Nice advice if you can follow it.
Over many years as a couples therapist I have observed that when a couple is angry at each other, one partner often deals with it by avoidance and falls dead asleep while the other can't fall asleep and glares at their partner sometimes feeling the urge to smack 'em.
How can you prevent this from happening to you if this is becoming a frequent occurrence?
Often before you get to feeling angry, you start out feeling frustrated. Frustration is a rather unstable emotion and often slides into one direction or another. Either you begin to feel like a victim or feel self-righteous, both of which can lead to your becoming angry. Once that happens you're in a reactive mindset and it's unlikely that a conversation at that point will go anywhere but downhill.
So next time that happens to you, while you are in the frustration phase, do the following to counteract your slipping and sliding into those other places:
To counteract feeling like a victim, pause and think of three things you are deeply grateful to your partner about, You'll find that you can't be grateful and feel like a victim at the same time. For me, that would be my wife attending to the thankless details of our home that would drive me nuts, being there for my kids and me and grounding me when my mildly ADHD/bipolar traits start me rushing down the runway.
To counteract feeling self-righteous and as if the other person is utterly clueless, pause and think of three things that make you a piece of work to live with. You'll find that you can't feel earnest humility and be self-righteous at the same time. For me, that would mean my wife tolerating my mildly ADHD/bipolar traits, my disorganization and the Don Quixote in me.
Addendum: After I discovered these breakthroughs a couple years ago, I shared them with my wife. She paused for a moment and said: "I've been using that approach with you for years."
If you are unable or unwilling to apply this approach, the problem may not be with the approach, but with you being unforgiving. However, that's a topic for another blog.
What are some of the ways you have discovered to help you not go to bed angry?
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The principle of "not going to bed angry" is to try to resolve the surface of one's hurts feelings, so that one can rest and give their deeper feelings a chance to subside. Otherwise the marriage bed becomes a cauldron of resentments, rather than a sacred place. Once that happens, the marriage itself is on shaky grounds.
My fiance is well uhm....a woman.....so if she doesn't get a "...your right I'm wrong I'm sorry.." then it might take a night or two for her to transition past the issue.
Lets see the last issue was "...you didn't get me a Christmas gift..."
We had agreed not to exchange gifts since we had already spent hundreds of dollars on each other leading up to Christmas day we just didnt wrap the things we bought each other. Keep in mind just a month earlier I proposed and she's wearing a fairly expensive piece of jewelry.
I made the idiot mistake of thinking she meant what she said when she said, I dont need a Christmas gift I got what I wanted. Big error. She got over it after I wined and dined her two days later and let her pick out a new blouse. But she managed to keep a frown on for a day after Christmas.
You would think after 50 years of life and relationships I'd know better.
Both parties are exhausted and thinking irrationally by that time.
Maybe one's sleep will be compromised, it the issue is not settled that night, but it's better than no sleep at all.
Stirs my passions and focuses my mind.
Anger is fine. It all depends how you use it.
I have tried your suggestions and it does help, though sometimes, I may not be able to think of anything specific if I'm super p.o.ed. But, just a general reminder to self that I can be a pain and he can be lovely is helpful.
It might be better for the couple just to have a signal to "agree to disagree" for the night and go to sleep, together or separately, whichever they agree works best for them.
Then they may be able to go through the mental exercise you suggest, which will allow them to "go to bed tempering their anger" so they can arise in the morning in a better state. Getting some rest can help promote perspective.
I think that if you go to bed angry, your anger affects your dreams. I don't like that. If I'm carrying anger like that I feel very immature and just downright awful. It hurts to feel that way. I'd rather try to break the anger loop/neuronet in my brain and try a new way of being so that the new attitude becomes the automatic response instead of the old way. Kind of like Frank Costanza and "Serenity now".
Taking sleep out of the picture, the tips/tools to counter a victim mindset with gratitude and a self-righteous mindset with humility.
BTW I'm curious if both of you are equally able to fall asleep when either of you are angry without the aid or dependence on sleeping meds, alcohol, etc.