How to Deal with Anger Toward Your Spouse

Most married couples hit a rough patch (or two or three) along their journey toward a lifetime together. For many, the first year or two of marriage can be particularly challenging.

You’re starting a life together, after all, and you’ve been living life on your own. Suddenly, there is another person to consider, new roles and responsibilities to sort out, and little pet peeves you may not have even been aware of.

But even if you are past the one-year or two-year mark, anger can rise up and become a recurring issue if you don’t learn some self-management techniques. How to deal with anger toward your spouse is something every married couple faces at least once, usually many times.

How to deal with anger toward your spouse

If you find that your temper or feelings of anger are fueling conflict or adding to it, here are a few anger management tips, especially for spouses.

Schedule serious topics

No matter how long you’ve been married, talk to your spouse about when his or her best time of day is. This might be the best time of day to brooch a serious topic, bring up a recurring issue, or ask about dates for planning ahead.

Even if you already know your spouse’s best time of day, asking is important. It gives your spouse a chance to change his or her mind, and it shows that you are considerate toward your spouse’s needs and preferences.

Try to keep in mind whatever answer your spouse gives. Then, bring up subjects that could be sensitive or tricky to discuss only during that time frame. If you want to take it a step further, see if your spouse is willing to schedule a regular weekly meeting during his or her ideal time.

The meeting can be for both of you to look back at your week, hold short accounts with each other, and discuss upcoming events, plans, or stressors for which you’ll need additional support.

Find time for fun

When you think about learning how to deal with anger toward your spouse, the word fun may not be at the forefront of your mind. However, there is a good reason behind the colloquial phrase, “A couple that plays together stays together.”

Finding time for fun regularly helps you and your spouse remember what you first fell in love with about one another. Keeping this regularly at the forefront of your life can help ease tensions and tame tempers when you are arguing.

Prioritize self-care

Similar to finding fun together, prioritizing self-care is important for both of you. Of course, you do not want to micromanage your spouse’s idea of self-care. Instead, concentrate on your own.

What practices help you pay attention to your emotional, mental, and physical health? Start by making a list under each category.

One example that may help you with mental and physical health is taking a walk. Not only does this regular practice tend to lower blood pressure, but it also has been shown to help with mental health. It’s also a great way to pause an argument, even if it’s just five minutes, to help you catch your breath and restore calm.

What fuels your emotional health? Is it talking to a friend, riding your bike, playing fetch with your dog, or writing in a journal? Being able to admit how you feel is important. Even if you simply write down one or two instances when you’ve felt joy, excitement, or contentment and one or two instances when you’ve felt sorrow, anger, or loneliness each week, it can help you put language to your emotions.

Putting language to how you feel is an important skill that every spouse needs, especially when dealing with conflict.

Practice “I” statements

When you do need to talk about a less-than-comfortable topic with your spouse, it is important to remember to use “I” statements. Instead of framing your weariness over unloading the dishwasher by saying, “I always unload the dishwasher,” think again.

Try to express the emotion you are feeling using an “I” statement that relates to the issue. In the example of the dishwasher, you might say, “I feel like I carry an excessive amount of chores around the house, particularly the dishes. I’m tired at the end of the day, and being expected to empty the dishwasher every time is difficult.”

Learning to express how you feel where the other person doesn’t feel attacked can go a long way toward peacekeeping.

Recognize your defenses

Ponder your defensive areas. We all have areas or topics about which we can easily get defensive. See if you can name yours. Examples might be your workload, social activities, cooking, cleaning, hobbies, or parenting. Typically, we are defensive about an issue because, at some point in our past, we’ve had to prove that our point was worthy, that we were telling the truth, or that our feelings are important.

Once you have identified the areas where you tend to feel defensive, talk to your spouse about them when you are not in conflict. This could open up some beneficial conversations about your relational history, family of origin, or previous friendships where you have felt hurt by someone you trusted.

Talking through your areas of defensiveness helps your spouse to be more aware. It also helps the two of you talk through what might ordinarily come up at a too-sensitive moment, during an argument, when you have out-of-town guests visiting, or in the tougher parenting moments. Discussing your areas of defensiveness during a calm moment between the two of you can go a long way to heading off potential insensitive comments later from your spouse.

Remember your spouse is human

It’s all too easy to get comfortable with a spouse and forget that he or she has feelings too. Being human means he or she will forget to take out the trash, have a tough week (or month) at work, and feel cared for or not cared for by your actions and words.

This is why remembering that your spouse is a human being can be a bridge to you not assuming the worst about him or her. Many times, spouses jump to conclusions without asking questions. That kind of pattern can fuel anger flare-ups pretty quickly. Learning to ask questions about your spouse will also reflect that you see him or her as a human being.

We all want to feel cherished and deeply known. It’s never too late to ask questions about what your spouse’s work is, who his or her co-workers are, what makes him or her feel successful, or why he or she likes a specific hobby.

It might even be helpful to keep a running list of questions in a journal. You can ask one every once in a while to just remind yourself that your spouse is a human being and enjoys when you are curious about him or her.

Try not to react

When you are trying to tame your temper, reacting toward your spouse’s comment or behavior is a quick jump off a slippery slope. Learning how to deal with anger toward your spouse will often mean pausing. If he or she says something that feels hurtful, untrue, or unkind, pause. Consider how you can respond with respect and care rather than lashing out.

Take a minute to ask yourself if your spouse is under stress or pressure, or feels insecure in some way. These are all reasons a person may use words to divide or belittle someone else. It’s not right for your spouse to do that, but it is helpful for you to think about the context of his or her words before you react.

Once you have taken a few minutes to pause, you might think of a question to ask, use an “I” statement to express how your spouse’s comments made you feel, or let your spouse know that you’ll be taking a walk to calm down before responding. All of these options are healthy responses, not reactions in the heat of the moment.

Learning how to deal with anger toward your spouse is something that is a constant in marriage. The more we grow with our spouses, the easier it is to push their buttons even when it’s unintentional.

Find support

If you’ve tried these and you still find anger to be an issue you can’t control well, our trained and certified counselors can help. Anger toward your spouse is important to handle in healthy ways. If you are struggling with thoughts of abuse toward yourself or your spouse, it’s crucial to get professional help. Call our office to find a counselor to walk with you on this journey.