Invitation or Condemnation: What Do You Hear When Your Spouse Is Angry?

When you’re pointing at someone else, there is one finger pointing at them, and three fingers pointing back at you. We all know that we’re not supposed to blame or shame our partner, especially during a fight. Then the fight gets going, we go on the defensive, or worse, on the attack. How do we stop this cycle? Here are some prompts to help you take responsibility for yourself, and show up better in your relationship.

Cognitive Awareness

How you think about what your spouse is saying is extremely important. If you perceive your partner as attacking you, then you will likely respond in kind. Do you hear condemnation or an invitation? If you interpret the attack as something other than anger, you might respond out of compassion.

Think of a dog with a thorn in its paw. The owner might see the wound and reach down and try to remove the thorn. And what does the dog do? It starts snarling and snapping. The owner knows the dog is not mean and nasty. No, the owner knows the dog is only responding that way because of the pain and the fear. So, the owner kneels down, moves slowly, talks quietly and with compassion. 

What would happen if you approached your spouse the same way during fights? What if you assumed they are hurt and scared? What if in response to their anger, you slowed down, talked quietly, and offered compassion?

Body Awareness

When in a fight, the most important relationship in life feels at risk. It is a scary time, and our bodies know and react to that fear. During a fight, your heart races, you breathe faster, your muscles tighten—your body is threatened and preparing for fight or flight. 

Unfortunately, your partner cannot distinguish between fear and fight. That is to say, you’re giving off physical messages that you are preparing for war, when actually you might be scared. Our bodies react the same way to both. It’s usually not that you want to fight, but that you want safety and security in the relationship. And that safety and security is threatened during these tense times. 

Body-based self regulation is needed during these times. If possible, take a timeout from the fight and take a quick walk, do some jumping jacks, or flail your arms around to dispel some of that energy. If you dispel it, then it won’t come out at your partner.

Timeouts aren’t always possible. So, you can engage in breathing to self regulate. When breathing to relax, it has to be deep, diaphragmatic breathing. This is a great way to the bring calm to a body that is keyed up. Be careful with this though, you don’t want your breathing to be interpreted as a dismissive sigh. 

Emotional Awareness

Just as our partner can’t tell the difference between fight or fear, sometimes we can’t distinguish them in our own internal world. Naming your fear often helps distinguish the true emotion causing the tension within you. Anytime we name our emotions, they tend to lessen in intensity. 

When we talk, we engage in co-regulation—leveraging the relationship to help calm and soothe. Additionally, naming your emotion will help your partner interpret what they are seeing in you. If you name it as fear and take responsibility for it, they are less likely to interpret what they see as anger or rejection. In turn, this will help them engage you differently. 

Don’t Just Wing It—Put the Work In

Great athletes don’t just show up one day and poof, they’re great. Great athletes put time, effort, and energy into their training. We need to do the same for our relationships. Rather than winging it and hoping for the best, we need to train ourselves for the most important relationship of our lives. I encourage you to put some thought into how you can prepare for tense moments. Notice your bias, you reactions, your racing thoughts and then make intentional steps to respond differently.