How Mood Affects Our Relationships

Can you notice how when you are in a bad mood your relationship suffers? This pretty much happens to all of us. I know it happens to me, plenty. I will feel depressed, or anxious or worried about something and then I am in some kind of mood and then no one feels good around me.

I also know that if I am in such a mood, I am usually unaware that I am in a mood in that moment. After the mood passes I can look back and see how my upset feelings really impacted the way I acted. This is good to do, notice yourself after you have had an upset.

I was talking with a friend recently and he told me something very interesting. He said that the two most common words used in all of history, the two words written about the most throughout time are the following: love and freedom.

Wow, I thought. These are such profound longings that in all the words used since the beginning of modern humans, love and freedom are what people write about the most. So I think it’s only fitting that you and I explore what these mean in our relationships, and I think they are exactly what everyone is after.

We all get wounded by the people we love. This is part of being human. The hard part though, when we are in a relationship, is putting the pain between you and your partner.
And we do this almost instinctively. We get our feelings hurt and boom the wall comes up or we tell them incredibly strongly how much they hurt us.

This pattern is pervasive with couples. I see it in my therapy practice. I live it in my own life. When I am hurt I am unable to ask for what I need. My instincts are to fight. I don’t raise my fists or anything, but my insides look for someone to blame. I usually become angry on the inside after I feel hurt and I express it, sometimes loudly.

I was at a dinner party recently, sitting next to a lovely couple. The wife told me about her life and her love of her husband. She talked about how they enjoy travelling and some of the places they have visited. She also talked about how she was pretty sure they weren’t going to be able to travel anytime soon, because her husband just took a new job. The husband and I traded glances and he said to me, “Yeah, she keeps saying that. I guess we won’t be travelling this year.”

When I heard him say this about his wife, I could feel the wife’s suffering and I immediately felt my mind convert those words into another meaning for her. I was compelled to tell him privately what I felt she was really trying to say. I got him alone for a moment and asked him to repeat what his wife had been telling him about travelling. Again he said her words, “She says, I guess we won’t be travelling this year.” He mimicked her with a kind of whiney voice, but my insides knew what she was really trying to say to her husband.

Relationship arguments can be difficult to get through. You fight with your loved one, feel unsafe, and feel hurt. Most of all, you might worry whether your relationship can weather the storm.

It can. Here’s how.

Learning how to overcome anger can be a struggle, but you can definitely do it if you put your mind to it.

I was thinking about all the people we know who get mad. You know who they are. They are the ones we are careful around because we don’t want to get them upset. They are the ones who get mad out of nowhere and then there is a problem.

We all know someone or some people like this. Maybe it’s you. I know it’s me. When I was a little girl if something didn’t go my way I got mad. This is what I saw my mother do when she was disappointed or frustrated. This is what I learned to do too.

All of us complain about something. “It’s too hot!” I’m cold.” Some of us complain to another. “Turn off the light.” “Why didn’t you remember to call?” These phrases are how most of us communicate our discomfort with our mate. We feel a discomfort and we speak about it right away.

We learn this habit when we are small. That’s how we were taught to understand ourselves. We learn what works and what doesn’t. Then we tell someone what isn’t working. If you think about it, you can hear this kind of talking in just about every situation you find yourself in; work, school, family, friends, and relationships.

Figuring out how to control anger issues in your relationship can be challenging. Everyone gets mad. Some of us even blow up.

Controlling anger issues in a relationship means blowing up less often and learning how to minimize the damage when, despite our best efforts, an episode occurs after all.

Author Archives: Webmaster

How Mood Affects Our Relationships

Love and Freedom: Two Things We All Want In Relationships

Emotional Distance in Relationships & How Pain Separates Us

Why Expressing Feelings in Relationships is Hard

Relationship Arguments: How to Survive Them & Love Again

How to Overcome Anger, Because Mad Makes a Mess

Complaining in a Relationship: Why & How to Stop It

How to Control Anger Issues in Your Relationship