How to End a Pattern of Angry Conflict in Your Marriage
(Podcast Transcript)
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[Introduction to the podcast]
Announcer: On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.
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Coach Jack: Does your spouse get angry, then provoke you to fight or retreat? Do you fight your spouse’s fire of anger with your own? You can break free of this pattern for a better marriage.
Hopefully you are sick and tired of angry conflict and are ready to change it once and for all. I’m going to give you seven steps to do just that.
As I covered in my article on how to fix a relationship with an angry spouse, people get angry because it benefits them in some way, even if it does harm to the relationship. You need to be able to take that benefit away.
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Respond securely or be part of the problem.
An important skill is to know how to respond calmly and securely in the face of an angry presentation by your spouse. By doing this, you will not only make the anger not work for your spouse, you will improve your relationship pattern for both of you.
A pattern, maintained by two, can be changed by one.
One person making a change, changes the pattern of relating for both. If you work on changing your spouse directly, you will get resistance rather than change. But, when you change how you interact with your spouse, your spouse has to adjust to your change. This is the most effective way to improve a relationship with a spouse who is not motivated to change.
Regardless of who is at fault, the moment you take responsibility for creating change, your life will start to improve.
There are different degrees of anger, which require different boundaries, so let me say that…
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This is not an intervention for physical or verbal abuse.
Abuse requires a different approach than the one I’m presenting today. Abuse interventions for violence are all boundary and no validation. They must keep you safe and get you respect at the same time. That requires a stronger level of intervention than what you will learn from me.
And, I’m not really talking about verbal abuse either. The way to deal with verbal abuse is to use boundaries of walking away, following precise rules. I have another article that will help you to stop verbal abuse. We can also work together on that, if you like.
The intervention I am talking about today will work with anything from mild anger right up to just before the verbal abuse level. You get to decide what is verbal abuse and what is just downright stressful or aggravating. Your spouse doesn’t get to decide that.
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If you think it’s abuse, then deal with it as though it is. It’s better to err on the side of too strong an intervention than too weak of an intervention.
Anger is not the problem
Everyone gets angry, but we need to deal with our anger in a productive way. Used in a good way, anger provides the motivation to make necessary changes. Those who do that in a good way have effective people management skills. Some people can do that well at work, but not at home. The skills are the same and you can learn them, even if for the first time.
Does the Bible say anger is a sin? Nope. It says…
In your anger do not sin (Ephesians 4:26, NIV).
Today’s intervention will help you to help your spouse to do better, as well as you, so you can both have a better relationship–with each other.
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Just like when you start on any project, make sure you have right goals.
The goals of this intervention are to:
- End any rewards your spouse is getting from a confrontation,
- end a pattern of conflict you both have, and
- promote a peaceful way to resolve problems.
In order for you to be willing to go through the initial difficulty of creating change, you will need to recognize that your current way of handling your spouse’s anger is not effective, that it maintains the problem, and that if you both continue this way your relationship will end sooner than you expect.
You can either have a strong desire for a good relationship, or be so fearful of losing your spouse that you will do what it takes to improve things. Either motivation will work. If you are not at one of those points, then wait until you are then come back here and learn to do this stuff. Hopefully that will happen before your spouse is having an affair, separating, or divorcing you.
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People are motivated by both pleasure and fear. It’s when people know they should do something, but don’t want to, that they get stuck.
Here is one question that might help you get unstuck: What do you want the next three years to be like?
What can you expect with this seven step approach?
Expect slow and steady progress, not overnight change
I’m a relationship coach. I teach skills just like a skiing coach teaches skills, or a business coach. My expectations are that you will make mistakes when you are first learning, and gradually get better as you practice. Those should be your expectations, too. Too many people kick themselves for mistakes rather than rewarding themselves for progress.
You need to be able to be proud of yourself.
Your spouse is not going to reward you for your progress in dealing with his or her anger. You need to be able to pat yourself on the back. If you can imagine God giving you a thumbs up, that will work, too. He wants you to have a good marriage and working on this is a good way to love your spouse. If you can love while also using good boundaries, you will be more Christlike.
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If you want to please your spouse all the time, you will not be able to do this. You need to love your spouse enough to be tough enough to use boundaries. If you notice, God doesn’t do whatever would please you. He loves you too much for that. So, He uses boundaries to help you grow and to keep a good relationship with Him.
How do I know that?
Because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son (Hebrews 12:6).
So, let’s get to…
The intervention for dealing with an angry spouse
You will be relieved to know that nothing about this intervention is technically difficult. The hardest thing for you will be keeping your mouth shut when you would want to respond, and to keep your ears open when your spouse is saying things you don’t want to hear. That is what good listening is all about.
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You might recognize this as the seven step anger intervention from my book, What to Do When He Won’t Change. It can be used with either men or women. There is a lot more details in the book that I can’t duplicate here, if you need more information on this.
