Couple Support

Do You Prefer Rage or Effectiveness When You Are Upset in Your Marriage?

You know the kind of anger that fumes silently for a long time and then explodes in a big, noisy flash? You yell, you say things that later on you wish you hadn’t. You get completely unhinged. The more you talk, the larger grows your anger – until you are spent and fall silent. Your explosion is good for releasing energy, but as a device for getting something changed, it’s not so good. Here is a better way:

Confront the fact that you don’t yet give yourself permission to tell what is bothering you when you first get upset. That is why you let your anger build up until you “can’t help yourself” and have to speak.

There probably are a few “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” about speaking up or showing anger that will have to be confronted, as well as a possible fear of the consequences of talking straight that you will need to explore with your partner. (“Would you rather that I share what is on my mind at the time or store things up until I am full of rage and explode at you?”)

You may look quite awesome and feel temporarily powerful when finally you explode and all your anger and resentment come rushing out. Realize that you will be trading all that in for a much less dramatic and controlled effectiveness, when you give yourself permission to just speak up. No huge explosion.  just a measured “Something is going on right now that I need to talk about.”

Make sure that you would rather be effective and get something you don’t like changed than roar but get nothing changed. Once that is clear, you can be on your way to making relationship changes that will work for you – and maybe your partner as well.

Find the Bad Couple Routines and Change Them

We humans are creatures of habit. Look at our marriages and partner relationships. Couples mostly relate in standard patterns or routines. Some of these routines are neutral, like those that begin the typical work day. Some are positive, like comfortable, satisfying sex. And some are really negative and damage our relationships. The neutral routines are useful. The positive routines are satisfying. The negative routines serve no healthy purpose. We should understand how they work and get rid of them.

Consider the standard "Ruth is unhappy with Ben" routine. Ruth complains harshly to Ben. Ben feels hurt but says nothing. Frustrated by Ben’s silence, Ruth complains more loudly. Ben hurts more but endures in silence. When his only escape is to say something, Ben says, "You are right Ruth – whatever you say. I’m guilty."

This sad routine ends with Ruth stomping off angrily. Afterward, neither speaks to the other - sometimes for days.

A change in either partner’s behavior changes the routine. Ruth would interrupt the routine if she stopped her harangue and asked Ben what she could do that would inspire him to speak. Alternately, Ben could tell Ruth that her manner of speaking hurt him. He could agree to discuss her complaint if she were to speak differently.

Achieving satisfaction with each other would allow Ruth and Ben to look together at their unhappy routine in a cooperative, uncritical way, following this useful pattern: When you do X, I feel Y and respond Z. A better way would be if we…

Be Upset with Your Partner – But No Self-Righteousness

If you have been holding in a big complaint for a long time and finally have found the courage to tell you partner, go for it. Let’r rip. Otherwise, maybe you ought to be a little bit suspicious of your own outrage.

If you have a well-articulated, well-practiced sense of outrage., if expressing it sounds like you are making a speech, if your outrage increases as you go along, if – secretly – you are enjoying yourself as you lay into your partner, then quite possibly you have entered the zone of self-righteousness and probably ought not to be there.

Behind most relationship complaints lies a situation for which each partner has at least partial responsibility. The more righteously indignant you get about your partner’s behavior, the less you are able to see your part. If you can’t see your part or see it only partially and poorly, you then you will be at a loss to help prevent a reoccurrence.

If you think that it is all your partner’s fault and it isn’t, then the responsibility for preventing a reoccurrence falls entirely to your partner. And if your partner knows that it isn’t all him or her, your partner’s motivation to stop whatever is going on – without your cooperation – won’t be very great.

Then round and round you go.

On the other hand, if you climb off your high horse and get clear about your responsibility before you nail your partner for his (or hers), you are going to succeed much better.

What you say to your partner might go something like this, "I know that I am partly responsible for what happened last night – and I am willing to have you say what you think my responsibility is. At the same time, really I am furious at you for what you said to me in front of our friends. I want you to own up to hurting me. Will you do that – as well as complain to me about my part?"

Some Subjects Need An Up Close Treatment

         

Some subjects – like your sexual relationship – demand an up close treatment. "Up close" means familiar, fundamentally accepting, trusting, open, flexible. "Up close" is the opposite of "distant," which is out of touch, unfriendly, distrustful, relatively closed and rigid.

If you can help it, you don’t want to discuss any of the big subjects from a distant place. You are not going to do well if you and your partner talk about money, raising the kids, your unhappiness, affection, sex and similar "sensitive" topics when you are feeling really distant from each other.

Your mutual distrust and out-of-touchness is bound to interfere. You won’t be sympathetic to the other person’s point of view. (In fact, you may not even listen to it.) You will probably push your own views in an antagonistic and rigid way. And the subject itself will probably end up a distant second to your complaints about each other.

Is there something that you and your partner really need to talk about? Are you worried that it won’t go well? Yes? Then first do your best to move the relationship from distant to relatively up close.

How? Spend some time – a few days even – being mutually generous and understanding before you talk. And when you do sit down to explore the subject, reassure each other that you will listen sympathetically and treat what each other says with respect.