How do you deal with anger?

[laughingeyes2013]

I'm really angry at my husband.

I feel let down by his selfishness.

I don't want this to turn into a LTB thread, but I really would like to know how everyone deals with their anger to prevent it becoming inwardly toxic.

I know that my anger will only harm ME. And I don't want that to happen.

I have MS and a second child aged 5.5 months. The other child is 3.5 years old. Both wake up in the night, resulting in about 5 wake-ups each night (3 to feed prem baby and 2 for toddler needing to pee etc).

I've been solely dealing with it all when husband works, and asking him to do ONE feed overnight to help me out when he has a day off.

He is so tired on his days off that he resents this and is being selfish about it. He is pressurising me to put the baby into a room of his own before I am happy to. The reason I am not happy is that baby has multi-factorial reasons for keeping him in our bedroom longer. They are;

1. He is male (higher risk of SIDS)
2. He is prem by 5 weeks, also increased SIDS risk.
3. We front sleep him because of the awful reflux he had - unsafe.
4. He currently is being treated for croup with steroids.
5. My gut instinct is uneasy.
6. I am told that they should be moved according to the adjusted age.

Husband constantly goes on about it and is hard to live with. I suppose you could say "grow a thick skin" but it affects me even though I try to avoid it.

We've come to a compromise, heavily in his favour so it's probably not really a compromise at all really, where I will move into the nursery (tiny spare room) with the baby and sleep on an air mattress, so husband isn't disturbed, but I am getting what I want - the safety of our baby.

This isn't about the rights and wrongs of the situation - I strongly believe that he is wrong as he is being really selfish! But I am so angry with him I feel like walking away. But I'm not going to, instead I want to learn how to deal with my anger, as I know in relationships people can make wrong choices and make each other angry. This isn't the first and am sure it won't be the last.

The thing is I don't want to be anywhere near him or even look at him at the moment. I feel cold towards him as I am exhausted and have already been doing the lions share for almost 6 months, during which one I've already had an MS relapse.

This anger won't help with that either, so help me out here folks! How do you deal with anger, I need a lot of wisdom here.

Would that really be a deal-breaker for you?

The deal breaker isn't the anger, or the sleep, or the moving beds. The deal breaker for me it that he values himself above you and above his child.

His sleep is more important than yours.
His bad back is more important than your MS.
His wanting his own space is more important than your feelings or the guidelines for his child.

My DH does things that piss me off. He likes the blinds open for light, I like them closed for privacy. Drives me mad but I know he is as 'right' as I am. This is not your situation.

I'm not sure that selfish behaviour in itself can be a deal breaker. If you sit down (without the children) and calmly outline the problems for him like you have for us and he still refuses to act like an equitable partner in your relationship then you've got more of a problem. Refusing to respond to your problems and not displaying any desire to prioritise anyone else would mean that things may not be so easy to solve.

But even then Relate might help.

As for dealing with your anger, I'd agree with others who've suggested that you shouldn't ignore it. Try not to act on it in the heat of the moment (easier said than done).

You sound like you are exhausted though. Arrange some short term away-time of you can, recharge a bit and come up with a list of issues that you'd like to talk to him about. Or just go to the cinema.

That information on SIDS is just wrong, BTW. SIDS rates are approximately 1 in 2000 live births, not 300 in 17 million.

The deal breaker for me it that he values himself above you and above his child.

This. I think this is where I was going with my comments about inequality, but this poster has put it better.

The anger is justified, and the risk is that it will turn to resentment and that is really hard to move on from, it does damage to you psychologically and physically to live in this kind of situation long term, and it is also hard to recover your relationship from.

Take a step back. It is not okay to be sleeping on the floor on a blow-up mattress in a tiny room when you have MS and a two children to care for. You know that. So, the bigger question is why it cannot be sorted in a different way. Why does your husband think this is okay??

The deal breaker for me it that he values himself above you and above his child

I agree with this comment.