Hi All,

I had an email exchange with my son's hockey coach over the weekend over the fact that he's been yelling at the kids a lot, in particular during the games. I was just trying to bring it to his attention because my 9yo son had been expressing negative feelings over hockey (which is his LIFE) and had referred to the coach's yelling as a reason. I tried to be as non-confrontational as possible in my email, cushioned what I was trying to say, said I thought he was an excellent coach regardless, and mentioned that I empathized with him that there is a lot of stress in his life right now (his own son is having emotional issues). Anyway, he was very defensive and arguably condescending in his response to me, and he also implied that my son was misperceiving appropriately loud coaching as yelling. I felt hurt because we've known each other a few years and are friends, if not very close friends. Of course, this is not the first time we've clashed - For some reason, although we're friendly with one another and I believe have warm feelings toward each other, we sometimes rub each other the wrong way. It's confusing!

My husband, who is one of the coach's assistants, spoke to the coach two nights later and said HE thinks the yelling is a problem, too, and that the coach is taking his personal frustrations out on the kids. According to my husband, the coach was very contrite toward him and said it was true and it was "all on him." However, when he talked to my son, he still told my kid that he wasn't yelling (so invalidating my son's perceptions), and he never said anything remotely conciliatory to me.

So I wrote to him night before last and just said you know, I still really sympathize with you about the trouble with your son, and I still think you're an excellent coach, but I feel hurt about the way your responded to me a few days ago. I told him I just needed to get it off my chest and didn't expect him to say anything (although I suppose he would feel he had to anyway). Well, he wrote back another very defensive and irritated email. I wrote back and said that I didn't need him to explain and that I was sorry he was having such a rough time. However, I also pointed out that he was still being defensive and had made his response all about HIM when *I* was the one who had written to say that I felt HURT! I said I thought it would have been better to just say he was sorry I felt bad rather than try to explain away my feelings. He wrote back and said "fair enough" and said he didn't mean to make me feel bad, which was good I guess, but I can't say I feel a WHOLE lot better.

When I told my husband I'd written back to the coach and said I'd felt hurt and then complained about the coach trying to explain away my feelings, my husband said it sounded "high-schoolish" and he didn't know why I bothered given that the coach is clearly unable to acknowledge the reality of his behavior and swallow his pride. Do you think I was immature? Just being a pain? Maybe I'm overly sensitive. I have an extremely difficult time holding back how I feel.

Thanks for any feedback you can offer.