I'm going to start off with a question:
If your car breaks down, your work day just isn't going as planned, or you and your best friend are arguing over something silly, who is the first person you are going to call, text, or talk to?
Most likely (and hopefully) your answer is your soon-to-be (or current) spouse. Personally, my husband is the first person I text about ANYTHING, good or bad. We tell each other everything throughout the day, almost to the point where we don't have much to talk about when he calls me on his way home from work every day!
Now we all get angry, and some of us are better at handling that anger than others. So think about what you do to let your anger out - Do you scream into a pillow? Go the the gym? Cry? Punch a wall?
Want to know the way I get my anger out? I get frustrated with my husband for silly things, and take my anger out on him.
And I am sure I am not alone.
Last December, my clutch went out while I was driving on the freeway on my way to a blog photoshoot that had been planned for months. After pulling to the shoulder and bursting into tears, I immediately called my husband.
So frustrated with my situation (and 30 vendors counting on me to complete an amazing photoshoot), he had a whole list of ways to fix my problem. And the first two options were:
1. He could call a tow truck, and then rental car company so I could immediately get a new car to drive to the photoshoot.
2. He could leave work right then and there and pick me up and drive me to Orange County (which was going to be about a 3 hour drive at that hour).
Through my frustration, I somehow came up with a million reasons why none of his ideas were going to work. And amidst our conversation, I somehow turned it around and began to yell at him. Terrible, I know.
I turned what could have been an easy fix, into a fight. And it was not because he did anything wrong - in fact, he did everything right - but because I had no one else and nothing else to take my frustration out on, so he was an easy target.
I have run into similar situations hundreds of times, and for some reason, I always find a way to get mad at my husband for no reason. I am not sure if it is because I know he will always be there for me, no matter how mad I get and how much I yell at that time, or if I just don't have another way to get my anger out. But in any instance, it is wrong and I have been working hard to change it.
I am fairly positive that I am not alone, no matter the scale of venting and punch-throwing that may occur. But the moral of the story is that we always tend to take our anger out on the people we love the most. And instead, we need to find a way to flip this around, and begin to love the ones we love the most, even in the height of an argument that may have nothing to do with him or her, or in a total crisis. Your spouse is the one who will be there with you through thick and thin, so let's make sure we treat him/her with that care they truly deserve.
Find a way to let your anger and frustration out, and find a way that doesn't include bringing your spouse down with you.
