I am not nice when I am mad

I have realized that I am not nice to somebody when I am mad or upset. Especially those closest to me.

Bill & I are going thru a REALLY big hurdle right now. To put it mildly I am VERY hurt by his actions that are causing the hurdle. I literally don't know what to say to him. So what do I do ... I say nothing. I give him the cold shoulder. When I do need to speak to him I am curt and short and snotty. Why do I do this?? Is it because I want to hurt him, like he has hurt me?? We are going on day 5 of this ... and because Bill "doesn't want to fight" (his words) he doesn't say anything either. I want him to "fix" this situation ... but he doesn't seem to know how. I think we are at a stalemate and now I don't know what to do.

((hugs)) ni what to tell you except y'all really need to talk it out and communicate. If you can't communicate how you feel and work it out then that doesn't bode wellfor a healthy happy relationship. You are supposed to still be in the newlywed stage..too soon for these disagreements!

Amber, this would be a really good time for some prayer and reflection, and then talking to Bill sharing with him your frustration that you're separated at the moment and that you want to bring the two of you back together. Explain to him how you're hurt, let him share his side, and see if the two of you can work something out. The key really has to be entering into it with a gentle heart - not to show him where he's wronged you, but to help the two of you come back together. Hopefully, he'll see how he's hurt you and do the best he can to rectify the situation, and maybe being open to him, he'll ask for your help.

i do the same thing when Chad does something that hurts me. i hope you can work this out!

Is annnnyone nice when they're mad? I agree though, you need to TALK, you're a week into marriage and now is the time to establish a pattern of open communication

on day 1 I tried to talk ... I went out of my way to talk. The "fight/incident" started Saturday morning. Saturday night I went to his work and waited for him to get off so we could talk. I told him how I was feeling .... all he did was agree with me.

Dh & I have our issues. We are both non confrontational types who keep everything to ourselves to avoid a fight and then eventually explode in frustration and anger, which is not at all a productive way to handle things. But we kept doing it over and over again. We got a lot of advice on what we should do but what came down to working for us was email (originally it was a notebook but who actually writes anything down anymore?)

Writing it all out gets it out of your system first of all which takes the edge right off the anger I've found. Tell it like it is, exactly what you are thinking & feeling and what sort of resolution you have in mind if any. Wait an hour, reread it, make any minor edits and send it or give it to him. Writing it all down gives the other person time to respond, which a live argument does not and having time to think about how you feel about what the other person said to you gives you time to get over the initial angry or hurt reaction and think about what was said & compose a response. There is no confrontation because neither of you is actually there but you are communicating. And the other person cannot later claim you did not say that or they said this, it's all there recorded in the email. At some point in the exchange you can both agree to take it face to face knowing the worst is over.

It doesn't work for everyone, it depends on the personalities. DH and I are both readers. We absorb more information reading from a page than from listening to a person speak on a topic. S0 the written word is the best way to get our attention. Generally 1-2 written exchanges resolves most of the emotional issues and we can then talk about the practical aspects

Stacey - i LOVE that idea.

our situation is a little different - i don't mind confrontation and my hubby does. So I manage to "win" any argument because I'm pretty good on my feet. Which, for the record, is completely non-productive because our discussions are never fair/balanced. then he gets mad and shuts down completely.

I've been wanting to try e-mail for a long time. I think I'll do that next time.

the other thing I was going to say...Amber, sounds like we both chose to marry bad communicators. So we need to expect that they aren't ever suddenly going to be good at it. I was told a long time ago never to go to bed mad, but let me tell you...I do. I sometimes get really mad over something, decide not to bring it up, and find that the next day I don't care as much. But I'm also VERY disciplined about this. I konw that in fairness to him, I can't wait and blow up over stuff later. What I'm getting at is - with a man who doesn't communicate well, you might learn that controlling your own reaction to a situation is the best way to handle it, less than expecting him to say something to make it all better.

