When the wife believes that you've deliberately declared that no, she can't have coffee, seemingly the only choice available is to escalate to a dispute.
A fairly big part of the population, mostly female, are taught to be unassuming and meek-- to indirectly ask, to accept the decisions of others, not rock the boat, etc. If you spend your youth in this mode, it becomes something that's difficult to overcome as an adult.
Talk about setting kids up for failure: train them to never actually ask for what they want. And then they can look forward to a lifetime of bad relationships and never earning as much as the people who do ask for what they want.
it's entirely possible to be submissive and literal at the same time. compare "I deserve a bigger raise" with "I do appreciate the raise I was given, but in light of my contributions to XYZ this year, I was expecting a little more. could you please consider increasing it?". the second is still an unmistakable request but is deferential and does not imply that the decision maker was wrong.
A fairly big part of the population, mostly female, are taught to be unassuming and meek-- to indirectly ask, to accept the decisions of others, not rock the boat, etc. If you spend your youth in this mode, it becomes something that's difficult to overcome as an adult.