How do I control my anger and stop arguing with my wife?

To solve any problem, if we were to stop the cause of the problem, we’ll get rid of the problem. Likewise, for anger too, if we understand the cause of anger i.e. why do we get angry, we will be able to get rid of our anger.
So what are the common reasons that cause anger?

1.Things do not happen as we wish them to ber
We always wish that our life-partner does things as per our expectations. And if and when our expectations are not met, we do not like it. We tend to believe that the other person has deliberately not fulfilled our expectation and this belief makes us angry.

Rather than getting angry, can we be more understanding and ask our spouse what happened? Maybe your wife was more than keen to fulfill all your expectations but circumstances did not allow it to happen. May be the deliverable was not understood properly, or she fell short of resources required to do the job or it could be any other reason beyond comprehension. So, by exploring what is the real reason behind it, maybe we will be overwhelmed and have no reason to get angry. Or understanding the right reason behind things not happening, we will now be able to help our partner do it just as we wished them to be, so that we both remain happy.

2.A wrong belief that ‘anger makes things happen’
Many have a belief that by getting angry one can get things done quick and fine. This may work out well for a few people sometimes, but do you know it never pays off in the long run? People may do our work out of fear, but our anger will not allow love and respect to generate in the other person’s heart.

Our way of making things happen, should be such that our spouse does it sincerely and heartily, throughout her life, merely out of immense love and respect that she holds for us in her heart. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan says, ”The wife and children have come under our shelter. How can we hurt those who have come under our shelter? We cannot hurt those who are dependent upon us even if they are at fault.”

3.A materialistic outlookr
In case of people holding a lot of value for materialistic things, if any loss occurs, it immediately causes them anger, and long arguments justifying their anger.

The loss has already occurred, but what about this additional loss that we are incurring by hurting our own person’s feelings? Do you know if we don’t yell at someone making a mistake, they will realize and accept their mistake faster and will try their best to not repeat the same? But when we get angry, the other person may either hide the mistake or not accept it and instead counter argue with us, resulting in a long-term conflict.

4.Difference in RPM (Revolutions per minute)
No two people have the same capability of understanding and grasping things. When a person with high RPM, i.e. holding a higher speed of mental revolutions that help faster and better understanding of things, explains things to a person with low RPM; and does not find him understand things in the manner he is able to, it frustrates him and makes him angry.

But what if we adopt a sympathetic approach instead? Rather than getting angry and arguing and cursing our person, can we take adjustment and come down to the level of our partner and explain things to her in a manner that she can understand. This will not frustrate us and moreover over time, we will be happy to find that by staying in our company and obtaining our love and understanding, slowly her RPMs are on the increase. Isn’t that good news?!

Anger between husband and wife hurts the happy married life in many different ways.
Anger damages the safe feeling / trust between each other, the feeling of love begins to get replaced by a fear of tending to hurt and getting hurt by each other, it results in the two getting distant which leads to sadness, loneliness and anxiety to both, it damages our self-esteem and the sense of ourself being a great and satisfying gift to our spouse which we are, etc.

Therefore, in order to live a happy life:

1.Whenever you tend to get angry on someone, always think “How would I feel if someone got angry on me. Similarly, will he/she like it if I get angry?”

2.Rather than getting angry and arguing with your wife, express honestly and directly, in a healthy manner, all your disappointments and stresses which have lead to your anger towards her. Communication is an easy way to resolve a lot of seemingly difficult-to- solve conflicts. If your spouse cannot initiate, you initiate; talk it out and sort it out.

3.Give an equal chance to her and try to understand her side of the story as well. Appreciating other person’s view point and circumstances helps us become broad minded, more understanding and nobler.

4.Say, you find your wife overreacting with anger and stubbornly unwilling to examine how she is contributing to the marital difficulties as well, you become calm and follow what Param Pujya Dadashri says, “When a machine gets too hot, you must leave it alone for a while and in a short time it will cool down. But if you keep meddling with it, you will get burnt.”

5.Whenever you get angry and hurt someone, do Pratikraman i.e. ask for forgiveness for the mistake from the Soul of the other person, making a firm resolve to never repeat the mistake. This will prevent causing any hurt to your relationship and instead will make it a loving and a long-lasting, strong and healthy relationship.

If we never give protection to our anger by considering that getting angry is the right thing to do, then eventually anger will definitely go away. Accepting anger as wrong; and analysing and working on getting rid of the real cause behind our anger helps resolves our anger forever!!

Please visit https://www.dadabhagwan.org/path-to-happiness/self-help/anger-management/