Anger in a relationship: what it is trying to tell you

“You forgot again. Never mind, I’ll do it myself, as always.” The cupboard door closes a little louder than it needs to. He looks up from his phone: “What is it now? You’re making a drama out of one phone call.” Five minutes later they are no longer arguing about calling the plumber, but about who is responsible for what in this house, who is what kind of person, and whose mother was impossible over the holidays last year.

If someone asked them the next morning what had happened, they would probably both say the same thing: “She was angry.” “He was angry.” And both would be right, but only halfway. The anger was the part that could be heard. What happened a second before it stayed unspoken — and that was the actual message.

This post is about anger in a relationship: why there is most of it exactly where there is most closeness, what it means that anger is often a “second” emotion, and where the line runs beyond which we are no longer talking about anger but about violence. I wrote about how anger works in general, and why it is not the enemy, in Anger is not the problem: how it turns from helplessness into energy for change, and about the rules of a fair argument in How to argue with your partner: rules that actually work. Here I am interested in something narrower: what anger between two people says about their relationship.

Why we are angriest with the people closest to us

In the 1980s the psychologist James Averill asked people to describe in detail when, and with whom, they had last been angry. What emerged is something most of us know from our own kitchens: anger is most often directed not at strangers and opponents, but at people we love and know well. We are angry with a stranger rarely and briefly. We are angry with a partner more often, because only a partner can do something a stranger cannot: disappoint an expectation on which our sense of safety rests.

John Bowlby, the founder of attachment theory, described this in small children. A child who has been separated from their mother for too long is often angry, not happy, when she returns. Bowlby called this the anger of hope: its purpose is not to push away but to make sure the separation does not happen again. Only when separations keep repeating and nothing helps does it turn into the anger of despair, which eats away at the bond. It is similar with adults. A large part of anger in a relationship is, at its core, a protest: “Don’t disappear on me. Notice me. Show me that I matter to you.”

This also explains a finding that surprises many people. John Gottman and Lowell Krokoff followed couples for three years. Couples who showed more open disagreement and anger when discussing difficult topics were less satisfied at the time — but after three years their satisfaction with the relationship had improved. What harmed the relationship in the long run was defensiveness, stubbornness and withdrawal from the conversation. Anger itself, then, did not predict a bad outcome. What predicted it was what couples do instead of anger or with it: contempt, stonewalling, silence. These patterns are described in more detail in The Four Horsemen in relationships: Gottman’s predictors of a breakup.

Anger as a second emotion

Leslie Greenberg, one of the founders of emotion-focused therapy, distinguishes between primary and secondary emotions. A primary emotion is the first, direct response to what has happened: fear when something threatens us, sadness when we lose something, shame when we feel exposed. A secondary emotion is a response to that first emotion — it comes after it and often covers it. In relationships, anger is very often exactly that: an emotion about an emotion.

The reason is simple and very human. Fear, hurt and shame make us small. In them we are open and dependent on how the other person will respond. Anger does the opposite: it fills the body with energy, straightens the back and turns the gaze outward, onto the other. In anger we are not the one who hurts but the one who is right. The switch happens in a fraction of a second and we do not choose it — which is why we mostly do not even notice it.

The problem is not that this switch happens. The problem is what your partner hears. They do not see the second in which it hurt. They see only the third box: a raised voice, a reproach, a cold face. And that is what they answer — with defence, counter-attack or withdrawal. The message “I was scared that I don’t matter to you” reached them as “you are irresponsible”. To the first they might have responded with closeness. Against the second they defend themselves.

What is most often underneath

Every couple has its own topics, but beneath anger in a relationship the same few emotions show up again and again:

• Fear of not mattering. “You forgot” translates in the body into “you weren’t thinking of me”. This is a common layer beneath anger over small things.
• Hurt. A remark in front of friends, a joke at your expense, a forgotten date. First it hurts, only then does it make you angry.
• Shame. When a partner points at something I already know about myself and have not made peace with, attack is the fastest way out of shame.
• Helplessness. When I have said the same thing ten times and nothing changes, anger is the last thing that separates me from resignation.
• Loneliness. It is possible to be alone inside a relationship. An argument is sometimes the only contact left.
• Exhaustion. Not an emotion in the strict sense, but reliable fuel: a tired person has a shorter road to anger.

Put differently: anger about unwashed dishes is rarely anger about dishes. How a couple gets from reproaches to what lies beneath them is described in From blame to needs: how a couple learns a new language.

