Ten past eleven

It starts at ten past ten, over the dishwasher. One of you stacked it and the other one restacked it, and there was a remark, and a remark back. By half past ten it's about how you never listen, and by eleven it's about their mother, and by half past eleven it's about the thing from March, and at ten past midnight one of you says "let's just go to bed" and the other one says "no, we're sorting this", because you don't go to bed on an argument, that's the rule, that's what your parents said, and the arguments you've left overnight have always been worse for it. Or you think they have.

At one in the morning you're both on the sofa. Nothing has been settled. The same three things have been said eleven times each, with less accuracy and more heat on each round, and something got said at half past twelve that neither of you meant and both of you will remember. Eventually one of you cries or one of you gives in, and you go up, and lie there, and the alarm is at half past six, and the next day you're both wrecked and short with each other and the children, and the dishwasher is still stacked wrong.

These are invented, but I'd guess yours is close. Some words. The old rule is never go to bed on an argument. The settlement is the resolution the old rule demands before sleep. The late hour is after ten, and the late brain is the state the two of you are in by then, tired, reactive, and running the same track. The circuit is the same three points going round. The truce is the agreed stop, which either of you can call. The resume time is the named slot tomorrow. The morning version is what the row looks like at eight. Cross is the plain word for the state this book says you can go to bed in. A note is the one line you write before you do. And the same bed is where this book says to sleep, and chapter 13 is about why.

Before you go on, do one thing. For a month, keep a list. Every argument that starts after nine in the evening. What time it started, what time it ended, whether anything was settled, and one word for the next day. Don't change anything. Most couples who do this find that the settled column says no all the way down, the end times are after midnight, and the next-day column has the same word in it that the arguments were about.