Stress is a fact of life. We all endure stress and when stress is allowed to – it can seriously disrupt a marriage. How can you help keep stress from hurting your relationship? Use some of the following tips:
- Take Time to Decompress
- You Should Both Be Allowed to Complain
- Find Out What’s Upsetting Your Partner
- Recognize that you Both Deal With Stress Differently
- Don’t Take it Personally
- Ask What You Both Need
- Forgive Yourself
- Forgive Your Partner
By taking the time to decompress, you are taking a break from a bad day before you talk to your spouse. Having this calming down period can help prevent an unnecessary argument. You should both be allowed to complain because it can help you both to blow off steam. Griping about your daily problems can let you get it out and provides your spouse with the time to be supportive. You both need this.
Talking to each other about your successes and disappointments can not only let off steam, but also allow you to find out what’s upsetting your partner. You can help each other by listening, offering advice if requested, but also avoiding assumptions. Your partner may have no idea that you are so frustrated with your children that you’ve started thinking of yourself as a bad parent. They can’t help you if they don’t know what’s going on.
You need to recognize that you both deal with stress differently. Understanding that you do can help you to not take their handling of stress personally. It’s not important who’s way is better, it’s about what works for you. It’s also important not to take their issues personally. Your husband can resent his job and it’s not your fault. You can resent the pressures of running the kids all over town and it’s not his fault. But you both need to understand that.
If you ask for what you need, you stand a better chance of getting it. If I need my husband to let me know his schedule, it’s not because I’m checking up on him – it’s because I need to plan ahead. It helps me to balance my day. He understands that. He needs me to be a little less rigid so I can handle it when his schedule changes unexpectedly. One phone call can satisfy both of us.
Finally, it’s important that you both forgive each other and yourselves. You’re not perfect. They aren’t perfect. A lot of little incidences can blow up in a marriage, for example, if you’re heading out for a day together and you forgot a list. Don’t let it eat up your day, make it a game to work together to remember what was on it. Don’t let your day be ruined – forgive yourself or your spouse if they forgot it.