Oh, God, I hate fighting with my husband. Not the bickering (although sometimes it starts off like that) but the real, hard, painful, values pinching type of fights.
The thought of fighting makes me want to crawl into a cave and wait for everything to settle down.
I don’t want to talk about the issues.
I don’t want to share my feelings.
I don’t want to experience that struggle where I want to explode and say all the mean things that I have in my head but I know I shouldn’t because I can never take back those words and I’ll just regret hurting his feelings.
I don’t want to practice empathy, listening to his side, being patient, understanding and seeing it from his perspective.
I don’t want to cry and have that puffy face the next morning where I feel like my heart took a beating and my soul has been sucked dry. And then have that awkward moment where I see him, and I avoid eye contact because I don’t want to be the first to say something.
When something comes up (either something he says or does or the way he reacted to something I said or did), and I’m pissed, my natural instinct is to ignore it.
I don’t like conflict.
Who does?
Sweeping problems under the rug is like the easiest and most tempting thing to do, especially when we are busy and we don’t want to deal with it.
Just bottle that shit up until it turns into cancer…then deal with it.
However, after many, many years of working on my relationships with others and helping others with their relationships, I know fighting is healthy.
It’s not just the experts who say this but I’ve experienced firsthand where the moment I gave up fighting with my ex was the moment our relationship was doomed.
So instead of ignoring that angry feeling (as hard as it is to do), I muster as much energy and patience as I possibly can to bring it up.
I’m not saying my husband and I always fight fairly and have these calm, productive, mature, adult discussions where we end up having romantic make-up sex or some shit.
Our fights are very raw and at times, painful; we still have moments where we say things we don’t mean. It’s not easy but we work on it even when we don’t want to.
So here are 5 tips on how to manage your anger when fighting with your partner:
1. Self Reflect on how you were raised, how your parents dealt with anger (yours and their own) and how they fought
As much as we don’t want to admit it sometimes, we are the products of our parents/those who raised us. The environment they created for us during our childhood and adolescence shapes who we are as adults.
We may not realize that their relationship, how they interacted and communicated with each other and with us, affect how we are in relationships.
It can feel indirect because as a child, we are often absorbed in our own worlds and we don’t see our parents as ‘regular’ human with emotions, vulnerabilities, hopes, dreams, fears, and insecurities; they’re our parents who are the rocks of the house, setting and enforcing the rules and managing the household.
And when they fight, we just want the yelling to stop (or the throwing of things) so that things can go back to normal.
But it’s incredibly important to self-reflect on that past (possibly painful) because that will tell us how we manage our anger and give insight into how to fight better with our partners.
Here are some questions to get you to start self-reflecting:
Growing up, what did you mom do with her anger? What did she do when you got angry?
Think about a time you got upset with her, how did it resolve?
What about your dad? What did he do with his anger? What did he do when you got angry?
Think about a time you got upset with him, how did it resolve?
When your parents fought, what did each parent do? What was it usually about and how did it usually end?
Growing up, my mom was the calm in the storm.
She rarely raised her voice whenever she was mad. She was stubborn and stern, giving me a guilt-ridden lecture whenever she was angry at me. I don’t know how she did it but I always felt bad upsetting her.
This one afternoon when I was 11, I really did not want to go to my piano lesson. She was nagging me to stop dragging my feet and get ready.
I grabbed my bag of piano books and threw it, hitting one of those antique Chinese vases that had been on our fireplace ever since I could remember.
As I watched it fall, shattering to a dozen pieces, my mom gives me the most disappointed face I had ever seen. She tells me to pick up my books and that she would be waiting for me in the car.
After the lesson, my dad picks me up. I come home and I see that the pieces of the vase had been swept clean and the other vases had been moved slightly to adjust for the additional space.
I go to the kitchen where my mom was preparing dinner. I sheepishly give her a hug and a muffled “對唔住” (‘I’m sorry’ in Cantonese).
Whenever my mom and I fought, I couldn’t end the day without making peace with her because I knew in the game of passive aggressiveness, I would lose (which makes me a bit like my dad).
My mom picked her battles and for good reason because she never liked ‘losing’ a fight. She was incredibly protective of her independence, her time and her freedom to do things for herself (like going to the gym, hiking, swimming or getting a facial).
No one likes being told what to do but my mom REALLY did not like to be told what to do. And that’s what my parents usually fought about (a traditionalist versus a free spirit).
Whenever they fought, my dad was usually the one who gave into her demands. She rarely apologized.
My dad wears his emotions on his face and when he’s angry, the whole world knows it.
He’s a yeller, a slammer of doors and cabinets, a man who needs his cave to decompress. He’s not one to hold things in. He says what means and means what he says.
He doesn’t hold grudges and forgives my mom every time she makes him angry. And in many ways, he’s simpler in the way he manages his anger.
I’d say 99% of the time, the reason I was mad at him was that he either threw away something important of mine or he was nagging me about cleaning my room. And he usually got mad at me for not putting something away or for notoriously talking back.
My mom (and my sisters) knew his cycle, explosive emotion with lots of curse words followed by a moment in the cave, then a begrudging apology in the form of agreeing to whatever my mom wanted.
Because he’s predictable, we usually waited out his temper tantrum until he went to the basement to blow off steam. We knew he would come out calmer.
2. Self discover, comparing and contrasting your past with your present
How do you express your anger?
What do you do or say when you are angry at your partner?
What parallels can you draw between how your parents dealt with theirs and your anger and how you currently deal with your anger?
It’s about asking yourself the tough questions and understanding how the influences you had growing up affected how you interact with others in your current state.
