Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships

 

Juliette was at the end of her rope

Working as a risk management specialist for a large medical group was getting 36-year-old Juliette down. She was exhausted and had no energy left for her husband, 38-year-old Elliot and their 5 and 6 year old children Aden and Mara. She hated having to work, but was the only breadwinner. The pressure on Juliette made her depressed. All she wanted to do was to sleep. She left the chores to her Elliot who attended to them with pride, seeing them as his contribution to the family.

Even when she was awake, Juliette felt fatigued and disinterested in playing with her kids. She preferred to look on as Elliot engaged them in cycling, swimming and ball games. She was easily upset when things didn’t go right with the family, and felt useless as a mother, sister and wife. Depression had taken hold, and Juliette was steeped in a lack of self-worth. Her anger at having to be the breadwinner was buried in the depression, as was her disappointment and resentment towards her husband for not taking on that role.

The happiness Elliot felt taking care of the home and family was tainted by his anxiety about Juliette’s depression. He was scared that if she got worse and couldn’t work, he would be forced to step into the breach! Since losing his sales job three years ago, he had given up looking for other opportunities having had little response and numerous applications rejected. He had settled into being the primary care taker, but Juliette’s depression was stirring up fears again. Frantic efforts to cheer up his wife, and fix whatever problems she talked about didn’t make things any easier. She just got more and more morose and shut down, hoping that he would take up the baton and support the family.

 

They didn’t talk about Juliette’s depression or about Elliot’s anxiety that he would have to get a job if she didn’t pull herself together. They were caught in a vicious cycle where Juliette’s depression made her more dependent on Elliot to take care of parenting, housework and the children’s school issues. The more dependent Juliette became the more Elliot countered that he couldn’t get a job because he was burdened with all the child care and household management!

Depression promotes stress about not being able to cope, resulting in poor romantic relationship outcomes, says a study reported in Clinical Psychology Review, 2010.

Another study reported in Communication Monographs, 2015 monitored the communication between romantic couples where one partner was depressed.  They found that depressed members of a romantic partnership avoided talking about the depression and how it impacted their relationship, as well as about the relationship itself.  The uncertainty about the status of the relationship was the primary reason for avoidance. Women were less likely than men to talk about the depression, exacerbating the uncertainty in the relationship.

Depressed people like Juliette are motivated to avoid negative outcomes and often use avoidance as a way of managing their relationship problems. Although it may ease the stress in the moment of choosing avoidance, over the long term, there is a price to pay. Opportunities to practice interpersonal skills are removed. Chances to deepen bonds through understanding and empathy are neglected, leading to and interpretation of each other’s behavior in increasingly negative ways.  The threats to their identity as individuals and members of a couple are never faced and resolved, adding to the stress, and deepening the depression, as reported in an article in Clinical Psychology Review, 2011

A depressed partner may take anti-depressants like SSRI’s (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro, Cimbalta, Effexor, Celexa etc.) and still not get any better. A recent study reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb. 9, 2015 found that stress prevents the medication from doing its job, making the depression even worse. This study described the ‘punishment center of the brain’ (lateral habenula) that rules, making a person feel down on themselves and more depressed.

Put that together with a finding that placebo pills were as good if not better than anti-depressants in affecting mood (Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. 2010) we have a perfect storm of bad feeling and estrangement between a romantic couple. Putting Juliette on anti-depressants won’t make her better, nor will it remove the cause for her depression. She needs to be depressed to push her husband into being the breadwinner.

 

 

So what can this couple do with this awful situation?

 

Attend couples therapy and begin the process of implementing these 6 essential steps

• Discuss their expectations of each other.
• Express their disappointments, fears and anger at one another for the roles they are forced to adopt.
• Discuss the depression, it’s purpose and impact on the family, including the rage Juliette suppressed, about having to be the one supporting the family when she really wanted to be the one taken care of.
• Explore coping mechanisms for the relationship stress by noticing the trigger points.
• Begin the process of sharing parenting and household tasks
• Shift Elliot from feeling “forced” to get a job, to “wanting” to get a job

 

 

copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. 2015

AUTHOR OF: Now You Want Me, Now You Don't! Fear of Intimacy: Ten ways to recognize it and ten ways to manage it in your relationship.

