Why was his wife always picking fights with him?

This was an exaggerated movie to make him look perfect and the wife "angry." There are some crazy women but the men who wife them are crazier!

The same reason why playground bullies, internet stalkers, and abusive siblings drive perfectly peaceful people to suicide every year.

The movie might be exaggerated because only certain moments in the life of the main character are shown, but this kind of interaction is very common and very real. Haven't you ever known a bully in grade school/ high school? Their problem is usually that they themselves are hurt somehow and they are expressing misdirected aggression/ anger.

When children carry this into adulthood and never let go of the pain that made them bullies in school, mean to other children, etc., they end up bullying the most vulnerable people around them later in life. In this case the target was the husband.

When Tonya told James about her upbringing filled with abuse and previous abusive relationships, I realized that his treating her well was outside of her comfort zone. Tonya didn't know what a loving relationship was and her mindset was to expect abuse, either verbal or physical. When she wasn't getting it from him, she had to create it in order to feel a sense of well-being. Tonya also considered abuse a sign of masculinity which is why she considered James weak for not hitting her and why he thought she would be turned on if he became abusive. Another thing I disliked about Tonya was how she was trying to turn their daughter against James.

The best part was after she spit in his face and kept daring him to hit her, James took off his wedding ring, threw it on the floor and walked away. That hurt Tonya much more than a beating because she had no other means of financial support. Tonya and her friends who said they were strong, black women were all ghetto.

Because thats the way Mr Alexander wrote it. Thats what he wanted to be seen.