Sunday night I left the dining room table abruptly.
“Are you angry?” my husband asked.
“No, I’m not angry,” I replied through gritted teeth.
“OK, good,” he said. With my back to him, I rolled my eyes and fumed.
The rest of the evening was very quiet. I watched some TV (Gilmore Girls which I knew he would hate) and went to bed early.
The morning after the fight with my husband.
The following morning, still mad, I left the house for my morning workout, shouting a quick “Goodbye! See you later!”
As much as I wasn’t ready to talk with him yet I was calmed down enough, after twelve hours and a decent sleep, to feel weird, less righteous. In the parking lot of the gym, I texted him.
“I needed a time out from our dinner conversation last night. It was frustrating because I couldn’t stimulate what I felt and thought in a way you could hear. It’s important to me that we get back to it. I hope we’ll have time after dinner today.”
You see what I did there? That text took a while to write because I wanted to strike the right tone of, ‘OK, I big enough to admit I had something to do with how things went down so I’ll take that bullet’ with ‘AND you’re on notice, buddy, to face the music and take responsibility for your part.’ I also picked after dinner as our show downtime. No need to add hangriness to the fuel.
Re-engaging the fight with my husband
Re-engaging after a fight is so hard. Why do it? Why not just avoid the second round? Eventually, we forget why we even had a fight, don’t we? Isn’t that less painful?
Well, yeah. Avoidance works. Until it doesn’t.
In other words, we feel better in the short term but that negative energy doesn’t go away. I mean, there are exceptions, but we all know when we are swallowing a big bitter hairy pill that is only going to keep making us sick and uncomfortable.
Are you finding it difficult to want to fight with your spouse?
Are you finding that you are fighting with your spouse more than you think you should be?
Maybe you should call me and we should set up a time to talk about the fighting?
Call Dr. Aletta – 716.308.6683
Elvira G. Aletta, PhD, Founder & CEO
Executive & Personal Coaching, Individual & Relationship Counseling
Life gave Dr. Aletta the opportunity to know what it’s like to hurt physically and emotionally. After an episode of serious depression in her mid-twenties, Dr. Aletta was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease that relapsed throughout her adulthood. While treatable, the cure was often as hard to bear as the disease. Later she was diagnosed with scleroderma, another chronic illness.
Throughout, Dr. Aletta battled with anxiety. Despite all this, Dr. Aletta wants you to know, you can learn to engage in life again on your terms.
Good therapy helped Dr. Aletta. She knows good therapy can help you. That’s why she created Explore What’s Next.
Today Dr. Aletta enjoys mentoring the EWN therapists, focusing on coaching and psychotherapy clients, writing and speaking. She is proud and confident that Explore What’s Next can provide you with therapists who will help you regain a sense of safety, control and joy.
716.308.6683 | draletta@explorewhatsnext.com
