How would you feel if your significant other corrected you in front of good friends?

Of course, all these situations are different, so I don’t know if you have any analogous experiences. My wife and son and I were sitting at a table at a restaurant maybe six of us around a round table. My wife was on my left and my son on my right.

I had taken a few minutes to check on something on my phone, which generated a few comments, such as one friend complaining that people paid more attention to their phones than to real people. In any case, there was something I felt I needed to know right then, and I told myself it would only be a moment.

Then I heard one of my friends saying something about an event that had occurred earlier, and I jumped in to say, “I was wondering about that…” My wife interrupted me to say ”[friends name] was talking and you need to let her talk. You interrupted her.”

I was wrong, of course, so I shut up, but I felt totally embarrassed, disrespected and diminished. I sat there fuming, and later on there was a bigger scene (which I have never done before in public), when she asked me why I was angry.

My wife has done this occasionally at home, but this was the first time ever in public. My feeling is that she should have done it silently—kicking me under the table, or even, if she had to say it out loud, say “so-and-so was talking.” Like information, not telling me what to do.

Have you ever been in a situation similar to this? How would you feel? Would you feel completely shamed in front of your friends? Like you were a child? Or are you more evolved, and able to see beyond the immediate event? How should things like this be handled?