You might also like:

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Disclaimer: this article is for informational and educative purposes only. Dr. Raymond is not responsible for any reactions you may have when reading the content or using the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Jeanette Raymond

 

Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships

 

Arguing with your Spouse About Mother-in-law Problems Makes you Angry and Stressed

 

The power of a mother-in-law to interfere in a marriage causes intense negative feelings that can destroy the spousal bounds

Angela and Josh a newly married couple were at logger heads about Angela's mother telling him how to treat and take care of her daughter.  She kept calling and texting him about Angela's food needs, her anxieties, her need to get pregnant and the need for child to be a son.  Josh tried to talk to Angela about his distaste for being told how to be a good husband by his mother-in-law, but Angela secretly smiled. She was thrilled that her mother was on Josh's back to do the 'right thing' by her, because she was too scared to do it herself. She loved that her mother was her champion, and whipping up her husband to do the same.

What Angela didn't appreciate was that Josh was feeling emasculated and furious. He was angry about the temerity of his mother-in-law to tell him what to do, as if he knew nothing of his wife's needs. He was fuming that he wasn't given a chance to find his feet in his new role as a husband., But most of all he was livid that his wife enjoyed seening him as a puppet controlled by her mother. Lurking underneath all that rage was shame – making him feel small, powerless and inadequate.

 

Caught Between His Bossy Mother-in-law and His Uncaring Wife, Josh Buckled Under the Stress

Josh's anger made him want to punish Angela. He wanted her to feel the threat of losing him, and he withdrew. He couldn't take the feeling of being helpless to manage his mother-in-law without upsetting his wife and feeling like he was to blame for causing friction in his new marriage.

Feeling Trapped Between a Rock and a Hard Place Creates More Stress Because Josh Keeps His Anger Hidden

Telling his mother-in-law nicely to back off didn't work. She was too strong a personality and insisted that she needed to help him be a good husband – and that without her he would fail – just like her husband failed her – and she wasn't going to let that happen to her precious daughter.

Getting his wife to speak up on his behalf didn't work either. She didn't see why it was such a problem, and told him that he should be grateful to her mother for giving him such good advice!

What are Josh's Options?

1. He can continue keeping silent and seethe inside as he allows himself to be disempowered.

Risk – he might cheat or take a mistress who allows him full control. He may conquer his shame by feeling his power in another relationship.

Benefit – he doesn't upset the applecart of mother-daughter alliance against his entitlement to be a full partner in the marriage, excluding the third party of his mother-in-law.

 

2. He can let the stress get to him by getting sick – then his wife might refocus her lens on him and their marriage.

Risk – the shift in focus will probably be short lived. His wife and mother-in-law may join forces and continue their close relationship, leaving him on the sidelines.

Benefit – he doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, and still hopes that Angela would choose him over her mother.

 

3. He can decide that he isn't going to be ousted from his rightful place in the marriage, and reclaim his position and power by telling his wife what he wants

Risk – his wife may have a small tantrum, and his mother-in-law may have a huge tantrum. He might feel guilty and scared that he won't be able to pull it off.

Benefit – he gets his wife to redraw the boundaries between her mother and herself, committing to Josh and their marriage.

 

WHICH SOLUTION DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO WORK BEST?

Yes, you are right, the one where Josh reclaims his wife and makes the marriage a priority.

What shoud have happened before the marriage?

Mothers-in-laws can't intefere in a marriage unless there is a huge hole through which she can enter and divide a a couple that wern't really a strong and united coulple in the first place. Ideally the couple should have formed a bond that made their union solid and made it known to all other family members that no one could come in and operate with either of them in ways that they had done before. Josh and Angela had not shifted their allegience from family to each other fully enough, so Angela's mother had a wide berth.

HOW DOES IT WORK OUT?

1. Once Josh takes ownership of his role in taking care of Angela, his demeanor and attitude will give off the message that his mother-in-law is no longer the boss.

2. Then Angela receives the same message and invests in her husband as a good partner and care taker. She relinquishes her primary tie with her mother and makes it with Josh.

3. Next Josh and Angela work on making their union water tight. They agree to express their needs, fears, wishes and disappointments directly to one another, so they can fine tune their relationship while it is still new and maleable. They get to avoid resentment and hate building up and making them sick or tearing the marriage into a battle zone.

4. Josh and Angela give each other the chance to repair hurts, understand and empathize with each other's unfulfilled needs and frustrations, while navigating their way towards a more wholesome connection. That enables them to grieve their losses and move on.

5. The couple learn to read each other's body language and signals for care and become the go to people for one another. They learn from their mistakes rather than bury them.

6. Both Angela and Josh make a pact to tell each other what they feel, need, want and expect at the time that they are aware of it. That's how they avoid building up anxiety and stress related insomnia.

7. Finally, Josh and Angela make sure that any holes that might appear in their relationship are noticed and promptly sewn up by attending to the issues – underlying negative emotional experiences that are bubbling beneath the surface. Taking preventive action rather than waiting for a crisis is a fool-proof method of never having to deal with the anger and stress of an interfering mother-in-law.

copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. 2014

AUTHOR OF: Now You Want Me, Now You Don't! Fear of Intimacy: Ten ways to recognize it and ten ways to manage it in your relationship.

