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Key points
- Unexplained difficulties in your relationship might be due to anger that sits beneath the surface.
- Anger that's unacknowledged can create a block between you and your partner.
- Working through unrecognized anger can lead to a stronger relationship.
Many people have a hard time admitting when they're angry—even to themselves. Owning and sharing feelings of anger can be especially hard when the target is your significant other. Most of us prefer to avoid conflict as much as possible.
Nevertheless, hidden anger doesn't magically disappear if you bury it. The negative energy has to go somewhere, and it often shows up in these common signs.
1. Protesting Too Much
If you're secretly angry at your partner, you might be quick to deny it—even before anyone has asked. For example, maybe you find yourself complaining to a friend about something your partner does, and you say to them, "I'm not mad, I just..." A little probing often reveals that the denial is an unconscious acknowledgment of your true feelings.
2. Overcompensating
In a similar way, you might take pains to show just how not-angry you are at your partner—for example, singing their praises to other people, or doing really nice things for them. While these behaviors could be sincere, they might reflect "reaction formation," a defense mechanism motivated by an intense desire to disown uncomfortable feelings.
3. Having Nothing to Talk About
Unacknowledged issues in a relationship tend to block the easy back-and-forth between partners. If you're holding onto anger that you're not fully aware of, it can lead to lots of silence or unsatisfying small talk when you and your partner are alone.
4. Not Wanting to Be Around Them
Hidden anger can provoke uncomfortable feelings when you're around your partner—especially if they keep doing the things that make you mad. As a result, you might find yourself spending as little time as possible with them.
5. Finding It Hard to Make Eye Contact
When you do spend time with your partner, you might find it difficult to look them in the eye. Something about that level of intimacy feels off-putting, perhaps because of the negative feelings it stirs up in you.
6. Struggling to Do Nice Things for Them
It might have been easy to do things for your partner before, but now you feel an internal resistance to gestures like rubbing their shoulders or making them a cup of tea. Or perhaps gift ideas used to come easily but now you draw a blank. It's as if doing something nice for them would be doing a favor for an enemy.
7. Having a Hard Time Celebrating Their Wins
For similar reasons, it might be hard to feel happy for them when things go well in their life. Maybe they got a promotion or tickets to see their favorite band, and for you it feels more like a loss than a win.
8. Feeling Competitive Toward Them
Finally, you might find yourself competing in big ways and small, from who gets the bigger half of the dessert you split to whose jokes get more laughs. Underneath the competitiveness might lurk feelings of animosity.
These eight signs don't always point to hidden anger. But if you recognize many of them in yourself, it's probably worth taking a closer look at how you feel about your partner.
You might need to examine your relationship with anger, and what makes it hard to acknowledge. Perhaps you didn't grow up with healthy models of anger expression, or anger feels scary because it often involved violence. A therapist can be helpful in this exploration.
With deliberate attention, you can work through these feelings constructively, and cultivate a stronger relationship in the process.
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