Handle Your Anger Properly so You Don't Ruin Your Relationship with an Avoidant Partner
Feel Like a Muse (even if your guy isn't a poet)
Do you ever find yourself hurt by a guy to the point of wanting to do something extreme, like breaking up, demonstratively leaving the restaurant while tossing a drink in his face, or slamming the door and leaving? You showed him that you are so mad.
After your initial rage is down, you hope that he will do something that will convince you or prove to you that he cares about you. How should you handle your anger, so you don't wind up feeling regretful?
Is Your Anger Related to His Emotional Unavailability
If you have anger issues in general, then I recommend that you figure out the way to deal with your anger. When it's a lifelong situation, maybe there are some unresolved emotional traumas that you need to address. On the other hand, if your anger is tied only to the relationship with an emotionally unavailable guy, read more to learn how to deal with your anger in this situation.
There are so many reasons why you may be mad at him. Perhaps, he doesn’t show you the affection that you want. Maybe he is stalling with his proposal and he doesn’t communicate openly. You simply always feel that you have to chase him and convince him that you are worthy of his commitment. So, you start thinking that maybe you should cut your losses.
When you pull away from the relationship, he then does something that draws you back, and your hope renews, just to find yourself again in that cat and mouse chase. How exhausting! Many women find themselves frustrated with emotionally unavailable guys.
If this is happening to you, you may be caught in an anxious-avoidant trap. It's natural that you will feel resentful and you may burst in anger. You may feel that he is deliberately manipulating you, but the truth could be much different. He may have an avoidant attachment style. So, if you want to stay with him, it's important that you handle your anger properly. Just know, there is nothing wrong with your anger. It's there for a reason.Understand Yourself and Your Avoidant Partner so You Can Handle Your Anger
Understanding the dynamics between you two will give you a chance to be more aware. If you are an anxious partner, it will be very hard to have your needs met because your requests for intimacy cause your partner to freak out.
If you truly care for your partner and you know that you want to stay with him, it’s important to learn how to communicate with him, especially when you get angry due to the fact that your needs for emotional intimacy are not met.
Lashing Out Will Ruin Your Existing Bond
If you continue lashing out, you will hurt your partner emotionally and you will undermine the attachment between you two. We are talking about anger that occurs when your partner doesn’t reciprocate the same level of affection that you feel you need from him. The dynamic between you two is naturally working against you. You need to transcend it if you want to build a relationship and a bond with your partner.
What does it mean to transcend it? How to do it? Are you supposed to give up on your needs? Absolutely not!
Your Needs Matter
What’s important to remember is that you don’t feel ashamed or that you don’t fall into a trap of accepting the label “needy.” This kind of gaslighting leads you to resentment and anger outbursts. You are not needy, but you just have a different desire for emotional intimacy. One lucky guy will be stoked to have your heart. What matters is that you know how to express your needs in ways that are palatable to your partner.
Why do we become angry when our partner doesn't give us the affection we hope they would? The answer is somewhat complicated, but it goes back to your childhood.
Our attachment figures, usually our parents, didn't get us in some ways. They didn't understand us, and they were unable to meet our emotional needs. Later in life, you hoped to find love, a partner who would give you the missing experience. But, your partner may not be attuned to be able to figure you out.
When you were little, you felt shame because of your needs. Your parents didn't acknowledge or reward them, so you never became aware of your needs. Thus, you never learned how to communicate them.
Moreover, you most likely learned that focusing on your needs is inappropriate if you are like the most modern women. To make the matters worse, you will most likely be attracted to emotionally unavailable guys. It sounds like a mess, but don't despair. With some awareness and communication skills, you too can acquire secure attachment.
Once you are aware of your underlying issues, it's gonna be easier for you to handle the anger that occurs when your partner's actions or inactions trigger you.
