Wife speaks English as a second language. She just asked me to read her paper for school (which is a thing I offered to do to take stress off of her when she first went back to school and her English wasn't as good. Her English is great now, but she has appreciated my feedback).

Asked her if she wanted me to read for grammar or content or both. She said both. I started reading it but I realized that I didn't know what "essay question" she was being asked. I asked her and she got an attitude and said "read the question". There was no question on what she provided me.

After I showed that to her, she read the question to me, but she was upset for some reason and told me that I really make her mad sometimes. No clue where that came from. I told her I didn't think that she was actually answering the question in just a straight up way. She didn't think I understood the question properly and while she was explaining the question in more detail I was twirling my beard or something and all of a sudden she said "stop that in a really sharp voice" I said stop what, like I didn't know what she meant, to imply that she couldn't possibly be talking about that because it's ridiculous (it went over her head) She told me to stop twirling my beard that it really pisses her off (not in a nice way). I didn't say anything for a second, and then I said, "yeah, you know what? You're asking ME to do this for YOU, so you're not really in a position to make demands on what I do while you're telling me your story."

Then she was like "that's just like my mom, she used to say, if you're not going to do it my way, then we just won't do it". I tried to explain that it was pretty much the OPPOSITE of her mom, because I wasn't trying to review her paper, she was asking me to...so SHE was the one being like her mom." It's a legitimate point, but for some reason, when I started explaining that, I felt like I lost power all of a sudden. Can't explain it.

She went off about how I think I know everything but that she doesn't need me to get good grades etc. It got me so mad because she's the one who asked me to look at it.

What I SHOULD have said, I think, calmly, was something like "oh, ok". And then just gone back doing what I was doing.

But instead I was like "what? You ASKED me to look at this for you. I'm just giving you the feedback you asked for." And it escalated and escalated and devolved into her saying things like "well fine, I'm just never going to ask you for help on my papers ever again."

Again, instead of just saying, "oh, ok" or something like that. I got pissed again and said something like "you have said that so many times and then you still ask me."

She then said something like "you think you know what you're talking about, but I'm the one who's been taking this class and getting straight A's on my assignments, all you're doing is just wasting my time now."

I got even more pissed and said something like "wasting your time? I was in the middle of xyz when you asked me to help you."

"she said, yeah, whatever". I realized that I was going in the wrong direction, so I tried the "this kind of behavior isn't ok and I'm not going to tolerate it" but it sounded hollow in my own ears because I had already tolerated it throughout the conversation. And she just snorted and said "YOU'RE behavior is not ok." And then conversation ended.

I know I screwed up, so if you can find it in your hearts to spare me the "you're a little bitch" comments etc, I'm hoping to find constructive feedback on how I can handle something like that better next time.

Edit: As I've been typing in silence and then thinking about this in silence I've been trying to come up with SOMETHING to recuperate. All I could think of is to come up with something non-snarky or vindictive to show that I hadn't really been affected by what happened.

So I said "I'm hungry, you hungry? Want some cereal? (Night time cereal is our guilty pleasure I guess.) She said "sure" in a sort of dead voice. But I just talked a little in a light hearted tone while I got it ready and by the time I brought it her voice was softer and she said thanks. Tension is gone. But did I really recuperate anything?

Edit 2: Five minutes later she said "sorry about....what I said." I shrugged my shoulders and said "it's ok" (it's not ok). Then she said "it's just that sometimes you really make me wanna scream." I just nodded. After a few seconds I said "sorry about yelling" because I couldn't say "sorry for letting you make me lose my cool."