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Managing Anger Differently


Madamdiva007

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Can anyone give any advice as to different ways to manage anger without arguing or fighting? I seem to be flying off the handle constantly these days, I don't know what's gotten into me, and I need to get myself under control. Every time my husband and I go out with our friends, I get upset about something. It's like clockwork. It's ridiculous and we are both extremely tired of it (it's getting to the point where he doesn't want to go out with me anymore). I just don't know how to control my emotions better, and I wondered if anyone knew of any exercises I could do to get myself under control.

 

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If your anger is hair triggered....you need to find the reason. What are you upset about....because whatever sets it off is incidental and not the root cause.

 

Unless you are willing to go to therapy....you need to seriously look into your thoughts/heart for the cause. And then address it.

 

A quick fix....exercise for an hour a day. It will.vent your aggression.

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First you need to figure out what is triggering your anger and then you deal with that. Until you do whatever is causing all that anger and upset to simmer beneath the surface is going to keep bubbling up no matter how often you count to 50, take deep breaths, go outside of a break etc. If this has come on suddenly and was not a problem until recently you need to do the following:

 

a) make sure it's not a warning sign of a physical illness or something throwing your hormone levels off like perimenopause or menopause. Get a full physical checkup. Also look over any medications or any medication changes that have happened recently since yes, some medications can change emotions.

b) if that doesn't seem to be the problem then stop and examine your relationships with others and see if something happened fairly recently that has triggered anger in you, even if you deny it. Did your husband do something you are resenting, is a close friend suddenly needling you and acting hostile, do you go to the same place all the time and they have a new person there who makes you feel uncomfortable etc.

c) did some other life-altering event take place recently that has you feeling scared or powerless in some way? Anger can be a way of trying to assert power and prove to yourself that you're still in charge even if it is misplaced.

 

If none of these things work then it may be time to gather up some self-help books or even talk a counselor or therapist about what's troubling you. And in the meantime write down the last ten times you got angry and what triggered those. Then sit down and work out how to avoid those triggers or even just understand that if you're out in public avoiding or handling these things in a certain way can avoid a lot of trouble--i.e. if you know that your eggs are never done right by anyone but you don't order anything with eggs on it from the menu, etc. don't drink wine if you always get angry after a couple of glasses and so forth.

 

See if these things help. Much like fear, anger is often a signal that something is wrong either physically or emotionally and you need to pay attention to what your emotions are telling you.

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I was going to say drinking causes emotions to 'flair'. Did for me. If something was irritating me a little...drinking ( a depressant) would make me go off the deep end.

 

But PP beat me to it! So i am seconding that...not as a reason for you being angry, but maybe it wouldn't be triggered so easily if you hadn't been drinking. What makes me think drinking, is because it happens when you do OUT with friends.

 

What have the fights been about? What has triggered it? Was he talking to someone too much? Was he looking at someone? Or was it about mundane, daily life stuff?

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Actually, I moved 5000 miles away from my home to a different country, to where he is from. I quit my job and sold everything. I've never been here before, not even been to this continent before so this has all been a pretty dramatic change for me. But I've been here for nearly 2 months, have a job and am making friends so I'm not quite sure why I'm acting out so much. I definitely feel like I've lost all control and power. But I thought that my behavior would be settling down by now.

 

I will say that alcohol has been involved in many of our fights, but not always. It probably wouldn't hurt to stop drinking though.

 

As far as the fights are concerned, they seem to mostly be mundane stuff. For example: last week I got really upset because he had just gotten off work (he is working 2 jobs right now) and I went to hug him and he pushed me away. He said he was hot, sweaty, and tired and he felt smothered. He said he needs some space after he gets off work, time to sit and have a beer and just decompress without me. I get it now, and it hasn't been an issue since. I've been leaving him alone and letting him do his own thing. It's mostly things like that.

 

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I just find that I get do upset and I let my emotions get the best of me. I know I'm being ridiculous and illogical, I know I need to just keep my mouth shut, but it's almost ad if I just blurt out what I'm thinking or feeling instead of giving myself a few minutes to relax. I'm just trying to figure out what I can do to get myself to 'think before I speak'.

 

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Oh...HA! See, that would upset me also! If i went to hug my SO and i was pushed away...geez. He felt 'smothered' cuz you went to hug him when he came home? *sigh* I would LOVE it if someone besides my dog was excited to see me when i came home! Come to think of it....she's not excited either! :sorrow:

 

But then again...i am WAAAY too emotional too!

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Ok, men actually DO need a bit of time to decompress when they come home from work. Usually what I do with my husband is for a half an hour let him sit down have his cuppa tea and then talk and discuss because he likes his little decompression time. This is very common for men like their little bit of decompression time when they come home.

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That's not a man thing, that's a person thing! The only person I want sweaty hugs from when I get home from work is my munchkin. Everyone else needs to just let me be for awhile.

 

You have control over what you choose to verbalize. So choose to exercise it. There are a lot of things that irritate me momentarily. Like say, when someone cancels a plan on me last minute or is late. It really pisses me off for about 10 minutes, then I start to deflate and decompress. I know those 10 minutes are not the time to start expressing feelings. In the past I just decided I HAD to get it out, and I felt really foolish afterwards. Just because you feel a particular way at a particular moment doesn't mean that you absolutely must verbalize it right then. Especially since you have so many incidents of realizing, later on, that you were being illogical.

 

Figure out your little window of time there and simply make a conscious decision to reexamine your feelings in a little while, after the initial sting/irritation has worn off.

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Thank you guys. You all are right. I will say, that these fights seem to help. Once I see how angry he is and I listen to everything he says, 'I get it'. I feel like I've made some major changes, although every other night it does seem to be something new with me.

 

I don't understand why I'm doing this, and I'm so worried in ruining my marriage because of this. My husband says he's gotten used to it. And that lately when it's been happening he's been so tired it hasn't really bothered him. But then last night he said he was tired of this and that he's miserable when we go out because of it. I hope it's not too late...

 

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What strikes me about your posts is that you seem to have very little insight on your own behavior and actions. I don't mean that as a put down but as a hint that perhaps you should consider counseling so that you can learn to understand yourself and your team triggers better.

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Ms Darcy, you're absolutely right. I've been in counseling before, and had to stop due to financial constraints. I've been looking into it now, as well, and as soon as I can afford it I plan to start going again. But I have to figure out a way to get some of this under control until I can get some professional help.

 

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Counseling is needed here because I do agree with Darcy with this one. For the time being, perhaps you could make more effort to understand your own responses by reading self-help books, by journaling whenever it happens so you could see the patterns, etc. Whenever I feel frustrated, I like to take a few deep breaths just to remind myself that I'm still grounded into reality and not running away with my emotions, focusing on the now and not the emotions making you feel like this. As in... This morning, I was watching a movie on my propped up tablet and my cat kept brushing her head on my tablet, making it to fall. I felt the annoyance feeling in my chest and took the cue to take a deep breath, remind myself that she's only a cat and what she wants is love from me, focusing on the reality, not the self serving emotions of myself. With that done, I gave a bit of attention to my cat and then I could watch my movie in peace. Easy solution rather than scaring/turning off anybody.

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