I’m a mix of my mom and my dad.
Like my mom, I am not a yeller but I am a lecturer who likes to use an authoritative tone (it becomes condescending and sarcastic the angrier I get).
I don’t like having a conflict with the people I love. I hate awkwardness, specifically with those I care about.
I’m like my dad in which it takes more energy for me to bottle something up than it is for me to bring it up. And I don’t have a problem apologizing when I’ve hurt someone’s feelings or wronged them.
I’m someone who needs to understand the context behind why someone did or said something. I believe there is rhyme and reason to human decisions, especially when it involves my husband and questionable judgement that goes against my values.
3. Start your sentences with “I” during the fight
I sense…
I feel…
I think…
I observe…
I believe…
When you start your sentences with “I” instead of “You” it puts you in a position where you’re talking about your own feelings and experience.
It minimizes the chance that you will come across blaming the other person for the issue. When someone feels blamed, it’s natural for them to defend themselves and in turn, begin to go on the offence by blaming the person who’s blaming them.
And of course, that’s when past fights get brought up and the couple begins to go down resentment lane, each bringing up how the other has let them down.
Ideally, when a fight is over, the couple should feel closer, have a better understanding of each other with a sense of clarity on how to move forward together.
It’s a slippery slope when one partner (or both) is dead set at being “right.” Even though we call them “fights,” there are no winners or losers because ultimately, they’re on the same team.
“She always gets her way. The movies, the restaurants, how I spend my free time, where we live, where we travel, how our kids are disciplined…etc. For once, I just want to have a say in these decisions.”
“He never does the things that I ask him to do. And when I bring it up, he tells me to stop nagging him. How can I expect to start a family with him?”
The desire to be “right” in a fight can stunt the growth of a relationship (possibly destroying it) because it forces the couple to be on different sides, continuing their long-term goals as individuals rather than pursuing their future together.
4. Discuss your fight/anger management style with your partner and imagine an ideal fight together (what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable)
Find a time when you’re both calm and content with one another and share with each other your fight styles. This includes talking about the self-reflection exercise that you did in tips 1 and 2.
When your partner understands how you deal with your anger and why you fight in a certain way, it’s easier for them to anticipate how you will be the next time an argument arises.
Then imagine what an ideal fight would look like between you two.
This includes the words that would be used, tone of voice, and body language (eye contact, standing versus sitting, across the room versus side by side).
What about the environment?
What’s the best course of action if you start fighting and you’re out in the public? Out with friends? Can you or your partner wait it out until you get back home? Or will you need to call it a night and head to a private area to talk?
Also, discuss what your limitations are when it comes to how you manage your anger.
What are your boundaries?
What are some things that your partner does during a fight that makes you go over the edge and you can’t handle your emotions? What are some things you can do to calm yourself down? What can they do?
5. Ask for a time-out or let your partner have their time-out
You know how you sometimes get to a point during a fight (usually when it’s late and you’ve both been at it for hours) where it feels like you’re beating a dead horse?
Or when it’s gotten so heated that one of you becomes silent? Or you’re both screaming over each other so loudly that you can’t even hear your own voice?
Or you both just keep saying things because neither one of you is willing to let the other have the last word?
That’s the moment you need to take a time-out where you are physically apart from the other. This could be in the basement, another room, out for a walk or a drive to a friend’s house.
And whoever asks for it, the other person must respect that decision. It’s really hard to do, especially if there are trust issues in the relationship. The person respecting the decision must trust that the person will come back.
For the person asking for a time-out
They must reassure the other person that they will absolutely come back and demonstrate it time and time again to build trust.
They need to say how long they need, where they’re going, when they’ll be back, promising to keep the other person updated if things change.
For the person who is waiting for their partner to come back.
They have to develop coping mechanisms to express their emotions healthily during this time (without sending a million texts to their partner or breaking all the dishes in the sink).
This could be writing in their journal, reading, meditation, listening to music or a podcast, watching Netflix, working out, baking…etc.
It’s about giving their partner space to decompress and giving yourself time to regenerate.
How I learned to respect my husband’s needs
My husband tends to need the time-outs more often than me. Our fights typically involve me interrogating him, asking a ton of questions (with examples) about why he said or did something.
My emotions would get heated the more silence I got. His inability to answer my questions (most often because they’re questions he hasn’t thought deeply about it) would make him feel frustrated and insecure because he feels he’s not meeting my expectations.
Over the years of our marriage, I’ve learned (still learning) to respect that. I’m mindful of the questions I ask and I can sense when he starts to withdraw. That’s when I tone down and know he needs a break.
It takes practice to take a break.
Every time, he comes back, my ability to cope with his absence and my brewing emotions gets better and better. He’s taken the time think things through and he’s in a state where he’s able to give the responses that I need from him.
Often our fights take place in the evening when our daughter is sleeping so the time-outs happen because we need to go to bed.
Yeah, you can go to bed angry and the world won’t end
We’ve heard that saying, “Don’t go to bed angry.” However, I don’t think that’s realistic or good practice. The expectation of this foolish advice is that you have to have your feelings resolved before sleeping.
But what happens to your brain the more tired it gets? The less it’s able to regulate your emotions and filter what you say versus what you actually mean. That’s when name-calling starts, feelings get hurt and words are said that cause permanent damage.
It’s better to talk about it after a night’s rest rather than to keep fighting.
Instead of “don’t go to bed angry.” it should be “don’t go to bed after saying something you regret.”
So Readers, what tactics do you use when emotions are heightened and it’s tough to control your anger?