When one pushes and the other goes quiet

Sue Johnson, who developed emotionally focused couples therapy, described a pattern many couples know: one pursues, the other withdraws. The one who pursues looks angry — asking, reproaching, raising their voice. The one who withdraws looks calm or indifferent — going quiet, leaving the room, having “nothing to say”. From the outside, one is difficult and the other reasonable. From the inside, both are frightened.

The pursuer’s anger is a protest against distance: “Where are you? Respond to me.” To the withdrawer, though, the partner’s anger says: “You’ve failed again. You’re not enough.” So they pull back in order not to make things worse — and in doing so confirm exactly what the first one fears. More anger, more withdrawal, more anger still. Johnson stresses that in this dance the opponent is neither partner but the dance itself. How this is worked with is explained in Emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT): what it is and how it works.

It is worth adding something about quiet anger here. Anger is not only volume. Anger is also a silence that lasts three days, exaggerated politeness, a “forgotten” promise, a back turned in bed. Someone who does not shout is not necessarily less angry. They may simply have learned that anger is dangerous, and put it away so deep that they no longer recognise it themselves. This is the subject of Suppressed anger: when you are “always calm” and always tired.

The same evening, told twice

What does the difference between the second emotion and the first look like? Take the scene from the beginning. First, the way it usually goes (both dialogues are composed and do not describe real people):

“You forgot to call again. You really can’t be relied on.”
“I had a mad day. And you never forget anything, do you?”
“It’s not about today. It’s that it’s always like this.”
“Then call them yourself, if I get everything wrong.”

The same two people, the same forgotten call, except that this time she also says the second before the anger:

“I’m angry that you didn’t call. And when I think about why it hits me so hard … I feel as if I’m on my own with all of this.”
“I didn’t know that’s what it meant to you. I thought it was about the tap.”
“It’s about the tap too. But more about whether there are two of us in this.”
“There are. I’ll call at eight tomorrow, and I’m setting a reminder right now.”

The second version is not magic, and in life it rarely runs this smoothly. But notice what changed: the anger did not disappear and was not denied. She still said she was angry. She only added a sentence that can be answered with something other than defence. And he heard, for the first time, what it was really about.

When anger is simply anger

It would not be fair to leave the impression that all anger is a disguise. Greenberg explicitly describes primary anger too: a direct, healthy response to a boundary being crossed or an injustice being done to us. If your partner reads your messages without permission, humiliates you in front of the children or breaks the same agreement for the third time, there is no need to look for hidden fear beneath the anger. The anger is the answer itself: “This is not all right and I do not accept it.”

The difference can often be felt in the body. Primary anger is clear and has a direction: it knows what it wants, and once it is heard, it eases. Secondary anger is diffuse, jumps quickly from topic to topic (“and another thing, and last year too”), and after the outburst brings not relief but emptiness or shame. A useful question is: if my partner gave me exactly what I am demanding right now, would it be enough? If the answer is no, there is something else underneath.

Where anger ends and violence begins

I want to be very clear in this part, because the explanation “anger is only covered-up fear” is easily misused. Anger is an emotion. Violence is behaviour. We do not choose an emotion; what we do with it is our responsibility. The sentence “I was so angry I couldn’t help it” does not hold up: someone who threatens or hits at home does not, as a rule, do so to their boss or to a police officer, even though they get angry with them too. So anger does not decide on its own. The person decides.

The sociologist Michael P. Johnson, who studied violence in intimate relationships for decades, points out that not all violence is the same. One kind erupts in an argument that gets out of control. Another is a pattern by which one partner controls, intimidates and isolates the other. In the latter, anger is not the point at all — power and fear are. Those around them often see only a “hot-blooded couple”, while one of the two has long been walking on eggshells. Both are dangerous and unacceptable; the distinction matters because it shows that violence is not explained by the amount of anger.

A few questions that help tell anger apart from violence in a relationship:

• Are you afraid of your partner? Do you adjust what you say, what you wear and who you message so that they won’t “start again”?
• Does the anger involve threats, breaking things, blocking your way out of a room, grabbing, pushing or hitting?
• Does your partner control your money, your phone or your contact with family and friends?
• After an outburst, does the responsibility land on you: “You made me do it”?

If you answered yes to any of these, this is not a matter for better communication, and it is not something you should solve by understanding your partner’s feelings better. Joint couples therapy is not the right form of help then either; the post Why couples therapy is not the right help when there is violence explains why. I am not a specialist in working with violence, so in such a case I refer people to organisations that are trained for it. In Slovenia you can call the SOS helpline for women and children who are victims of violence on 080 11 55, and in immediate danger the police on 113 or the emergency number 112. Where to start is described in Where to get help with abuse in Slovenia: a map for the first step.

