Does anyone else get that sinking feeling in their gut when someone is angry at them? I find it anxiety provoking in general, but it is especially true when it’s a family member or close friend. I react similarly when people I love are in conflict with each other.
Every instinct is to make them talk it out with me. I want to fix it and make everyone happy. I want my own anxiety to be instantly soothed.
The anxiety for me comes from a fear that the conflict will never be resolved or will have a permanent negative impact on the relationship. Its actually pretty odd since I have seldom had that experience. Regardless, I want instant resolution.
That was the case for me the other weekend when my husband was clearly angry with me. To be honest, I wasn’t sure why. I knew he had been irritable from exhaustion in general, but it was upsetting to me to know I was contributing. I wanted to talk.
Despite me being the psychologist in the couple, he was the one who knew better. He said we should talk in the morning. That was really hard for me. I spent a lot of the night awake and worrying. I was even a little frustrated with him for not resolving my anxiety by talking it out.
In hindsight, that conversation would not have gone well. Despite the restless night, I am glad he had the sense to put the conversation on hold. The next morning, we were able to have a far calmer and productive conversation. Talking immediately would only have escalated into a fight. Professional me knows that, but that doesn’t always transfer to my personal life!
My desire for instant resolution is certainly not exclusive to me. I have a lot of odd traits, but this isn’t one of them 😉
This common need is why we so often see one person walking away to get space while the other is in hot pursuit. That second person is typically demanding that they need to know what is wrong and that it needs to be discussed.
These demands are not wrong, but neither is the impulse of the angry person to walk away. Anger and disagreements in relationships need to be addressed rather than avoided. The question is when and how to address them.
Most of us know that we are at the height of our anger, we are likely to say things we regret. We are also less sensitive to how we talk to people. At these times, we are likely in what DBT refers to as emotion mind. At that point, the intensity of our emotion increases our impulsivity and decreases our ability to think beyond short-term gratification to long-term consequences. We are far more effective in expressing ourselves when our anger has diminished.
The key here is that we still need to talk about it. Otherwise, the anger may be decreased in the moment, but it is likely to come back and grow exponentially.
In our calmer moments, we can express our anger instead of acting it out. We can describe the cause of our anger factually and without attacks. Hopefully, we can be gentle and remember that we care about the person we are angry at.
I acknowledge that this is something I struggle with. Once my anger is decreased, I would rather avoid the anxiety of making someone angry at me. Yet I know avoidance only decreases my short-term anxiety while maintaining my anxiety about conflict.
Click here to follow psychdiary on Facebook and receive links to new blog posts
