I HATE confrontation! Like hate, hate it. I hate when we fight and this is the reason I stay silent when the wife and I fight. In my opinion I think I'm doing the right thing by letting her blow off steam by yelling, while I sit quietly and try not to burst out on her. However, recently, my wife has been telling me that because I don't speak up, because I don't fight back, she feels like I don't care about the relationship, that I'm not putting in the effort to fight because I don't care about the relationship. Truth be told, I care about the relationship, a lot, I just don't care about fighting is all.

Don't get me wrong, when I feel passionate about something we're fighting about I can, and have, flipped out on her. Those are some passionate arguments and she says she likes those better because she feels like I actually do care about something in the relationship enough to stand up and argue with her. Don't think we spend a lot of our time fighting, because we don't, but when we do it is usually one sided because I'd rather not fight (plus I'm not a good fighter because I get SO angry I start to cry and I can't really logically fight after that).

My point is, maybe your wife feels the same way. Maybe she's trying to provoke you to get a reaction out of you. If you're not passionate about a problem/situation that pertains to your relationship it is easy to jump to conclusions and think you don't care about the relationship.

Like previously said, I think marriage counseling would work best for you two. It's a safe place, with a mediator, that can kind of guide the fight and give both of you time to speak in a safe place. The wife and I did it when we found a gay couple specialist in town. We're no longer in counseling but to this day we still use techniques we learned there. Anyways, just my two cents.