The right steps, done in the right order, at the right pace, can get you anything you want.
Do these seven steps, in order, without skipping any and without adding anything:
- Listen to what your spouse says, without interrupting.
- Take notes of the important points your spouse says while angry.
- When your spouse starts to repeat what he or she is saying, put up your hand to stop your spouse.
- List the major points you heard your spouse say and ask if you got them right.
- Tell your spouse that those are important points and offer to schedule a time to discuss them.
- Refuse to discuss until the scheduled time.
- Repeat steps 1-7 if your spouse has more to add.
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Make sure you have the right expectations because…
Your spouse won’t like this
Your spouse won’t like this intervention as it contains two boundaries: your refusing to discuss at the time your spouse brings things up, and your refusing to become reactive. This will take a lot of power away from your spouse, as boundaries always do. It changes the way things are done and puts you in control rather than your spouse.
No one ever likes boundaries, so don’t expect them to.
Your spouse will at first be really upset by this change in the way you usually react, but will be angry less and less often as you become consistent. It will take time to become consistent, and be really hard at first, but it will be worth it.
Your focus should not be on whether your spouse like this or not, but on the..
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Right steps, right order, and right expectations
If you expect this to go smoothly and your spouse just to follow along, your expectations are way off and will set you up to be reactive and prevent success.
Expect your spouse to be angry and noncompliant. He or she may storm out of the room. See this as a victory if it happens. Why is it a victory? Because it is starting to change the pattern of what usually happens. A spouse storming out of the room in the face of a healthy boundary is a huge improvement over arguing.
Make sure you don’t chase after your spouse or get into a discussion about why you are making this change. Explaining is a needy behavior which invites argument rather than makes people agree. To the question of why are you doing things this way?, you can add that to your list of things to talk about at your arranged time. Do not get into discussion of any kind with an angry spouse.
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Here are some tips to help you in…
Dealing with noncompliance
Remember, noncompliance is to be expected and is part of creating change. Here are some typical things that happen and how to deal with each:
Your spouse demands discussion
Simply refuse to discuss until an arranged time when you are both calm. Walk away or leave your house if necessary. If you can’t keep this boundary, the intervention will not work.
Your spouse will not schedule a time
That’s okay. They are your spouse’s concerns. They are bound to come up again and you can give your spouse another chance to schedule then.
Your spouse schedules, but does not keep your appointment
Again, that is your spouse’s concern. It may no longer be necessary for your spouse, in which case problem resolved. On the other hand, if it remains an issue, your spouse will get another chance to schedule.
Your spouse gets angry during your scheduled talking time
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Just start using the seven steps at that time and reschedule. It may be a while before the meeting is actually set up and kept. And it may take a few tries before you two can meet calmly. Learning validation skills can help if you get stuck at this point.
It is also possible that…
You argue with your spouse or behave badly.
This too, is not a disaster. The sooner you recognize you are having difficulty, the better. Go easy on yourself and remember that you are learning a new skill and messing up is normal. Apologize for behaving badly. Keep working on it until you get it. Get extra help if you need it. It will be worth it.
You might wonder why you should apologize if your spouse behaves worse than you.
No matter how many mistakes other people make without apologizing, always apologize for yours. It will help you to be secure and is good reassurance you are not a narcissist.
Before you get too eager to use this method, don’t forget that…
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Boundaries must be balanced with love for improvement to happen
We can use boundaries to protect ourselves, without needing to love the other person. However, if we want to improve our relationships, we need to use boundaries as much for the other person as for ourselves. We are working to create a win-win. Our love for our spouse is an excellent motivation to help our spouse to have a loving relationship with us.
Make sure you are motivated by your love for your spouse as well as your desire for a good relationship. I have offered tips in another article on how to revive your love for your spouse.
When we use boundaries, we need to make sure that we are otherwise being a loving and desirable spouse. This will help our spouse to put up with the aggravation caused by our boundaries rather than just distancing and rejecting. People who know we love them and are for them, rather than against them, are going to adjust much more easily to our boundaries.
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A spouse who only uses boundaries without being loving is like parents who always punish, but have no love to show their children.
Coaching can help
My clients follow a three step plan that I encourage you to use as well. The first step is stopping any damaging needy behaviors, such as criticizing, complaining, and arguing. If you do such things, my book on Overcoming Neediness should help. The second step is to proactively use relationship building skills that validate and foster connection. With this done, the third step of boundaries is much easier to accomplish and the end result is a closer relationship. If you would like my help working through these steps, check out my coaching package for restoring a loving relationship with a difficult spouse.
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[Podcast wrap-up]
Announcer: Thank you for listening to Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack. Visit coachjackito.com to learn more skills for reconnecting with your spouse and restoring your marriage.
