74th letter from Mihai

Tue 13 Jan, 2026 Colmar, France

“Shut up.”

I said it quickly, under my breath, but loud enough.

Then again.

And again.

We were at the airport in Romania, already tight on time. My parents were there, standing a bit to the side. We had our daughter with us, tired and curious, at that age where she could decide to run off or start crying at any second. The line behind us was growing, and the space around the counter felt smaller by the minute.

We had way too much luggage.

Over the holidays, friends and family had given us gifts. Clothes, small objects, things that carried meaning. Things we wanted to bring back with us, not leave behind. All of that added weight, literal and emotional, and when we put the suitcases on the scale, we were over the limit. Not by a little.

The number was high enough that paying the fee would hurt, especially on top of already expensive holiday tickets.

Pay extra or take things out.

So we started pulling things from the bags, moving items into backpacks, handing a few things to my parents, trying to make quick decisions under pressure. When we put the luggage back on the scale, it wasn’t resting fully.

The number dropped.

I noticed it immediately. Relief. We were going to get through without paying.

Aurélie stepped closer and looked at the screen. She asked if the number was correct. I don’t know exactly what her intention was. Maybe she wanted to understand what was happening or if we could put something back.

I was already somewhere else.

In solve and protect mode. Focused on one thing only: getting through this without losing money.

So I shut her down.

Short. Sharp. Dismissive.

In public.

I didn’t raise my voice. There was no scene. And that’s part of why this stayed with me. It happened fast, almost automatically, and by the time I noticed what I was doing, the damage was already there.

Now I’m back in my office in Colmar.

It’s been a week since that moment. I started a new job. The rhythm of my days is different. When the workday ends, it actually ends, and when I come home, I’m more present. My family feels that. I feel it too.

And still, I keep coming back to that scene at the airport.

Not because it turned into a big argument. We talked about it, I apologized, we moved on. Life continued.

But something about it didn’t sit right.

What I’ve been trying to understand is why this moment, and not others, followed me back here.

I think it’s because I didn’t really fight with her.

I fought for an objective.

I wanted to avoid paying, to control the situation. I wanted to win that small battle at the counter. And somewhere in that narrow focus, I lost the relationship for a moment.

Stress slid into disrespect before I could catch myself.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what a good fight actually is.

A good fight isn’t the absence of conflict. It isn’t keeping everything smooth and polite on the surface. And it isn’t about winning or proving a point.

A good fight has limits. It protects dignity. It serves something bigger than the immediate goal in front of you.

A good fight is desirable because it doesn’t erase what matters.

When you avoid it, things stay quiet, but unclear. The surface looks calm, yet something important goes underground. Resentment. Distance. A sense that you didn’t really show up.

A good fight brings those things into the open while there’s still room to repair. You say what matters. You stay present. You don’t disappear, and you don’t attack.

Nothing gets destroyed, but something gets named.

That’s why it strengthens a relationship instead of weakening it.

Looking back, I wasn’t really fighting with Aurélie. I was fighting for a narrow objective: money, efficiency, getting through the situation as fast as possible.

I wanted the tension to end.

A different kind of fight would have stayed with the tension instead of trying to eliminate it. It would have protected the relationship first, even if it meant paying the fee, slowing things down, or feeling uncomfortable for a few more minutes.

I wasn’t fighting for us. I was fighting to win the moment.

That’s close to a distinction I came across in Iron John, between fighting for money and fighting for a purpose.

A different kind of fight would have been in service of something larger. The relationship, the family, the sense of standing together, even under pressure.

I don’t take this as an idea about masculinity. I take it as a reminder to ask myself what I’m actually fighting for when things get tight.

Another thing helped me hold this without turning it into a story about who I am.

It’s a simple idea I first came across in Dr. Becky’s work. Two things can be true.

I was under pressure.

And I was disrespectful.

Both can exist at the same time.

Seeing it this way matters for me. When I don’t separate those, everything collapses into shame. Not I did something wrong, but I am wrong. And from there, nothing really gets repaired. You either defend yourself or you shut down.

This way, I can stay with what happened without losing myself in it.

Sitting here now, back in Colmar, with a bit more space around my days, I can see the moment more clearly. At the airport, I wasn’t confused about what I wanted. I wanted to save money and get through the situation as fast as possible. What I didn’t stop to check was what that choice cost us in that moment.

That’s what I’m learning to pay attention to. Not whether a conflict happens, but what I decide is worth protecting when it does.

What makes this heavier is knowing that Cléo was there too. She didn’t understand the words, but she was watching us. How we stood, how we spoke, what happened when things got tight.

I didn’t just show her how I handle stress. I showed her how I handle the people I love when things get tight.

Maybe you’ve been thinking about one of your own fights too. The kind that didn’t look like much from the outside, but stayed with you longer than expected.

I’m still training.

One dad figuring it out, same as you.
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