Never go to bed angry. Do this instead.

Here’s the scenario. Early in my marriage, I discovered all the things that I was doing wrong. While I seemed to get along okay with my roommates in college and felt I had done okay on my own, now I was living with my wife and discovering that I wasn’t doing a lot of things correctly. It turns out there was a right and wrong way to close the toilet seat lid, load the top rack of the dishwasher, sort and do laundry, and even reheat pizza. In the beginning, I was so in love that I took most of this feedback (I’d go as far as calling them microaggressions) in stride. But one day I snapped. I couldn’t handle being told there was yet one more thing I needed to change about my daily living with the woman I loved.

I unleashed all the feelings of inadequacy in one giant release. I had broken the first rule of marriage. Unbeknownst to me, I was subconsciously keeping score. Once I began what could best be described as my toddler tantrum, I couldn’t stop myself. Everything I had learned that I had been doing wrong since we began living together came out in one big ball of angry. And, when I was done, Elena was just as mad as I had been when I snapped.

We didn’t talk to each other as we got ready for bed. Part of me was thinking, “Good. Let her be angry. I’m done being treated like a child. Who does she think she is being all superior. I’m not that difficult to live with. Why do I have to be the one who changes all the time. Can’t she see how unimportant all of this stuff is? What was she thinking correcting me all those times?” And so the rant of the ego goes. It seems petty to admit it, but this is precisely what I was thinking and feeling when it was time to go to bed. It was then, and only then, that I realized not only had I violated the first rule of marriage, I was about to violate the third by going to bed angry.

Instead of Going to Bed Angry, I Asked Myself These Questions

In order to stop acting on auto-pilot, I asked myself three questions:

1.     Is this the kind of relationship I want with my partner?

2.     What would it take for me to let go of my anger, forgive myself and make amends?

3.     Despite my negative feelings, what are three things I can be authentically grateful for?

The first question got me to check-in with myself. No, this is definitely not the kind of relationship I want with Elena. That’s an important step because in the heat of the moment, there’s a righteousness that prevents the kind of relationship I actually want. I can’t have a blissful, loving and nurturing relationship with my partner when I’m spitting mad at her. What’s more, I always envisioned us as two parts of a whole – the interconnectedness of our combined being. If Elena were, in fact, an extension of me, this anger I was feeling would be the equivalent of being mad at my left arm. Being mad at Elena is no different. So if this is not the kind of relationship I want with my partner, it’s time to look at the viable alternatives.

What would it take for me to let go of my anger? This is a tricky one when you’re hijacked. I’ve since learned the power of mindfulness, meditation and the mental fitness practices that allow me to drop into my body. In other words, today I have the tools to weaken my saboteurs and strengthen my sage and self-command muscles. But early in my marriage I did not. To let go of my anger, I would do my best to rationalize what was going on and force myself into a solution. In this particular moment, what I needed to let go of my anger was to acknowledge the truth about what Elena was saying and consider the possibility that maybe I am not so easy to live with as I think I am. And just like that, the anger began to give way to neutrality and acceptance. To let go of my anger, I needed to stop feeling to damn righteous and be willing to accept that what Elena was feeling was true for her (even if it wasn’t landing with me).

With a shift in perspective, I could forgive myself for the way I had acted. I knew that I had said some mean things in the heat of the moment and I would need to make amends. Before I could do that, I really needed to let go of my anger completely. Otherwise, any attempt at resolving our conflict would simply put us back on the merry-go-round of “Here’s why I’m right and you’re wrong.” That wouldn’t lead to anywhere productive, so it was time to let go of my anger, forgive myself for the way I acted and decide, authentically, that I want to make peace.

Logically, I know what I need to do, but emotionally I wasn’t there yet. To help get me there quickly, I shifted my focus again to the three things I was authentically grateful for, even when feeling negative and emotionally charged up. I was grateful to be in this relationship with Elena. I reminded myself during all that dating how I longed for a life partner. Now I had one and I was fighting about stupid household logistics. Refocusing my gratitude toward being in this relationship made it easier to come up with two other things I was grateful for. The second was that Elena cared enough about me to want to help me grow in our relationship. She’s thinking long-term and wants us to be aligned on how we do household chores. I’m grateful that she’s making this effort because it shows how much she cares about me. And third, I’m grateful that I feel safe enough in my relationship to be able to share how I’m feeling.

Resolution Before Our Heads Hit the Pillow

In this state, I was ready to make amends. I had become clear myself so I was ready to stop the righteousness merry-go-round of who’s right and who’s wrong. I began with an apology. “Elena, before we go to bed, I want to apologize for the things I said.” And then I really owned my ugly. By owning my mistakes and sharing what I wished I hadn’t said, she could see my shift and that I was not attempting to be right or “win” anything. And then something magical happened that I hadn’t expected. Elena responded in kind with her own apology. She shared how she was adjusting to our new living situation and how foreign it felt. She loved me, but she wasn’t used to the way I did things. I agreed to do my best to adjust so that we could have the kind of living environment that we both wanted and she agreed to soften her corrections and the frequency of those corrections. In other words, we came up with a compromise that worked for us.

Why This Is SO Important

With this resolution, we could let that anger and frustration go. What’s more important is that we got to close the book on that disagreement and start fresh tomorrow. Without staying up late and resolving this conflict, we would begin the next day still reliving the previous night’s hostilities. It’s exhausting to carry all that anger around with you, yet how often do we do that when we feel slighted, underappreciated and/or ignored by the person we love the most? Resolving conflicts in the moment means you’re only focused on the issue at hand (rather than the history of everything that’s gone on in the relationship).

Never going to bed angry means letting go of any negative feelings – authentically, not “in theory” – so that you can begin the next day neutral to positive. When you let go of negative emotions, you leave space for possibility and positivity. In order to build a blissful marriage, you don’t want to be holding on to negative emotions that anchor you into the kind of relationship you don’t actually want. Instead, building a blissful marriage is about keeping your eye on the prize. By knowing what you really want, you can ensure that the small obstacles along the way don’t prevent you from having the kind of relationship you’re committed to having.