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If you read Otto\u2019s story called \u201cRecovered from Rage,\u201d you saw how his anger used to get lit very easily when he thought he was being controlled or wouldn\u2019t get his needs met.<\/p>\n
He also explained what he learned that changed him from occasionally explosively reactive to calm and even-keeled.<\/p>\n
What he didn\u2019t tell was my transformation around his anger\u2013but that\u2019s my story\u2026<\/p>\n
Where there\u2019s a person who explodes with anger, there\u2019s usually someone who experiences the impact of it.<\/p>\n
This person either reacts by withdrawing and pulling away, trying to soothe and placate or even getting angry as well and fighting back.<\/p>\n
I generally used withdraw, shrink and soothe tactics and might finally sink into superiority when Otto seemed to explode for no reason.<\/p>\n
Now keep in mind that he was never violent toward anyone and if you\u2019re the recipient of violence, take care of yourself and find a safe place.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t accept or excuse behavior that endangers you or a child because you \u201clove\u201d him or her. That\u2019s just not safe or wise. You\u2019re worth more than that!<\/p>\n
With that being said, here\u2019s some of what I\u2019ve learned in loving an angry partner\u2026<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t\u2019s<\/h4>\n
\u2013Don\u2019t escalate it or prolong it<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019ve been dealing with an angry partner, you\u2019ve probably already been told that but somehow you can\u2019t figure out how to not get angry yourself when you get caught in it.<\/p>\n You might have also seen that your withdrawal or attempts to soothe are met with increased anger.<\/p>\n When a person is angry, it\u2019s not the time to reason with him or her\u2013even though that can be a natural tendency.<\/p>\n When a person is blind with anger or rage, emotion caused by whatever thoughts are believed literally blinds him or her.<\/p>\n I remember trying to soothe Otto with what I thought was reason but he couldn\u2019t hear it when anger consumed him.<\/p>\n So all my attempts did land on deaf ears!<\/p>\n \u2013Don\u2019t make it worse or better than it is<\/strong><\/p>\n As humans, we seem to focus on what\u2019s not going the way we want it to go, excluding whatever else is happening.<\/p>\n No one is angry all the time but when your partner is angry, that\u2019s what you focus on most of the time\u2026<\/p>\n Wondering when he or she will explode again and maybe how you can act so it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n During the years, Otto and I have had a deep connection with each other and remembering that when he did explode with anger helped me to stop my patterns that just made it worse.<\/p>\n \u2013Don\u2019t try to fix it but set healthy boundaries for yourself<\/strong><\/p>\n I had it in my mind that I had to somehow \u201cfix\u201d his mood but that never worked either.\u00a0 Trying to please someone who\u2019s angry usually backfires and while it seem like a \u201cnormal\u201d strategy, it usually doesn\u2019t get you what you want.\u00a0 If someone is blaming, name calling and berating you in anger, give yourself permission to set a limit on what you\u2019ll listen to in that moment. You can say you\u2019ll talk when the person is calmer.<\/p>\n \u2013Do look at the gifts of the situation<\/strong><\/p>\n While it\u2019s tempting to lay blame on the angry person and think that if he or she didn\u2019t act like that, everything would be fine\u2026<\/p>\n If you do that, you\u2019re missing out on the gift for yourself.<\/p>\n When I turned my focus inward, I realized that I had a lot of fear around expressing anger because I couldn\u2019t remember anyone in my family as I was growing up doing that.<\/p>\n For that matter, I couldn\u2019t remember anyone in my family expressing any \u201cnegative\u201d emotion at all!<\/p>\n Was I sheltered in a weird way?<\/p>\n Yes and who knows if that\u2019s just what I remember and not what actually was true or not.<\/p>\n But the upshot was that I was ill-equipped to deal with loving an angry partner.<\/p>\n I got scared and backed away because an expression of intense emotion was unfamiliar to me.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t imagine allowing myself to show this kind of emotion and I\u2019m not sure I even recognized the feelings inside me.<\/p>\n That was totally unexplored landscape for me!<\/p>\n Otto showed me a new range of emotion and in a sense, gave me permission to explore it within myself and not be afraid of it.<\/p>\n The truth is that\u00a0 I had to learn that anger is just one of many emotions we can have when we believe our scary thinking and that it will pass on its own when the thinking calms down.<\/p>\n \u2013Do take a look at the stories you\u2019re believing<\/strong><\/p>\n I realized that I had made up a lot of stories about what Otto\u2019s anger meant\u2026<\/p>\n *He didn\u2019t love me<\/em> When I stopped churning around why it was happening and trying to figure it all out\u2026<\/p>\n Slowly I saw that there were things I could learn in all this about myself and it wasn\u2019t my job to \u201cfix\u201d him.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t need \u201cfixing.\u201d<\/p>\n I saw that when his thoughts settled he was once again the man I knew.<\/p>\n I learned to get still myself and just see what comes up. It was a wealth of emotion that I could just let flow without trying to fix anything.<\/p>\n When I didn\u2019t go into the past with my thinking or the future\u2013just stayed in the present moment, I could open to the fear that was underneath all the soothing and withdrawing.<\/p>\n I could open to what was inside me.<\/p>\n When I allowed him the space to see something new in all this without trying to fix him and allowed myself space to see something new as well\u2026<\/p>\n There was the space for us to fall into deeper love and understanding of one another.<\/p>\n We could both open up to each other in ways we hadn\u2019t before.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\nDo\u2019s<\/h4>\n
*I was somehow lacking in some way<\/em>
*It was my job to fix him<\/em><\/p>\nIf there\u2019s someone in your life who\u2019s angry and you want to have a conversation with either one of us, contact us here\u2026<\/h3>\n