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Disclaimer: this article is for informational and educative purposes only. Dr. Raymond is not responsible for any reactions you may have when reading the content or using the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Jeanette Raymond

 

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Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

 

 

 

If your partner is threatening to leave if you don’t go to anger management therapy, then you are probably trying to be quiet and unassuming to avoid risking an angry outburst.

 

But ironically you are only making it more likely that you will have more angry explosions, more often and of a fiercer nature.

That’s what thirty-seven year old clothing importer Dorian discovered after he came to therapy. He was terrified that his wife Amelia, a thirty-three year old nurse would leave him and never let him see their child due to be born in a couple of months. He didn’t want to come to therapy. But he came to appease Amelia and reduce the risk of devastating loss.

Dorian was very quiet in therapy. It was hard to believe he could have angry outbursts and frighten Amelia to such an extent that she wanted to end the relationship and protect her unborn child. He spoke in a matter of fact manner, calmly, clearly and logically. He understood and owned his problem and he got why Amelia had presented him with an ultimatum. He was willing to do what I suggested and practice the skills that he wanted me to teach him.

The only problem was he didn’t show any emotion. He was like a machine saying all the right things to show his commitment except talk about the experience of being angry. He had ready answers for why he shouldn’t be angry, and how he knew that there were better ways of communicating. Dorian was in perfect control of himself during therapy and for most of the time when he went about his daily business. He successfully numbed himself to whatever triggers could have made him and most other regular folks angry, or so it seemed in the moment. What he didn’t realize was that he was building a massive pyre on which to burn and destroy himself and those around him when the fuse was eventually lit.

What he really wanted was to be seen and heard as a person with good intentions.

But he never felt the comfort of knowing that Amelia “got” him, so he would keep trying and when he reached breaking point he would explode in anger, misery, and terror that his efforts were useless. He would find his heart going like an express train when he felt misunderstood or not given credit for things he had thought of and carried out, like that time when he had got up at the crack of dawn to do the laundry and make breakfast when Amelia was resting during a nauseous phase in her pregnancy. All he got was a criticism for being noisy!

At first Dorian related these incidents as if he were reading the weather forecast. But then he started to relive them and he began to notice his body reacting with tension, breathing difficulty and rapid heart rate. The memories became real and alive. His voice choked up and he became agitated when he recalled countless incidents of this nature that accumulated into a tinder box of pain and hurt ready to ignite when the sore wound was poked again. That’s when I was able to witness, acknowledge and soothe his pain, shame and grief at his lack of success in getting through to Amelia except by angry outbursts.

As he shared more of his emotions by talking about them, Dorian noticed that he didn’t fear going home every day. His heart rate didn’t escalate to bursting point whenever he had to relate to Amelia. Things were calmer and the relationship settled down into a more stable and relaxed routine.

So what happened to make Dorian calmer and less likely to explode?

As the journal PLoS ONE reported in 2013, talking and reporting on strong feelings of anger reduce heart rate and stress. Dorian’s experience of reliving his painful experiences in therapy meant that he was reporting them as if they were happening in the moment. He expressed in words what he had been stuffing in an undigested manner that previously would have exploded when he got triggered by an accusation.

Dorian learned that expressing himself in words got him acknowledgement and understanding – in other words he got his message across.

That led to him feeling calmer and more able to have a discussion based on what the issues of the moment happened to be. Instead of fighting for entry into Amelia’s awareness, he was now showing her in a way that was relevant and not clouded by weeks and months of pent up pain and anger. Putting strong feelings, especially anger into words meant that Dorian was not reacting to raw and messy stuff inside him, but expressing the genuine impact that relating to Amelia evoked in him. It was not shameful or childish any more, once it was put into words. It was just real.

Yes, Dorian had to pay a price – he had to feel those feelings up front and deal with the pain and hurt, the wish to punish and retaliate and the sheer anguish and desperation of trying to get accepted and understood. He hated reliving these moments when the feelings came rushing in and he felt like he was drowning without a life jacket. He often avoided therapy to skip out on experiencing his feelings.

 

But as time went on and he got used to it he realized that the feelings got smaller and went away sooner.

They became tolerable and he was then able to share them in the moment with Amelia. It was a long hard road with many bumps but the threat of losing Amelia and their child was enough to encourage Dorian to sustain the course with clear and lasting benefits. He is no longer labeled as one who has explosive bursts of anger, but one who just like everyone else gets angry from time to time but expresses it in words and gets it attended to.

