Dr. Don Wood explains why partners get angry over seemingly small things: they're reacting to past experiences you don't know about. Instead of matching their anger, ask calm questions like "Help me understand why you responded that way" to find out what actually triggered them.
Chapters
If you feel like you're walking on eggshells around your partner and you don't know when they're going to get mad, here's what you need to know. So you're in a relationship and your partner gets angry with you simply out of nowhere, and you're like, what was that all about? It's coming from their previous experiences in their lifetime. They don't even necessarily realize they're doing it. The reason they're doing it is because their mind loops through previous experiences. So think of it this way. Your mind has got a book of experiences, all the different things that have happened in your lifetime. Your mind now uses those resources to respond to the incoming data that's coming in now. So you say something to your partner and they just blow up and get mad at you. Well, you don't know their book. So somebody may have hurt them with those kinds of words before, that kind of action that they took. And all of a sudden they now subconsciously loop through that book to say, how should we respond? And it feels like they're under attack. You didn't mean it that way, but that' the way they heard it. So you're saying it one way, they're hearing it a different way, and they get angry, and you have no idea why. So if you're the recipient on the end of that anger, what's the best thing to do? Well, the best thing to do is to not get angry and not fight back. If you really care and this is an important relationship in your life, the best thing you can do is to say, help me understand why you responded that way. I'm not sure I understand, and I want to understand. I care for you and. And obviously you got upset. Can you help me understand what did that.
