The question is a fair one and sadly, I can say that once upon a time – I did lose my temper easily. It could make conversations and arguments with my husband pretty intense. But there’s a trick to coping with a sudden flare of temper, especially when you’re married. Too often, we let resentment build up inside us and when we do finally fill that cup to the brim, we bubble over with temper that is really not directed at the unfortunate person who is receiving the anger – but rather at all the little incidences that have lead up to the cup overflowing.
Practice Makes Perfect
The next time you feel yourself starting to lose your temper with your spouse or anyone else, take a deep breath and forgive yourself for being human. Then try one of the following exercises:
- Think about all the things that lead up to you losing your temper and try to identify what brought you to the boiling point
- Think about the ways you could have tackled those resentments before your temper boiled over
- What needs of your own are you ignoring until you can’t ignore them anymore?
- Spend some time after you calm down re-envisioning yourself in the same situation in the future and how you could handle it better
Role Play With Your Spouse
Role-play with your spouse – this may sound silly and it can lead to lots of laughter, but bear with me here. One way to help you and your spouse come to some positive ways to handle anger and temper can be to role-play an argument. Play yourselves, play each other, play your favorite characters from a book or a television show – but hear out the same argument over and over from a multitude of different perspectives.
Chances are, the first few times you do this, you will feel silly and you will feel like you don’t know what you’re doing and that’s okay. When spouses role-play together it can give you both opportunities to express yourselves with humor and positive feelings about subjects you may normally avoid.
Have you and your spouse ever role-played how to handle an argument or disagreement?
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