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If you have a habit of expressing your desires as irritable comments or of utilizing anger to get what you want, you have a serious challenge ahead.

How can you change anger habits? Interestingly, the steps are the same as for changing any counter-productive habit, whether it's smoking, lateness, messiness, or, in this case, needless irritability.

Understand the negative consequences. Who have you hurt with needless anger?

Make a clear decision that the habit is one that you have decided will be out-of-bounds. Make a commitment to yourself that acting in anger will be for you like eating worms. It is something on your list of things that are Simply Not Done.

Become aware when needless angers are occurring.

Interestingly, the hardest part of change is awareness. Just as you can drive for hours without ever being aware of having put your foot on the gas pedal, you can speak with an irritated voice, bully people by raising your voice volume or saying hurtful comments, or control people with the implied threat "and if you don't I'll get mad at you..."--all of these without ever even being aware that you have been expressing anger at all.

To get past your automatic pilot, notice. Listen closely to your tone of voice and to the niceness or nastiness of what you are saying. If you catch the old critical voice coming out, a quick apology, and then a second draft, minus the angry tone, will quickly be appreciated by the person you are talking with. Eventually you will find that you can catch yourself just before you start to talk, quiet the irritability, and then in a more tactful and respectful way continue.

Notice the patterns of when needless angers occur
Gradually you will be able to recognize patterns to your irritability. Do you tend to anger easily before meals? When you are tired or overloaded? In talking with particular family members? When you are hurrying? When you are talking about particular topics?

Remind yourself that you are not the maker of your spouse's shoulds.
Seeing the world in terms of should instead of coulds is a set-up for rapid anger reactions. Telling your spouse what he or she should be doing is out of bounds. You can voice what you would like, and then you respectfully listen to your partner's concerns and preferences. Shoulds are bullying, not partnering.

Keep reminding yourself of the basic dialogue rules
Talk about yourself, or ask about the other, but never tell the other person what he or she is or should be feeling, thinking, or doing. Anger most often comes from crossovers, from guessing or telling instead of asking your partner what s/he thinks, and with trying to make your spouse do what you want.

Listen to learn, to understand, your spouse's viewpoint. It can be remarkably calming. Spouses are seldom as bad as the negative labels you assign to them when you are feeling angry. Usually what they did that you found distressing was just a mistake, a miscommunication, or a misunderstanding.

Most important, if you are prone to angry feelings, maintain climate controls. The more fragile or heated you feel, the more likely you will overheat altogether.

Look for solutions to the situations that are the subjects of recurring arguments. Identify recurring topics, times, or situations that you typically react to with anger.

As you notice that certain topics tend to lead to your feeling irked, remember once more that most couples fight over the same few issues again and again. Instead of continuing this needless pattern, sit down together. Use fix-it talk to come to new mutually agreeable options for handling these situations. The chapters coming up on shared decision-making and on conflict resolution will further augment your tool box for settling these disputes. The best antidotes to argument are cooperative discussion and new solutions.

Signs That Say "Get Help"
Expressing and receiving anger are difficult. If you find that you are doing either very often, something is amiss.

The signs that you as a couple could benefit from professional help with the anger in your relationship do not have to be extreme. In fact, the less extreme your anger problem, the more likely that professional help can make a major and rapid difference.

The following conditions suggest that there's some kind of problem. Professional help from a marriage counselor or clinical psychologist who specializes in work with couples could help you to ease the strains.

Chronic irritability
Frequent anger outbursts
Frequent fighting
Physical violence of any type: threatening, shaking, pushing, hitting, choking, squeezing, punching, kicking, etc
Anger outbursts followed by remorse, repeated cyclically, suggest that the remorse is not leading to lasting changes.
Denying anger ("I wasn't really mad.") after you have raised your voice, or believing that your major anger episodes are caused by your spouse who does things you don't like ("It's her fault I'm mad"), are particularly noteworthy signs that say Get Help. All spouses do things from time to time that their partner doesn't like. That means time for Fix-It talk, not for anger outbursts.

A word of warning on getting professional help. Choosing a therapist is not like buying aspirin tablets. All mental health professionals are not equal. Trust your intuitions. Even if the person to whom you go is well-recommended and has excellent credentials, if the sessions do not feel helpful to you, speak up. If discussing your concerns does not lead to change, find someone else.

"Back to Chapter V: Anger as a Stop Sign"

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