Is anger bad? No! God gets angry. People get angry. And that's okay. It's how we handle it that matters. The Bible says:
"Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don't use your anger
as fuel for revenge. And don't stay angry. Don't go to bed angry. Don't give the
Devil that kind of foothold in your life." -Ephesians 4:26 (The Message)
Let's assume you and your parter are having a fight. It's really tempting to start blaming, accusing, screaming, using sarcasm, and being hurtful. We've all been there! But honestly, those techniques won't make you feel better, and they will not ever stop a fight. To actually solve the problem, there are some healthy ways to vent your anger. Here are some suggestions:
1. Take a break. If one of you gets so angry the fight is going nowhere, take a break. Note that screaming, "Fine!" and storming out is not "a break." A break means you calmly say, "I want to work this out, but right now I think we're too upset. I want to go be alone for half an hour. Can we meet back here at 4:30?" You are not forcing this on your partner, but calmly telling them one of you needs space. You can use this break to do whatever calms you both down: take a car ride, call a friend, have a bubble bath, read, listen to music, cry, take a walk, whatever. Just make sure you're not together. And a break always has a definite ending! It's important not to just call off the fight and then ignore it forever. Make a set time (one hour, five hours, or tomorrow) no more than 24 hours away to get back together and start the talk again.
2. Don't exaggerate or over-generalize. Something we all tend to do in fights is start generalizing and exaggerating. If you catch yourself using words like "always," "never," and "your whole life," you are probably generalizing. I know I can handle it if my partner tells me, "You hurt my feelings yesterday when you snapped at me." But if he says, "You are always so sarcastic! You never listen to me or care about me!" I am too busy feeling hurt and attacked to make him feel better. Avoid these words during fights, and instead tell them the specific time it happened, "yesterday," "last week," or "just a minute ago."
3. Don't "kitchen sink." The "kitchen sink" strategy is an unhealthy fighting strategy most people use subconsciously. This means you "throw everything but the kitchen sink" at them! Okay, so maybe my partner is mad at me for being sarcastic yesterday. But if he starts in with a huge list of things I've done wrong in the past month, he is only going to overwhelm me and make me defensive and angry. Usually, this makes the attacked person start to "kitchen sink" back. Fights should only deal with one issue at a time! No matter how badly you are itching to point out that "you do it, too!" or "but, you do this!", that is material for another fight, not this one. Deal with one specific behavior, and not a laundry list of 5 or 12 behaviors that annoy you.
4. Use "I statements." This means you should not blame the person, but take responsibility for your own feelings. Most people fight using "you statements." An example of this is, "You told me you would do the dishes but I got home and you were just watching tv!" What your partner hears is you, you, you. He naturally feels attacked and defensive. To say the same thing with "I statements" you simply need to turn the focus onto your own feelings. "I asked you to do the dishes, and I was hurt and angry when I got home and they weren't done. I was frustrated because I was looking forward to a clean house." In this sentence, you never blame your spouse, but simply share your feelings. This is a healthy and productive way to air out disagreements.
A note: it is really tempting to avoid "you statements" by using "It statements." I catch myself doing this all the time! Rather than taking responsibility for my own feelings ("I felt hurt when..." I manage to throw the blame onto something else: "It made me mad when you...." The truth is, you didn't make me mad, and it didn't make me mad.... I am mad. It doesn't matter who caused it, my emotions are my own, and no one causes or makes me to feel emotions.
5. Attack the behavior, not the person. This relates to using "I" and not "you" statements. Rather than attacking qualities about your parter (lazy, stupid, uncaring, selfish), attack the specific behavior (the dishes aren't done, we went over budget, your mother was mean to me, we don't have sex enough). There is no reason to blame your spouse; you are simply sharing with her that the two of you have a problem and you want to fix it together! So instead of snapping, "You hurt my feelings, what were you thinking?! All you care about it yourself, you never worry about my feelings!", try a calm, "I felt hurt when you said that about my hair. I'm sure you didn't mean to offend me, but I am sensitive about my appearance, so in the future could you please not tease me about my hair?" This lets your parter know you don't think he's a generally awful person, but are just hurt by his behavior.
6. Have a point, make it, back off. This strategy helps fights be short, quick, and to the point. Fights that drag on and on just spiral out of control. Try to keep it short: no long lectures, no blaming, no manipulation, no playing games, no guilt trips, and no hopping up on your soap-box for a long-winded dissertation on the many ways you've been wronged. The longer the conflict goes on, the more likely one or both of you are to get really overwhelmed and start resorting to unhealthy fighting patterns. Hence what I call my "Have a point, make it, back off" strategy! Make your point, as succinctly as possible, and then stop and wait for a response! It you can keep your complain short and sweet, you are more likely to get to the meat of the issue without all the kitchen sinking, you statements, exaggeration, blaming, and over-generalizations that will make a fight go downhill fast.
With these basic points, you and your partner can learn to deal with conflict more effectively. Remember, there is nothing wrong with being angry! Anger is just your way of knowing something is wrong or you feel hurt. Instead of blaming your partner, ask them to help you fix the problem and make you feel better.
On another note: there is no reason to internalize your anger; this just leads to resentment. If your partner has done something wrong, feel free to tell him. You are allowed to feel angry! At this point, it is important for your partner to not just get angry back, but to validate you. Later blogs will discuss this important component of conflict.
These six tips to fighting fair are difficult to remember, especially in the heat of battle, so just keep re-reading and re-practicing them. If you forget during a fight, that's okay; you can try harder to remember next time. Be forgiving of each other and move on with life!
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