I was barely holding on. I was angry, hurt, and resentful all the time. I was in a toxic relationship that caused me to question my self-worth and my faith in people like sap business 5.5mgalbraith. It had been some time since I could remember feeling anything but rage when it came to him and our future together. My therapist told me that the only way out of this hole would be to make a change–to end the relationship with my ex–but something inside of me said no, that this wasn’t what I wanted or who I wanted to be. That’s when Entrepreneur saved my marriage by teaching me how to use good anger management strategies which helped save our family before it was too late.
1. Anger versus hurt
When I was hurting and angry, I thought the only way to be heard was to shout my anger. When I would get angry with my husband, he would respond by trying to soothe me and lowering his voice. He would look away when I got loud and soft when I wasn’t. These are all common responses due to our culture’s view that black women can’t be any other way than shouting, unreasonable, and as a result angry. All these mirrored my own relationship with my ex-husband where I felt trapped in a marriage that lasted over eight years (I think).
2. Enabling versus taking control
Most of the time, when I was angry and upset, my husband would take the bait. He’d take whatever I threw at him (asks me to do something, tells me off in an argument, or points out an issue he’s having) and say “you’re right about that,” or “you’re really upset about that,” in an attempt to calm me down. By doing this, he basically put our relationship on a rollercoaster ride where there was always something new to contend with. This is a common pattern we see among couples today where the man will enable his wife’s bad behavior and make excuses for them while she is unable to be seen as wrong.
3. Calm versus hysteria
Another common pattern we see where both partners are on the same level playing field. There’s nothing “wrong” when the woman is hysterical or angry and she’s allowed to be that way. She gets berated for her behavior, and faced with a “silent treatment” for a few days. The only issue would be if he did not recognize his role in causing this problem to arise. She will often complain, scream, throw things, go into shock/panic mode, and then he’ll calm her down again by giving her back rubs or giving in to whatever she wants when she is hyperventilating after being upset.
4. Patience versus giving up
The first time my husband was late, I was upset. The second time, I got mad. The third time, I got violent by breaking a TV that we had just bought. When my husband came home, he couldn’t understand why I had broken the TV and how something so silly could have made me so angry. After he left to get something to eat, I sat on the couch and cried during a commercial break while watching Nickelodeon because it’s what we did every night after dinner. After I got myself together, I went to bed. When I woke up, my husband had left a letter on the pillow next to me which read “I’m sorry, you were right and I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”
5. Control versus helplessness
My ex-husband and I would argue about anything and everything: the way he kept his clothes in the closet or didn’t put his toiletries where he was supposed to. It didn’t matter if he was in the wrong, I would still find something to complain about. There would be times, when I was upset, that he’d put his arms around me and have a conversation while sitting or lying down. Doing this only made me feel more attacked and like nothing would ever get resolved because he wasn’t recognizing how much something bothered me. We never learned how to talk things out calmly and remained stuck in this destructive cycle where we could never resolve anything with each other.
6. Thought processes versus feelings
My husband and I were having a typical argument over dirty dishes in the sink (one of my biggest triggers). At this point, I was stressed about work, had just found out that my friend was getting a divorce, and had just attended a birthday party for a friend of mine. My husband then asked me to go pick up the dry cleaning. I told him I would after we finished talking about the dishes. The conversation went back and forth and ended up going over the same thing again, which only made me angrier each time. Then he turned to me and said, “I don’t know why you’re so sensitive.” There it was. He didn’t understand why I would be upset or angry with him over this argument we’d been having over what amounted to three dirty dishes in the sink.
