Are you married to someone who may be warm, loving and caring some of the time, or may even have all the virtues of an ideal husband or wife most of the time - but oh gosh, when an occasional problematic stimulus triggers a red flag in his or her brain, all hell suddenly breaks loose?
If you are, how do you handle the explosion, when it comes? How effective is your damage control?
Take the case of Richard and Rosie.
Richard had been begging his wife, Rosie, to curb here generosity and extravagance when buying gifts. It seems his exhortations weren’t always successful. One day he opened their monthly credit card statement, took one glance, and… hit the roof!
“How many times have I told you that we cannot afford such expensive gifts?!” Richard bellowed at the top of his lungs. “You are spending the money I earn with my blood, sweat and tears on unnecessary extravagances!”
Poor Rosie wasn’t about to take this lying down. Almost inevitably, she responded by launching a sharp counterattack of her own. Perhaps not surprisingly, she wasn’t short of ammunition.
“So, all of a sudden we “cannot afford” to buy gifts, huh? But last week we had plenty of money when you wanted to have cable television installed so you could watch your stupid sports!”
This is an imaginary incident, of course, but the imagination isn’t mine! It comes from New York psychotherapist and family counselor Dr. Meir Wikler’s book: Ten Minutes a Day to a Better Marriage.
Dr. Wikler stresses that there’s no magic button, but in this extract he presents a list of first aid measures to take whenever your spouse loses control. He follows this up with another list of steps you can take after after the dust has cleared to minimize the chances of a recurrence. If this type of scenario is at all relevant to you, or if it might be in the future, I recommend you study both lists in detail.
Above all, I would say you have to be mindful of one cardinal rule whenever you find yourself at the receiving end of the burning rage of a spouse - or for that matter, of anyone else!
Sure, you’re only human, but try hard to resist the natural inclination to give back as good as you got. Don’t retaliate! Rosie’s rebuttal was certainly legitimate, don’t you think? In the idiom we learned as schoolchildren, the pot doesn’t call the kettle black! But was her challenge effective? Hardly.
Cool logic is not what impresses the Richards of this world while they are still in the heat of battle. It only serves to inflame their temper further. At another time, and presented in another tone of voice, Rosie’s words could have found their mark. But not now.
Similarly, any attempt calm or quiet a fuming Richard would be counterproductive. As Dr. Wikler puts it: “Just as you cannot douse a fire with gasoline, so, too, you cannot put out the flames of hostility by asking your spouse to lower his or her voice.”
OK. So what now? As the unfortunate victim of unjustified anger, what should you be doing?
Let’s look at another of Dr. Wikler’s imaginary exchanges.
Ruth flew into a rage at her husband, Max. It was the couple’s wedding anniversary, and for the first time in 18 years of marriage, Max had neglected to acknowledge the occasion. He was working under unusual pressure and simply forgot.
Instead of trying to come up with excuses, Max tried to empathize with his wife’s disappointment and simply acknowledged her feelings:
“I see that I have caused you a considerable amount of pain by forgetting our anniversary this year. It makes you feel demeaned and put down that I did not even buy you an anniversary card…If I forgot about our anniversary, it means to you that I just do not care…”
And his little speech completely knocked the wind out of Ruth’s sails.
Nobody’s suggesting that it’s a mature or effective way of going about things, but an anger tantrum is just a desperate attempt to express emotional pain. As always, a little empathy goes a long way.
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