Are You Really Angry?
Thursday, May 4th, 2006I really want relationships to work, I want them to be places that we can enjoy being in. I want relationships to be the best thing about our lives rather than the largest source of pain. As a result I was recently having a conversation with a fellow coach and she shared something with me that I found to be blinding in its brilliance. It’s something that puts the pain and frustration that we all experience from time to time in our relationships into perspective. She said, ‘When you think about it, pretty much every argument you have is about one or other of the couple seeking reassurance’. Allow me to explain.
Pretty much every argument in a couple starts out with a fear that needs reassuring. I’m not just talking about the ‘But do you really love me?’ type of reassurance, although I do think knowing that is a fundamental need for every human being.
Sometimes we just need reassuring that our complaint has been heard, that our discomfort makes some kind of sense or just that he realises he screwed up when he forgot to post your mothers day card. I really believe that a huge amount of the friction in a relationship is about the fear that one or other of the couple’s needs are not being taken seriously.
As I listen to my clients about the disagreements they’ve got stuck in it becomes more and more apparent that we just need to be more honest.
Tony Robbins states that all arguments are based on the transgression of a rule. Whether or not you’re aware of it you have a whole bunch of rules about how people should treat you, especially if they ‘really’ love you.
In newer relationships this is especially tricky as you are still exploring the territory. You don’t yet know your partner well enough to know when you step over a line that they hold dear. Worse than that, the first couple of times you do it they might not even mention it as they don’t want to make a bad impression or kick up a fuss.
One of my clients, Jack, recently had a row with his partner because, as far as he was concerned, she was late for a date. In his head he has a rule that states that if you really love him then you’d respect him enough to turn up on time. His partner doesn’t have this rule. In fact her rule is more like ‘if you love me enough you’d understand that I’m not always going to be on time.’ Jill, his partner (I hope you’ve spotted that for confidentiality’s sake I do change the names) was actually late because she wanted to make sure she looked her absolute best for the date. You can imagine how the conversation went given it was late on a Friday night and they were both hungry.
Are either of them in the wrong? I don’t think so. They just have an issue with two rules that conflict. This turned into a big fight about love and respect and this couple are in no way unique. Couples fight about the strangest things, but you already know that.
If you feel yourself approaching an argument/fight with your partner you would do well to be aware of the different levels of emotion. Most of us have an easy time being angry even if we can’t express it, it’s often our first reaction to feeling like one of our rules or ‘lines’ has been crossed. But in my experience, behind the anger is a sense of being hurt in some fashion and the thing we’d like to have most of all is that hurt being taken away.
If you’re feeling hurt there is a worrying sense that something has been lost or is being taken away. Not only that there is a fear that this hurt may continue because your loved one doesn’t care.
So imagine if Jack had managed to say there and then that he felt hurt and feared he wasn’t as important to Jill as her other commitments. It would have been much more likely that Jill would have immediately offered up the reassurance that he was seeking. Once Jack and Jill felt more connected they could have a discussion about their differing rules about punctuality and figure out how to handle it better in the future.
This is just one small example but if you start to just take a few moments to think about what is actually being said before you react it’s possible to save yourself a couple of wasted hours or even days.
Michael.
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