We, women, learn to attune to others' needs, while men learn that they need to express themselves assertively. So, you are not aware of your needs, while still hoping your partner will get you. It becomes very painful when he doesn't. So, when your partner doesn't get you or give you the affection that you need, your old wounds become aggravated.
Unexpressed Needs Leed to Resentment
This cycle of shame, lack of awareness of your own needs, acceptance of societal gaslighting about being needy, and your expectations that your partner will understand you leads to frustration and anger. To add salt to the wound, your partner most likely has an avoidant attachment style. Your need for affection makes him more avoidant and vice versa. His avoidance causes you to feel extremely frustrated.
If you want to handle your anger in a more effective way, accepting yourself and your needs is the essential step. Then, learning how to communicate them will help you reach your partner and help him lower his anxiety about attachment.
You may have an anxious attachment in general or only with this particular partner. If you have an anxious attachment, it’s most likely you are in a relationship with a partner with avoidant attachment style. So, it’s understandable that his avoidance aggravates you.
However, if you want to maintain your relationship with this guy and if you want to preserve your bond, you need to learn how to express your anger and take space without rage. When you demonstratively leave or express your rage in any other way, you are reinforcing his avoidant attachment style. You are showing him that he was right not to trust anyone.
Just FYI, he has avoidant attachment because in his childhood he realized that it’s not safe to attach to put it in simple terms. It's essential that you express your needs and boundaries, but, remember that you don’t want to hurt him. When your anger is out of control, you trigger his avoidance and self-protective instincts.
Although you may have the impulse to hurt him because you feel hurt, it will not be helpful if you want to nurture the relationship. He most likely didn’t want to hurt you.
Handle Your Anger by Taking Space Away from Your Avoidant Partner
So, what’s the best to do when you experience rage? Take space away from him. But, avoid behaviors such as demonstratively leaving, slamming doors, and so on. When you take space, you can say, “I need time by myself. I will be back at such and such time,” instead of slamming the door and leaving.
You can also tell him something like, “Right now I don’t want to be in your company. It’s too hurtful.” I’ll be back when I’m ready. This way, he will get the message that you are angry and hurt, but he will not feel overwhelmed. He will get a chance to pickle in the situation on his own and perhaps he may get some insights that he is overreacting and that you are not “dangerous.”
Otherwise, when you attack him in that raw stage, his nerves will just signal an emergency and he will be on defense. Let’s avoid that. Give your relationship the best chances by not ruining the existing bond with your partner.
If you need more help with communicating your needs for more time together, affection, download my Communication Scripts.
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[…] yourself frustrated because your partner doesn't give you enough of his affection. It's essential to manage your anger, so you don't sabotage your relationship. But, beyond that, you can actually utilize your anger to help you build a deeper emotional bond in […]
This is a somewhat dangerous post, stated as fact. Once again, this scenario (chronic avoidance, refusal to connect, and downright disrespect) is presented as somehow in our hands (the non-avoidant) to identify, correct and maintain. While controlling, becoming aware of, working through, and understanding our resentment and anger is most certainly vital and of utmost importance, it is not (and never was) on us to single handedly repair a broken relationship where one partner is ‘in’ and the other is chronically/always ‘out’. This advice is the sort of thing that makes people like us (helpers, people pleasers, codependents) stay in bad relationships forever thinking that we are the problem with the relationship when we are only one part of it. It’s time for avoidants to start taking the responsibility that we have for years and, if they can’t, then we need to get out of the relationship or find a level of acceptance with things as they are sufficient to be able to live in peace daily.
Hey you are extrapolating a bit. While all what you are saying can be true, this post is created for women with anxious attachment who want to take responsibility for their own behaviors and choices. The post is specifically about anger that reasonably occurs when dealing with avoidant partner. Choosing to stay with someone who doesn’t want to grow to be in a secure relationship with you is on you. You are right though, “It’s time for avoidants to start taking the responsibility…” But, who’s gonna make them? You can keep hoping they will or chose a secure person, but we always need to clean our own house first.