Originally Posted by ratbastid

Okay, try this on:

Everything she's saying isn't actually about what she's saying. Her complaining about the way you X isn't really about how you X. But it IS about SOMETHING. And it's something big enough to her that she can't actually deal with it right out, but has to instead pick fights about other things.

Let me tell you a story. A few years back my wife's brother died. I didn't handle her grief well AT ALL. I got possessive of her attention, I was worried I'd never have her back the way she was, I was constantly trying to talk her out of being sad (which works real well, by the way). I basically did it completely wrong, and it took us a really long time to recover from it. And there were times when how she was upset with me about it got expressed in some really strange and nasty ways.

You have something to apologize to her for. It has something to do with her grandfather's death. From how you write about it, I suspect she feels you didn't support her or didn't take her grief seriously, but you should look for yourself.

She might never come out and tell you--so if you're going to get this straightened out, you're going to have to figure it out on your own.