In my experience? It’s never about that, and if there was nothing to criticize, THAT would be criticized. It’s usually about some fundamental disconnect or unmet need by one of the parties, and without concerted honest effort by both to face it, it’s going to explode sooner or later.

The problem being, if they were already prone to spending concerted, honest effort in facing and talking about their problems, they would be a lot less likely to be in that place.

In my experience it's always about what I'm talking about. My wife often refuses to clean up after herself, I tell her "Please pick up the iced tea bottles you left on the floor" and she goes into a rant about one time 5 years ago when I didn't pick up a something and engages in lots of deflection. Then she says stuff like you said "Your just upset that you have a meeting at work", when really it's I'd like to not pick up after her.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

If your behavior is outside of the social norms (eg. you leave dishes out for others to clean) then admit fault and move on. If they bring something else up maybe you are correct in your thesis but why are you defending yourself when you are being a slob?

Uh, pretty clear her behavior is exactly what I’m referring to, and yours may be too?

If you think the behavior you described is just about a couple iced tea bottles, that is… not likely to go well long term in my experience. I hope I’m wrong for you though!

And the statement you’re making there seems to have a tone of resentment towards her which, unfortunately, is going to likely be a problem too.

This is a nice little vignette dramatizing the exact thing the article is about. You might want to consider that before you end up divorced.