I've been having a lot of extraordinary stresses lately, and have been more tense than usual this week. I screwed up this afternoon and snapped at one of the kids to stop squirming around. The wife took offense, which was fine, cause it really was uncool. But she was very hostile about it, and that's one of my boundaries. I gave her a chance to cool down, she refused, and so I grabbed my homework and went to a restaurant to work on it. I didn't say anything about where I was going. Went radio silent until it was time to come back home cause she had to be somewhere. She left with no words and when she came back I offered her a kiss and was refused. No big deal, I still had homework to do, so I went to the bedroom to work on it.
She came in later, wanting to fight, but I refused to engage. As we were laying there in the dark, I let out a monster slow motion machine gun fart, and I just busted up laughing. This set her off, and she actually asked me how I could laugh when she was mad at me. Let the frame battle commence!
I told her that her feelings were not my responsibility. She retorted that I shouldn't have yelled at the kid. I screwed up by engaging here, and told her that I was capable of correcting my own mistakes and her assistance was not required.
She started to berate me and drag out old arguments, at which point I told her to talk to me when she calmed down, because I wasn't willing to accept anger from her.
Then I rolled over and went to sleep. A little later she started rubbing my back. I ignored it until she stopped, then rolled over and gave her a little pat on the shoulder as a reward.
She instantly snuggled up against me, and then we made out for a little bit. I would have gone for sex, but she had to work early. Anyway, I let my emotions slip early on, but was able to salvage things with a combination of removing myself from her unacceptable behavior and maintaining frame once I returned. Keys for me where refusing to attempt to control her behavior, and refusing to allow her attempts to control mine. It wasn't easy, but I think I'm making a little progress.
EDIT: To anyone who thinks I should have pushed for sex, thanks for the input. I did not, I am completely happy with that decision, and I believe it is the right one.