give up on everything. It is wrong to think this way, it is only your anger talking to you. You must be very careful what you will say, because, fight will go away, anger will go away, but the words you said will stay there forever.
3. After the fight, or after you snapped, you will cool down, start looking at what happened, analyze and understand that you didn’t have the right to say what you have said. You can apologize. But, you can apologize only so many times. Like you can snap only so many times. If apologies are many, they become irrelevant.
On your question – Has anybody snapped by mistake? Yes, everybody has, because, it is a mistake to do it anyway. And every time I hurt my wife even more and distanced myself even more from her. I realized that most of the times in the fight, the thing that would hurt the most was my powerlessness and the ugly face of my deeds. And that would scare me the most and produce the anger I felt. I was angry at myself and somehow, channeled it to my wife. Did this knowledge help me in any way? I don’t know? We don’t fight that much any more, but, than again, I think it is because my wife gave up on me completely.