Case #1- Elizabeth, a 40 year old homemaker was always feeling angry and used by her family, constantly saying that everybody took advantage of her.
She felt that she worked like a slave but her family showed no appreciation or acknowledgment of her many efforts. She needed anger management to help deal with her feelings.
Case #2- Bill, a 34 year old husband complained that his critical wife was always angry at him. He sought anger management to learn how to deal with his angry wife.
He spent his life trying to cope with her outrages which often escalated him into defensive anger which didn’t happen anywhere but in this relationship.
Case#3- Betty, a 42 year separated mother struggled with her soon to be ex-husband’s contempt and disrespect every time she angrily called him to discuss details of their divorce. She needed anger management to learn how to better deal with her ex.
These three cases bring up the question often asked by participants in our anger management classes: Is it possible to control how family members treat us? The short answer is ‘no’ but often we can teach them to treat us better!
Believe it or not, we are constantly teaching our family how to treat us both by our responses to their behavior, and by the behavior we display to them to which they react. In our case examples:
- By automatically doing whatever her husband and children requested, Elizabeth was teaching them that there are almost no limits to what she would do for them.
- With his behavior, Bill was actually teaching his wife that the way to get attention from him (even if it was negative attention) was for her to create drama.
- Betty was so intimidated by her husband, that her defensive attitude was teaching him that to deal with her, he had to push back with the contempt and disrespect that he constantly showed her.
The dance of anger
Our interchange with family members is often like a carefully choreographed dance. They make a move. You make a move in response to their move. They then respond to what you said or did and well, you get the idea!
How do you change the dance? Start by seeing yourself as a teacher of how you would like your family to treat you.
Four ways to change what you teach others
1. Try a softer-start-up. Marital research shows that the first few seconds of an interaction can predict the final outcome of the encounter. Try being softer, more polite, more respectful, less hostile, or more empathetic and see how this change in your approach actually teaches others to respond better to you.
2. Take a time-out before dealing with the conflict or situation. Conflicting or arguing family members often work themselves up to a point at which problem solving is impossible. The solution is to retreat and give yourself time to calm down and think things over. This takes at least 20 minutes, often much longer. Before taking your time out, it is important to tell the other person that you will commit to returning soon to deal with the conflict, after you are calm then be sure to do it!
3. Acknowledge that you see how they must be seeing the situation. Called empathy, this response on your part teaches others that you care about their feelings and viewpoints, and opinions. Acknowledgment doesn’t mean that you necessarily agree with their viewpoint only that you see it. Sometimes, your family needs to know that you care about them and respect their opinions before they listen to what you say.
4. Set limits and boundaries for your family members. Limits and boundaries are basically rules regarding acceptable behaviors toward you as well as what you are willing or not willing to do.
If you feel others are taking advantage of you, ask yourself what you may be doing (or not doing )to give the message it is ok for them to do whatever they are doing. Often you can change their behavior toward you by teaching them different rules of being with you. The easiest way to do this is simply to respond differently yourself.
For instance, they make you the core of a nasty joke. Being a nice person, you pretend it doesn’t bother you (even though it does), so you laugh with everybody else. As an alternative, try not laughing with them, which is a way of teaching them that they have crossed a boundary with you.
To learn more about this tool of anger control as well as seven others, attend our local anger management classes. More information below.
