Most couples who struggle with anger in their relationship aren't bad people.

They're not even bad partners.

They've just never learned a few key things.

And without those things, the same arguments keep happening, the same damage keeps building, and over time, the relationship starts to crack.

I talk to people every single day for whom their relationship ended in separation, and every single time it didn't have to.

Hello and welcome to the Anger Management Podcast.

I'm Alastair Dues, and for over 30 years I've helped more than 15,000 men and women control their anger, master their emotions, and build calmer, happier and more loving relationships.

If you'd like my help to do the same, head over to angersecrets.com you can book a free 30 minute call with me or grab my free training on how to break the anger cycle.

With that said, let's jump into four steps to help you manage anger in your relationship.

Step one is to know what actually sets you off the first step to managing anger in your relationship is understanding what triggers it in the first place.

And this sounds obvious, but most people have never really sat with it.

For some people, the trigger is feeling unheard.

They'll tolerate a lot, but the moment they feel like their partner isn't really listening, something ignites.

For others, it's feeling disrespected or carrying an unequal load at home, or having their time consistently undervalued.

Whatever your triggers are, they're worth knowing because right now, if you don't know them, they're running the show without you.

A simple way to start is after you feel angry, ask yourself what specifically happened just before.

Not the story you told yourself about it, but what actually happened.

Notice if the same situations keep coming up, you might be surprised how quickly a pattern emerges.

And if you're not sure, ask your partner.

The people closest to us often see our patterns more clearly than we do ourselves.

Step two to managing anger in your relationship is to have conversations about things that are bothering you before they become arguments.

The second step to controlling your anger in your relationship, and this one is huge, is learning to talk about what's bothering you before it builds into something explosive.

Most couples don't do this, not because they don't care, but because it feels risky.

They don't want to rock the boat, they don't want to hurt their partner's feelings, or they genuinely don't know how to start those conversations without them turning into fights.

So instead, the frustration builds quietly and eventually it comes out in the worst possible way.

During an argument louder and harsher than it needed to be about something that's really just the surface of a much deeper pile.

One tool I give to almost every couple I work with is is what I call a weekly relationship check in.

It's a short, structured conversation, maybe 20 or 30 minutes, where both of you talk openly about how you're feeling in the relationship, what's working, what's not, what you need more of.

The key is that both people feel safe.

To be honest, that means agreeing up front.

No interrupting, no name calling, no shutting down.

Just two people who are on the same side trying to understand each other.

It sounds almost too simple, but couples who do this consistently find that the big blow ups become much rarer because the pressure gets released gradually instead of all at once.

Step three to managing anger in your relationship is to manage your stress effectively.

Here's something most people don't connect the higher your stress levels are outside your relationship, often the angrier you are in your relationship.

In fact, stress and anger are often directly linked.

When you're carrying a heavy load, work pressure, financial worries, health concerns, or simple exhaustion, your tolerance drops.

Things that wouldn't normally bother you, suddenly land hard, and your partner, who happens to be the closest person to you, often becomes the outlet for all of it.

I've seen this so many times.

Someone comes to me saying they have an anger problem with their partner.

And when we dig in, what we often find is a stress management problem that's spilling into the relationship.

The basics matter here.

Regular exercise, time in nature, deep breathing, staying connected to people you trust.

These aren't soft suggestions.

They're real tools that lower your baseline so you're not walking into every conversation already at a 7 out of 10 and one mindset shift that helps.

A lot of the stress we carry isn't about the events themselves, it's about how we think about those events.

As I talked about in the last episode on Not Sweating the Small Stuff, recognizing that most difficult periods are temporary can completely change how you experience them.

It doesn't make hard things easy, but it stops them from from feeling permanent.

Now step four to managing anger in your relationship is to remember you're on the same team.

The fourth step, and maybe the most important, is and your partner are not opponents.

It's easy to forget that in the middle of a heated argument, it can feel like you're on opposite sides of a battle, both trying to win.

But winning an argument with your partner isn't actually winning anything.

If they feel beaten, the relationship loses and so do you.

The shift that changes everything is moving from I need to convince them to I need to understand them.

When you genuinely try to understand where your partner is coming from, not to find a counter argument but to actually get it, something remarkable happens.

They feel it, and almost always they start trying to understand you back.

That's where real solutions come from.

Not from one person overpowering the other, but from two people who care about each other figuring out how to meet in the middle.

A client I worked with recently described it like we used to fight to win, now we fight to understand.

And we almost never need to fight anymore.

That's the shift I'm talking about.

So to recap the four steps to manage your anger in your relationship are to understand what triggers your anger.

Start having open conversations before the pressure builds.

Take your stress seriously and manage it actively.

And when conflict does arise, remember that your partner is your teammate, not your opponent.

These four things won't just reduce conflict, they'll change the whole quality of your relationship.

And if you want to go deeper with this, if you want a real, structured approach to managing anger and communicating better in your relationship, visit angersecrets.com you can enrol in my online course the Complete Anger Management System, or book a free 30 minute call with me directly.

And if this episode was useful, I'd love it if you followed the show on your favourite podcast app and left a quick rating and review.

It just takes two minutes, but it genuinely helps other people find help with anger when they need it most.

And remember, you can't control other people, but you can control yourself.

Thanks for listening and I'll see you in the next episode.

Take care.

The Anger management podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of counseling, psychotherapy or any other professional health service.

No therapeutic relationship is implied or created by this podcast.

If you have mental health concerns of any type, please seek out the help of a local mental health professional.