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

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Disclaimer: this article is for informational and educative purposes only. Dr. Raymond is not responsible for any reactions you may have when reading the content or using the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Are you angry about having to do all the work in your relationship?

Do you feel like protesting against always having to take the initiative?

Perhaps the only way to protest is to shut down and hope your partner  will miss you enough to bring you back to life.

But it doesn't work, so you get even more angry and you get told that you have anger issues that you need to get fixed.

You are told that you need to go to anger management and that you really need to learn to control your anger.

But you feel justified in your anger.

You just can't take one more step towards working in the relationship and letting your partner get away with not doing anything.

That's exactly how a client of mine felt until he came to anger management therapy and learned to distinguish between 'work' in a relationship and getting his needs met so that his relationship felt nourishing and satisfying.

Watch this video and get a jump start on your relationship problems by following the advice I gave him.

 

 

 

Copyright © Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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Anger Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

 

Shantal Feels Dissed

Shantal's relief at opening her front door lasted exactly one minute. One look at Andre's face told her that he was overflowing with irritation. She braced herself for the complaints he had stored up during her absence at a work conference. The barrage began right away. Shantal escaped to the bedroom. She crawled into bed without bothering to unpack, and tuned out. She felt like a dumpster being filled with four days worth of stinking trash.

Frustrations Froth Up The Battle

Andre put his arm around his wife and nibbled at her ears. That usually turned her on, but not this time. She said she was tired after her trip and wasn't in the mood for sex. Andre let out a big sigh. He had been looking forward to making love with his wife. He had hoped that a few days apart would make her want him again. His imagination went wild with images of a frustrating sexless marriage.That would be unacceptable What was he to do? He didn't want to cheat, and he couldn't tolerate the thought of Shantal looking elsewhere for sexual satisfaction.

Putting The Dreaded Talk Off For As Long As Possible

Saturday came around too fast for Shantal but not soon enough for Andre. He prepared his opening gambit to get this problem out in the open and dealt with. Shantal clung to every moment in the shower, jogged for a longer time, cleaned, shopped and cooked, until there was nothing left to fend off the dreaded encounter. As soon as Andre sat on the sofa and asked if she was okay, she braced herself for a round of challenges that she didn't want to explore.

"Are you feeling okay?" Andre asked, delicately opening the can of worms.

" I'm fine. Just a bit tired." Shantal responded pushing the lid down on the can.

" It's just that you seem to be tired a lot, and it comes up every time I try to make love to you." Andre expressed as he pulled out a juicy worm.

" I can't help it if I'm tired. You always want to have sex when I need to sleep. "Shantal defended, cutting off access to any more worms getting out.

" What am I doing wrong? I worry that I'm not attractive to you any longer." Andre spilled out two more wriggly worms.

" You just don't get it do you? You criticize me if I'm tired, or if I go away for work and don't do the chores around the house. If I am not in the mood to do what you want, you blame me for spoiling your plans. You never ask what I want to do, or show any concern for how I feel. It doesn't exactly make me feel like having sex with you." Shantal spewed as she poured the remaining worms in the can over Andre's head.

" I don't mean to criticize you. I just want us to be on the same page. What's the point of being together if we want to do different things? We might as well be room mates."Andre said, deflecting the blows to his self-esteem.

Shantal Turns Off Her Sexuality

Andre and Shantal both felt unwanted and unattractive, but in very different ways. Andre felt his maleness threatened, so he came on strong, using sex to boost his masculinity. Shantal felt treated like an object rather than a desirable female. She turned off the tap to her sexuality.

 

                            

  Sex Is About Putting Up Walls and Tearing Them Down

 

 

What does having sex mean for this couple?

It isn't about expressing love or sharing physical pleasure.

It isn't about tender moments of vulnerable intimacy.

It isn't about taking the time to be with one another in a secure embrace.

The sexual act for Andre and Shantal is code for managing boundaries. Andre wants to tear them down by engaging in sex, reuniting the couple. Shantal wants to put them back up to signal her refusal to be taken for granted.

Frank Talk Makes Sex About Love and Intimacy

Tearing down walls and putting them back up is exhausting. Using sex as the battle arena is destructive and futile. Andre and Shantal don't have to act out their fears and power struggles in bed. They can begin a dialogue about their experiences when separating and coming back together. It obviously stirs up a lot for both of them that is not being adequately addressed. Once they have the courage to begin that conversation, love making will be unshackled by the stresses of separation and reunion, making it pleasurable once again.

 

More articles about why sex becomes a problem and how to remedy it

How to get affection on your schedule

Why your sex life doesn't work and three ways to revive it

Why your sex life is non-existent and how to get it going again

Why your sex life goes from fantastic to boring in the blink of an eye