“You don’t need to be angry / annoyed”

[WellWhaddayaKnow]

DH says variations on this often (others include “you shouldn’t be getting cross about that“, etc) and it, well, annoys me!

I probably didn’t notice it when we first got together, but at some point I picked up that he often says something like this during arguments / trivial bickering.

He is often one of those people who stays calm or actually sometimes doesn’t express when something bothers him. And I’ve come to find this phrase really bothersome and asked him to stop trying to tell me if I’m allowed to feel angry or annoyed about whatever given thing.

I considered posting this on AIBU but I guess I’m just interested in others’ opinions generally and reflecting on why this phrase (and variations) bothers me.

Because he's gaslighting you. It's a form of abuse by controlling what you are and are not allowed to feel. Is he controlling in other ways?

He's trying to shut you down so you absolutely should be getting annoyed at him saying it.

Context is everything.

On the face of it. he's trying to tell you how you should feel, in particular how you should feel about something he's done. He has no right to tell you how to feel, and especially not if it's in response to something he himself has done.

Is that the kind of scenario we're talking about?

There is a possible alternative, which would be that he's a respectful, decent, kind and supportive man, who has spent years telling himself not to get annoyed about something / not to sweat the small stuff / not to get stressed about things he can't change etc, and he's now vocalising it either through habit or he's (perhaps misguidedly) trying to share his ethos with you.

Only you will know which of those it is.

I can see it would be irritating either way, and he should stop.

It depends on what you are getting mad over and what he is trying to achieve.

If you are getting angry at small things and he is actually trying to point out it’s not worth getting angry over, I would suggest you might need to look at why you get angry so easily.

If it’s angry over fairly big stuff and he says it to shut you down, then fair enough. He is being a tit.

Who knows. You say he is calm. Perhaps he is really regulated and you are volitile flying off at minor things. Or maybe he is repressed and your anger triggers him. We don't have a clue