My Husband, My Partner, My Best Friend

Self-Control in a Marriage

Part 9

Do you ever find yourself getting angry easily and often regret it after you vent your anger on your spouse? Do you have problem with violence in your marriage? Studies have shown that more anger is developed in marriage relationships than in any other relationships. Unresolved anger is one of the major causes of violence in a marriage. My husband and I have counseled many couples who almost failed in their marriage because they could not cope with their angry feelings.

When we get angry there are three things that happen to us, it is called the fight or flight syndrome. Psychologically, we get emotional and become sad, want to cry, or speak in a much higher tone. Physiologically, our heart rates start to speed up, our blood pressures get higher, and our muscles tense up and our jaws are clinched. Cognitively, we start to think, "Why he/she NEVER listens to me." "He/she ALWAYS gets on my nerve." "Why he/she is doing this on purpose." "He/she NEVER loved me....and so on we think."

Do you know that it is OK to get angry? After all, we are not perfect. There is no one person in the world who is perfect. We all have feelings and emotions. When it comes to the spouse whom we should love the most, we have much higher expectation of him/her. The problem is not we shouldn't get angry; the problem is how we handle anger when it comes.

What you need is self-control in a marriage. Self-control is defined as a restraint exercised over one's own impulses, emotions, or desires. There are five principles you can train yourself to handle anger when it comes:

1. Learn how to handle your relationships: Admit to your spouse that you are angry. Sometimes just saying, "I'm angry and I like for us to talk....." reduces the stress that cause the anger in the first place.

2. Increase your own awareness of who you are. Do you understand yourself? Are you aware of your feelings? Are you emotion-based or reason-based?

How do you affect people who interact with you, especially your spouse? Do you communicate well with your spouse? Do you nag, shout, and use physical violence to communicate?

3. Do you see things positively or negatively? If you are a negative person, you

Need to substitute positive emotions for negative ones. For example, don't be arrogant and think you are always right. You need to substitute humility with arrogance. Substitute peace for anxiety. Substitute forgiveness for resentment. Substitute patience for irritation. Substitute love for hatred.

4. Eliminate destructive behaviors. Do you really want to harm yourself by

harming your body, mind, and spirit? For example, people who get drunk

harm their body, people who look at filthy pictures pollute their mind, people

who are critical and judgmental are damaging their spirits. If you can't

handle your anger and get out-of-control with violent acts, then you are

harming your body, mind, and spirit.

5. If you can't do any of the above when you are angry, then the next tip I have

For you is simply walk away. When you know you cannot handle your anger, just walk away from your conflicting situation. You can always deal with it

later when you are more cool, calm, collected in your emotional well-being.

During the early years of our marriage many times in our communications, we have conflicts. Since he is more emotion-based, he has the tendency to get angry about his communication and often lose control by fits of rage. When he calmed down afterward, I started to get angry and shut him out of my communication. We began to see the need for healing in our marriage and both agreed that it is necessary to express and acknowledge our angry feelings. We agreed not to attack each other with verbal yells, but rather give each other some time out and worked on the above five principles constantly. If both of us can express our feelings calmly, we come to respect each other and encourage each other as better partners for life.

Now I have shared with you why my husband became my partner and best friend. We are still constantly working to build a better and better marriage. It is a partnership of two people who are willing to spend time and effort no matter how hard the circumstances or problems confront us. Now we battle with my husband's liver cancer. However, we are not afraid. We hold our hands together and go forward bravely. He supports me when I am weak, and I support him when he is down and out. Sometimes we fail badly, but we never give up trying. What I have shared is really principle of the fruit of the spirit from the Bible, which state, "When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law."

My friends, if I can encourage and help you in any way, please contact me at panedu@bellsouth.net.