Have you ever noticed how slippery frustration is? Particularly in marriage, it's very difficult to avoid letting frustration quickly turn in to something more destructive.
In particular, there is a high likelihood of slipping from feeling frustrated into feeling self-righteous ("I'm right, they're wrong!") or feeling like a victim ("Nothing I do is good enough for them" or "I guess they just don't care").
But few things kill off closeness and intimacy more than self-righteousness or victimhood. Avoid the destruction of your relationship with this simple three-step plan:
Step 1: Admit Your Feelings to Yourself As soon as you are aware that you are frustrated with your partner, say it to yourself. If you name it, you begin to tame it. Simply saying the words "I feel so frustrated right now" lets out a little steam and buys you enough time to take the next two steps.
Step 2: Be Grateful Think of two specific things for which you're grateful to your partner. For example, I am grateful to my wife for grounding and centering me, and for giving me a sense of home that I would be woefully inadequate at providing for myself. By doing this exercise, you will discover that you can't be genuinely grateful and feel like a victim at the same time.
Step 3: Be Humble Think of two specific qualities about yourself that might make you a more difficult partner. For instance, I can be more than a wee bit scattered and, despite good intentions (and you know what road to where is paved with those!), my follow-through often leaves much to be desired. In fact, I hate to think of how many times my children could have fallen through the cracks if the details of their lives were left up to me. Do this exercise and you'll realize that you can't feel humility and self-righteousness at the same time.
The challenge is to do these three things as soon as you can, because once you start to slide down the slippery slope into self-righteousness or victimhood, it's nearly impossible to stop.
