My husband has a hard time fitting into societal norms and maneuvering the nuances of societal niceties. He has a strong moral code that would be more fitting in a bygone time.
Any time John leaves the house, it’s a bet that he will return home with a story of someone who road raged on him, someone who said an inappropriate comment, or was generally inconsiderate or rude to him or someone in the general vicinity of his vision or hearing.
Ever since being honorably discharged from the Marines, he’s struggled to fit in with civilian life. He refers to himself as the “turd in the punch bowl” and it’s not a bad analogy. From what I have gathered, John would in fact fit in better with a Marine Corp infantry platoon than at a Walmart or family dinner party.
Apparently, this sort of behavior may be common in combat vets and maybe those with TBIs as well. At least that’s what we hear from John’s therapist. A large part of the reason John sees a therapist regularly is to learn how to manage his conduct in society. Especially now that he has a child, he doesn’t want to do something to embarrass her, may harm her, or cause her any sort of emotional stress due to his actions. It can be tough though. A case in point….
We recently took a family trip to Dinosaur National Monument. Overall, one of our most enjoyable trips yet. On day 2 of our excursion we went to the Quarry Exhibit Hall which, “allows visitors to view [a natural rock] wall of approximately 1,500 dinosaur bones….” At the base of this wall, visitors can touch dinosaur bones. There is at least one space on the wall where someone could start climbing this wall, using the bones as foot holds.
Well, as Eva and I were posing for a picture in front of some Allosaurus bones, while John was across the hall closest to the wall of exposed bones, an 8 year old boy came sauntering up, nearly bumping into John (I think John even had to scoot out of the way a bit), and began to try to climb the wall. It was an affront in many ways. Not only was it horrifying to watch this kid possibly damage property but his nonverbal mannerisms were extremely off putting, almost aggressive, and a generally “what are you going to do about it” vibe. I could tell all this from about 12 feet away and also because of a brief encounter I’d had with him earlier. John told the boy to not climb on the wall and the kid smarted back, “Who’s going to stop me?” John said something about going to jail for damaging property and the boy retorted with, “They won’t send me to Juvie for that.” John was taken aback, his blood pressure rising. John ended up asking him how he knew about Juvie and asked how old he was. Based on an even snarkier response from the kid, John proceeded to tell him that he was a retired cop and that we were in a National Park, meaning the rules of the game were Federal. It progressed further in a lecture that was brutally honest about things that happen to people who go to prison. The kid quickly left, presumably high tailing it back to his parents. God knows where they were through this entire thing, not even being aware their kid was being so destructive and rude.
John ended up telling the nearest park ranger about the incident, in the event she received a complaint from the kid’s parents. John later expressed his concern to me that it wasn’t so much what the kid said but how he said it and that he was already gaming the system and considering the cost vs reward of a crime or misbehavior. I rationalized with John that maybe boys that age are generally destructive and wanting to push boundaries. He agreed but reiterated what he’d said before. We both commiserated that if either one of us had behaved like that or spoke to an adult like that when we were kids that we would have been reprimanded severely.
This incident was unusual in that it was with a child but it’s a good example of the interactions he has almost every time he goes out. John functions off a different code of conduct than, seemingly, a large segment of the population. Often, John is severely offended and often feels disrespected when things happen that the rest of us tend to blow off or maybe gnash our teeth, say a bad word in the offenders general direction, and go about our day. John has a hard time letting these things go and I think his TBI impacts that.
TBI Spouse (and Others) 
You made my day with this story. As the daughter of a career Air Force officer who served in WWII and Korea, I can’t tell you how many times my father would leap into action to reprimand another kid or call their parents if I came home from school and said the kid did something mean to me. Of course, he only did this for his daughters. For my brothers, he gave them “advice.” For example, my older brother was being bullied at the bus stop and my father’s advice was to tell the bullies to “go pee up a rope.” My brother did and came home with a black eye for his efforts. We learned not to complain if we didn’t make the cut in a sport because my father would go to the coach and demand an explanation, using his commanding officer voice. At my 20th high school reunion, several guys came up and said they tried to call my house when we were in school to ask me on a date, but my father’s voice scared them so much, they hung up the phone without speaking. He would have read that kid the riot act if he saw him climbing on a museum exhibit, just like your husband did.