Today I want to share something important with you. Something that I’ve recently realised is crucial to building relationships that are not just healthy, but actually genuinely grow stronger over time.
If you look around, you’ll notice that we as a society tend to accept that most relationships are destined to go a little something like this:
Young stud looking like an oiled-up Arnold in his prime, meets a gorgeous young woman at Glastonbury.
They fall head over heels in love. Gazing into each other's eyes and feeding each other overpriced, half-cooked food-truck pizzas all weekend.
They eventually get home, the romance grows and they decide they want to build a life together.
A few amazing years go by; they settle down, get married, buy a house, have kids, raise kids, bring kids to school, the kids go off to uni…
…and suddenly, there they are. Staring into each other’s wrinkled eyes. Searching for that young hunk or beauty queen they once knew.
But they don’t recognise each other anymore, there’s nothing to say.
Perhaps they didn’t think hard enough before jumping the gun… maybe that’s just what time does.
Now, I know. I've made it a little bit too “Hollywood”, but you get the picture.
And the funny thing is: we don’t just accept this as the “natural course of life”. We actually justify it with a (supposedly) wise acceptance that “Long term relationships are boring, but it’s all worth it.”
But what if there was something else?
What if I said it has more to do with you knowing yourself?
And what if I said that the first step on that journey is through your anger?
In modern society, our social norms are quite different from the caveman monkey brain conventions we evolved with.
We’ve become more sophisticated and intelligent in how we communicate with each other (which is a good thing). But it also comes at a cost.
Very early on as children, we start learning how we should behave. We quickly learn what we can do and can’t do.
And that’s super important to be able to interact with others… but it’s also painful. Because it requires us to repress parts of ourselves.
One of the first things that many of us learn to repress is our anger.
And the thing about anger is that you can’t just put a lid on it. It doesn’t just disappear. It boils under the surface. And every once in a while, it’ll rear its ugly face like some demonic nun straight out of the Exorcist.
You know what I mean:
You’re driving home from a busy day. The sun’s shining.
Then some random dork in a beatdown Toyota cuts you off at an exit, and before you know it you’re screaming and cursing enough to make a drill sergeant wet himself.
Happens to the best of us… But, I digress.
The point is, most of us grow up in households where anger isn’t accepted for what it is, and we learn some distorted version of how to express it.
For some it’s completely pushing it all down where it boils and turns to uglier emotions like resentment, for others it’s a passive-aggressive thing. And then there’s those that explode into scary levels of anger.
Most people find themselves somewhere on that spectrum. And a few go down the “Dexter” path. (If this is you, I’m sorry but I’m not sure this article can help - you need Jesus.)
We mostly accept these forms of expressing anger as normal. But they’re not. It’s very rare to see healthy expressions of anger in our day to day.
As you’d expect, that creates problems in relationships. The more extreme you are on one side or the other, the bigger the problems can get. And that’s amplified 100x in your relationship with your significant other.
My goal is to share with you what I’ve learnt about anger, and help you start moving off that spectrum completely. That way you can build the strong relationships that you crave, without compromising on your integrity or self respect.
Anger is a secondary emotion. It is always a cover up for another emotion that you don’t want to feel.
It’s a way of feeling powerful when you’ve felt powerless, strong when you’ve felt vulnerable. Or a way to intimidate when you feel threatened.
In most cases, people react with anger out of fear. But that isn’t actually what anger is. And it’s not what anger is for.
The only use for anger is to inform you that a situation or person is stepping over the line of something important to you.
I’ll say that again. The ONLY purpose of anger is to inform you that you need to sit with yourself and figure something out. It should NEVER be something that you externalise onto others.
You might say, but what about when someone acts like a d*ck to you in public?
It’s tempting to think there are situations where anger is “righteous”, believe me I get it... But the reality is, anger only makes things worse. It literally brings the worst parts of you out into the open.
You know you’re going to say and do things you’ll regret - or at least won’t feel proud of. And in the context of your relationship, those reactions can really damage the intimacy you've worked so hard to build up. It’s no wonder anger issues are such a common theme in break ups.
The anger is a piece of information letting you know that whatever happened is not okay for you. Take the information and use it to draw a line from a place of relaxed assertiveness.
As Sting phrased it...
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile.
So next time you feel your blood start to boil; notice it, let all that fiery goodness pour through your veins, and ask yourself “Why is this situation making me angry and what am I trying to avoid feeling?”
You’ll know you’ve found the answer if:
It’s something you probably wouldn’t like admitting out loud
The anger fades away and leaves you feeling all soft inside - like a marshmallow.
And for the lads reading this: there’s no shame in that. It’ll make you stronger than you can believe. Do this often enough, and nothing will faze you. That’s real strength.
Obviously, this isn’t about being perfect. I still indulge in a little road rage once in a while, and that’s fine.
But change how you look at your anger, and you’ll see your relationships transform. You’ll feel connected to others - and especially your significant other - like you never have before.
This is the type of deep connection that will stop you from building up resentments and gradually drifting away from your partner as you get older.
And it’ll make those sweet spontaneous memories you create with Kupl, all the more meaningful. ❤️
I hope this helped you out as much as it helped me. I’ll see you in the next one.
Written by
David From Marketing 🤷🏻♂️
I create content to serve Kupl’s mission of strengthening connection and intimacy in relationships. My main drive is to help bring more self-awareness to ourselves and our relationships, and hopefully, more kindness into our world.
I’m looking forward to sharing ideas with you. I hope they’ll help you as much as they continue to help me.
