What is the main conflict in The Country Husband by John Cheever?

While Cheever's personal war was World War II, the story's main conflict references a variety of military conflicts. The Weed household's domestic tranquility is such that when Julia Weed asks her children to wash their hands for dinner, "this simple announcement, like the war cries of the Scottish chieftains, only refreshes the ferocity of the combatants." When asked to go upstairs to fetch his daughter, "Francis is happy to go; it is like getting back to headquarters company", the military refuge of the shirker of duty and risk. Julia's "guns are loaded" for the coming argument with her husband, who speaks of his home as a "battlefield."