And if, while reading, you recognised yourself as the one people at home are afraid of: that realisation is uncomfortable, but it is a beginning. Do not wait for it to sort itself out. Read When you recognise yourself as the one who is violent.

Exercise: the second before the anger

This exercise is meant for ordinary anger in a relationship in which you feel safe. Do it on your own, on paper, after an argument or while remembering the last one — not in the middle of it. If you like to write your anger down as it happens, an anger diary can help too.

1. Describe the moment like a camera. What happened, with no explanations: “At seven he said he hadn’t called.” No “again”, “always” or “never”.
2. Find the second before the anger. What did you feel in your body just before it arrived? A tightness in the chest, heat in the face, emptiness in the stomach?
3. Name the first emotion. Choose from: fear, hurt, shame, helplessness, loneliness, tiredness. If you don’t know, take the one that is hardest to write down.
4. Complete three sentences. “I’m angry because …” “Underneath that is …” “I need …” Let the third sentence be a request that can be met, not a verdict on your partner.
5. Decide what of this you will say. It need not be everything and it need not be straight away. Sometimes one sentence in the evening is enough: “Yesterday I wasn’t only angry about the phone call.”

The aim is not to replace anger with something prettier. The aim is for your partner to receive the whole message, not just its louder half.

When your partner is the angry one

All of this is easier to see in yourself than to bear in someone else. When someone raises their voice at you, your body reacts as if it were in danger, and curiosity is the last thing you are capable of at that moment. So, a few modest suggestions.

Do not explain to your partner what they “really” feel. The sentence “you’re not angry, you’re just scared” in the middle of an argument works like oil on a fire, because it takes away their right to their own experience. A question helps more: “I can see this really got to you. What was the worst part of it?” People rarely answer a question like that with a reproach.

If you notice you are already past the edge of your window of tolerance — your heart is pounding, you can no longer hear what your partner is saying, you are only assembling a counter-attack in your head — suggest a break with an agreed time to come back. How to do that without your partner experiencing the break as abandonment is described in Taking a break during an argument: how to step away without walking out.

And one more thing: understanding what lies beneath your partner’s anger does not mean putting up with the way they express it. “I understand that it hurt you” and “I’m not going to talk while you’re shouting” can be two parts of the same sentence.

Where this explanation does not hold

The idea that anger in a relationship is often a second emotion is useful, but it has limits that it is only fair to list.

Not all anger is secondary. If you translate every bit of anger into fear or sadness as you go, you risk watering down the anger that is justified. Some people learned at home that they must not show anger. For them the task is the reverse: not to look for what is beneath the anger, but to find the anger in the first place and to believe it.

Vulnerability is not a tool. The sentence “I feel abandoned” can be sincere, but it can also be a way of loading guilt onto a partner and getting my way. A first emotion spoken in order to move the other person is no longer openness but pressure in softer packaging.

Sometimes the reason lies elsewhere. Irritability that is new, and that you cannot connect with anything in the relationship, may be linked to poor sleep, long-term pain, alcohol, hormonal changes or depression, which in some people shows up as anger and withdrawal rather than sadness. This is the subject of Depression in men: anger, withdrawal and silence instead of tears. In that case the first port of call is your GP, not a conversation about the relationship.

Openness takes two. If you say your first emotion and your partner repeatedly mocks it, ignores it or later uses it against you, the problem is not that you did not say it well enough. No technique replaces a partner’s willingness to listen.

Where there is fear, this post does not apply. Everything I have written about looking for the softer emotion assumes a relationship in which both people are safe. Where one lives in fear of the other, the first step is safety, not understanding.

When the same argument goes round in circles and the two of you cannot stop it on your own, that is a good reason for couples therapy. As a therapist in training under supervision in marriage and family therapy, I meet couples in person in Ljubljana, including English-speaking couples — and a large part of the work is exactly this: slowing the moment down enough for what came before the anger to be heard as well.

What to remember

• Anger in a relationship is often a protest against distance: we are angriest with the people we depend on most.
• Anger is frequently a second emotion. A second before it there was fear, hurt, shame, helplessness or loneliness — and your partner cannot see that unless you say it.
• Anger itself does not harm a relationship. In the long run, defensiveness, withdrawal, contempt and silence do.
• Sometimes anger is simply anger: a healthy response to a crossed boundary that does not need translating into anything else.
• Anger is an emotion, violence is behaviour. Where there is fear and control, what helps is not better communication but outside help — in Slovenia: 080 11 55, 113, 112.