Obviously your husband is a good man who loves you and you know that or you wouldn't have married him. So just think long and hard over whether or not something is worth getting upset over.

My hubby and I have our 10th anniversary this year! He is a wonderful caring husband and a fantastic stay at home dad. but I'll tell you - i have very low expectations on his ability to meet my emotional needs! I learned a long time ago to think "big picture" - he would NEVER mean to hurt me. I just often forgive without ever having a discussion (or a fight) over it.

hope that helps!!

You need to find a time to talk about the issues and hear each other out. This should be just you and him so that the kids are not a distraction. If I'm reading your ticker correctly, you should still be in the VERY newlywed stage of your marriage?

You have to both agree on a time that you will talk about the issues. There is NO way my DH would even consider talking about "our issues" if I showed up to his work and waited for him until he was out of work. It's not the right place for us to discuss things like that at his workplace.

What has worked well for us is that we are honest and open with each other and if something is bothering me (mainly me because he's more on the quiet side and isn't really bothered by much unless it's a HUGE thing), somewhere in the conversation, I have to remind him (and myself) that I am not looking to argue or to fight but rather to get my thoughts/emotions out on the open and let him know how it makes me feel and how that affects me in whatever else it is affecting me ... because that's how things work LOL

I could not go w/o talking to him if we'd had an argument for that long... just couldn't. He's the one person I go to for pretty much everything, so we do what we have to in order to ensure that line of communication is always there.

Good luck.

I remember being in the newlywed stage and I was under the impression everything was going to be perfect and no disagreements but we were human and still had everyday life stuff happening and while we still had that "new" feeling we did disagree and we had to learn to communicate together and to accept that we did not communicate in the same way. I think the best thing to do is try to find a common ground, let him know what you are feeling without blaming him for everything (like instead of you did this and this say I felt this when this happened) and let him talk as much as he wants to.

It sounds to me like you guys need to learn to fight more productively. One of the classes the military gives to soldiers and their spouses as part of the reintegration training after deployments is a class all about conflict resolution and learning how to fight productively so you can avoid fights blowing up into the situation you're in at the moment.

The class they give is based on this book: Fighting For Your Marriage. I haven't read the book (we got a free copy as part of the class) but the information we learned in the class has really made a big difference for us. Part of it is just learning HOW you fight (do you avoid or do you pursue?) and how to adapt how you deal with each other in those situations. We definitely fight a lot less than we did those first two years and when we do it's much more productive too.

Oh, and if being a newlywed means no disagreements then I was a terrible newlywed. That first year of our marriage was by far the hardest year for us. Granted we had a lot of outside pressures going on - like living in a foreign country with a huge language barrier, haha but we've often said looking back that we're surprised we made it through that first year. I'm pretty sure I threatened to go home on a weekly basis (which according to the book is something you should never say, haha).

Anyway, hang in there! The best thing you can do is just communicate. Giving people the cold shoulder to avoid the problem is never a good solution.

((((((HUGS)))))) I'm sorry your hitting a rough patch with your dh, like most said the first year of marriage is REALLY hard, it was for me at least. Just remember bottling it up is never good for him or for you. I would try to set up a special time with eachother just to talk about things no matter how hard it is.

I know what your going through. Your words sound so much like what happened to me over several years ago. I was hurt so badly from something also and it didn't help that we already had bad communication problems. Well this bad time we hit MADE us talk more because I was to the point of almost leaving him. We still have a lot to work on. He is always one that says he doesn't want to "fight" and walks away to be on his own. But for the longest time I gave him the cold shoulder and wasn't very nice to him but I did it for the same reasons. I wanted him to hurt as badly as I did. And that was just something I had to work through on my own...I needed to think things out and pray about it and just calm myself down. Yes, what he did is something I will never forget. But it has also brought us closer in ways as far as talking and understanding each other better. It's tough.

I don't know, if I make any sense. I just babbled on about something big trying not to go into full detail. If you need to talk though, just let me know!

I hope things get better for you though. (((((HUGS)))))