When you’re in a relationship there will be times when you will get mad at your girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse. You both may argue and not always see eye to eye on everything. At times, they just may get on your last nerves. Maybe they forgot your birthday, are bad with money, don’t always complete household chores or seem to spend more time hanging out with their friends. How to you react to these things?
Do you try to punish them by emotionally hurting them because they forgot your birthday?
Do you yell, curse or call them all types of names because they overspent money on something?
Do you physically try to make them complete chores, threaten them or hit them until they begin some household chores?
Do you throw things, break things or damage their things because they came home late from hanging out with friends?
If you are reacting in this manner or doing any of these things, then you have an anger management problem. It’s never okay to physically hurt someone, purposely emotionally hurt someone or damage things because you’re mad. And contrary to what they say about words, Yes, words do hurt. Sometimes they sting. These are all extreme examples of anger that need to be addressed and taken seriously.
Wives, perhaps, your husband forgets to pay some bills and doesn’t complete household chores when you ask him to complete them. Do you wake up angry and start questioning him about when he’s going to do it? How often do you end up doing it and then start yelling at him again for not doing it and how you always have to do everything?
Husbands, maybe you feel like your wife just asks ridiculous questions or is always nagging you about something. You just want to watch television with a drink and snacks and not be disturbed. You figure the quickest solution is to just yell at her.
Girlfriends, what if your boyfriend decides to go to happy hour after work and then doesn’t answer the phone or respond to your text messages? Chances are this may cause arguments. You may call him a few times and leave some angry unpleasant text messages.
Boyfriends, do you get mad because your girlfriend constantly burns dinner, makes terrible coffee and never seems to want to get dressed up for you? Do you constantly get on her case about this? Perhaps, you feel you need to yell at her to at least fix her hair, put in some lip gloss and put on nice clothes for dinner.
Chances are these are something that you’ve had to deal with within your relationship. In fact, these are common things that some couples may deal with in their relationship. It’s natural for these things to make you feel angry and for you to react. But how do you know if you are overreacting? Does it really mean that you have anger management problems?
To answer that question, we must first define the definition of anger. Anger is an intense emotional feeling of displeasure, hostility or annoyance. It ranges from mild irritation to intense wrath and fury. There is health anger and unhealthy anger. It becomes unhealthy and a problem when the intensity, frequency and duration increase. Anger damages relationships when it escalates out of control causing problems. When you get angry you should ask yourself these three questions.
- What is the intensity of my anger?
- You need to determine on a scale, how angry or high is your anger. Is it a 9 or 10 on a scale of 1 to 10? How is your body feeling? Do you feel tense, are you red are you, is your heart racing or do you feel a migraine coming?
- What is the frequency of my anger?
- This means how often do you get mad or angry. You should try to figure out how often the same times make you feel mad or angry and how often different things make you feel mad or angry. Do you find yourself getting mad a few times a day, every couple of days or every week?
- What is the duration of my anger?
- This is referring to how long you stay angry during each instance you become angry. Do you feel angry for a couple of days, all day or a couple of hours? Take some time to try to measure how long you stay angry when you become angry.
By asking yourself these 3 questions, you’ll be able to start seeing and understanding your anger. Sometimes it’s hard to admit when we have a problem and other times is just sneaks up on us. Once you realize that you have an anger management problem, you can begin to address how your anger is damaging your relationship. Chances are it’s causing more arguments, conflicts and making both people unhappy. Your spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend may even be reevaluating if this relationship is worth it or if they want to continue it. Have you considered that the reason they don’t want to spend time with you, talk to you or communicate with you is because they’re fed up with your anger issues? They may even be scared to tell you things, to talk to you about it or scared of you. As you can see and already know, anger does damage relationships.
However, all is not lost and there is hope for you. It is possible to work on controlling your anger. If this is a problem within your relationship, then anger management can help to repair this. This will take some time and you will need to put in the work. We’ll go ahead and review a few solutions that you can do today.
Calm Down
Take some time to pay attention to cues from your body that you’re getting angry. Some of these cues may be a racing heart, turning red, body tensing up or headaches. If you start to experience any of these things, then you should calm remove yourself and take a timeout. During this timeout, you’ll need to work on calming down. One way to calm down is to slowly take a couple of breathes.
Try taking 5 deep slow long breathes. As you inhale count to 2 Mississippi’s and as you exhale count to 5 Mississippi’s. Another thing you could try is listening to music. Make sure you have access to music such as your phone, radio or the television. Try listening to calming, upbeat or happy music. Instrumental music with not words is good too. Make sure to avoid any loud, intense or angry music that will pump you up because the goal is to calm down.
Think
When a person becomes angry, they may not always make the best choices. Instead of saying or doing the first things that comes to mind, try thinking about your different choices. Review each choice in your head along with the results on others. Think about how it will make you feel if you choose that option. You’ll want to practice making good choices to improve your relationship. Once you have reviewed all your options, go ahead and choice an option and act upon it. Sometimes the option may be to do nothing at all. If it still bothers you, you can address it later when you’re no longer angry.
Communication
Arguments usually occur because someone doesn’t feel like the other person is listening to them. This may cause you to feel like you have to raise your voice, get louder or yell because you don’t feel like the person hears you. Sometimes they still may not understand what you want or receive the message incorrectly. Trying to talk when you’re not mad. Practice taking turns speaking and listening. One example of this is one person speaks for about 2 minutes. The other person has to listen to them and cannot interrupt them. When the first person is done, the other person gets to speak without being interrupted. As you take turns, make sure not to talk to long at a time. This allows both people to speak, listen to the other person, respond and ask questions.
Seeking Professional Assistance
If you’re still struggling with controlling your relationship and still feel like anger is damaging your relationship, it may be time to seek our professional help. Therapy is a great way to work on controlling your anger. Through therapy you’ll learn even more ways of how anger damages relationships. Your therapist should be able to come up with an individualize action plan to help you to resolve this issue. You could sign up for individual therapy, couple’s therapy or both. Either option will be beneficial. Additional options for addressing how anger damages relationships are signing up for an anger management class or anger management group. This option will address managing your anger by participating in a group setting. Anger management groups and anger management classes can be beneficial too.
By now you’ve learned the definition of anger and how anger can damage relationships. You’ve also learned a couple of questions to ask yourself to determine if you have anger issues. We’ve explored a few solutions that you can try on your own. In addition, you’ve been given some options for seeking professional assistance to help you with controlling your anger. As you continue to work on this and give it time, you should begin see some positive results.
