How to deal with anger in a relationship

In this article I will explain how to deal with anger in a relationship, what anger can tell you about yourself and your relationship and how to use it as a tool for personal growth.

Anger is a message that you are being hurt, that your needs are not met or that something is not right in your relationship. Anger is a signal that your needs, desires or values are compromised in the relationship.

Anger is a psychological signal warning you that you need to heal. Anger exists for a reason. You need to pay attention to your anger and ask yourself what is the actual reason for it.

Understanding anger

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”- Ambrose Bierce

The way most people communicate anger is either being defensive or attacking. The most important thing when it comes to anger is to learn how to express it in a different way, a constructive way.

It is clear that anger is not working for anyone. Letting the anger out is as harmful as keeping the anger inside. Feelings of anger in relationship occur when you are focusing on the relationship and forget about yourself.

The more you repress your emotions in order to keep your relationship peaceful, the more anger builds up.

On the other hand, when you vent your anger ineffectively, the actual reasons for it remain unidentified. You go in circles, reacting in predictable ways that only escalate the problems you are trying to solve.

Your emotions take over and you don’t weight your options to behave differently or you are not even aware that other options are possible.

How to use anger


You should not fear anger or deny it. Anger can be used as a tool to grow and strengthen yourself in your relationship.

By getting a deeper understanding about how relationships work, you could use anger as a tool to improve your relationship by learning how to change patterns and how to stop blaming your partner.

Finding your real source of anger and clarifying your own thoughts and feelings will help you avoid the endless cycle of fighting and blaming.

Taking a clear position in your relationship and behaving in ways that are according to your values and beliefs  is very important if you want to break the blaming cycle.


Keeping the balance


It is hard to maintain a healthy long term relationship as it requires finding a balance between keeping your identity, values and beliefs and compromising for the relationship.

People get stuck between wanting to be strong, independent individuals with clear sense of self and wanting to be connected and intimate with another person.

When there is a lack of balance on either direction, conflict arises in the relationship. If there is not enough connection and togetherness in a relationship, partners become isolated and emotionally detached.

On the other hand, if their own identity is sacrificed in the relationship, partners become emotionally reactive and angry and begin to argue and blame each other.

In order to make a relationship function, both elements need to be present in the relationship. Most arguments occur when one partner is emotionally involved, whilst the other emotionally detached. The emotionally involved partner is trying to make the emotionally detached partner to be more like them.

Pushing your partner to feel more or be more involved in the relationship, makes them to distance even more. There is no room for the other person to express their own emotions and feelings as you are already expressing them in their place.

The more nagging and needy you become, the less your partner wants to offer you. The paradox is that by pushing your partner to be more emotionally involved, they will actually become less emotionally involved.

Why are couples fighting?

”Anger is a feeling that makes your mouth work faster than your mind.”- Unknown

Fighting is a way in which people protect their relationship. When they are not ready to make a move in any direction because they fear either separateness or change, they choose to fight.

There is more than one reality in any relationship and each partner has a right to think and feel the way they do.

Your job is to state your thoughts and feelings clearly, so your partner understand your perspective. It is not your job to make them feel and think the way you do.

People are afraid to change and sometimes choose to revert to old fighting patterns in order to protect themselves from changing.

Getting angry is getting nowhere or making things even worse than they were in the first place. When you realize that getting angry won’t change anything, it seems obvious to seek for other ways to address the problem.

People recognize that repeating the same behavior does not achieve anything, but continue to engage in it when they are stressed or anxious.

This is a result of their fear to change themselves. When you get angry with your partner, you tend to focus solely on their behavior and forgot that you also have a part in this interaction.


Stopping the blaming cycle


In order to change the cycle of blaming, you need to become self-aware and self-observant of your own actions.

The way others behave with you has something to do with the way you behave with them. By changing the way you behave towards your partner, the old pattern cannot continue.

In a relationship, the behavior of a partner maintains the behavior of the other. The anger needs to be moved to something new and different.

When people are angry and have difficulties in their relationships, they can only see their partner’s fault. Wishing to change the situation and balance the relationship, both partners come up with solutions that involve changing their partner.

In order to stop the blaming game, it is important to recognize what part you have in maintaining the cycle. Even when you are convinced that your partner holds the majority of fault, you still need to look for what you can change.

In order to change the blaming game, you need to accept that you don’t have the power to change another person if they do not want to change.

When couples are stuck in the blaming game, they are both asking their partner to change but they resist changing.

Both partners believe that a change in their partner is what is going to make them happy. By focusing on blaming your partner, you avoid being clear on your choices.

The more you try to put all your energy in changing your partner, the more things will stay the same. Your partner will put the energy in resisting change and defending against your criticism and this will leave no room for them confronting their own problem.

However, you should not stop being clear about your wishes or requests as this builds resentment that leads to more anger.

Fearing loneliness

”Don’t be afraid of telling the truth. It’s better to hurt someone by truth than to make them happy by lies.”- Khaled Hosseini

Separation anxiety might be the cause of choosing to fight instead of being clear on your wishes and requests. When you make your differences known and encourage others to do the same, you fear loneliness.

The anxiety is based on realistic fear that if you stand a clear position, you risk losing the relationship; that if you take full responsibility and express your wishes and desires, you will not be accepted or you will hurt the other person.


Using anger to grow

”When you can’t control what’s happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what’s happening. That’s where your power is.”- Unknown

Anger signals that you are not clear about what you really want and that you need to grow in order to understand what you truly desire.

People need to use their anger to become more knowledgeable about themselves. When you demand change from your partner without knowing clearly why you really want the change, you begin the blaming game.

Anger should be used to clarify requests based on your own personal wants, not to express an unjustified change in character of your partner. It is important to state clearly why you feel the way you feel.

Anger is a tool for change and it helps you understand yourself. It is there to challenge your own thoughts and feelings, not others.

In order to use anger positively, you need to learn to let go of your desire to change other people. This does not mean accepting or going along with their behavior, but stating clearly what you wish from the relationship.

Instead of asking the other person to change, implying they are wrong in the first place, let them know how you feel about the situation and how the situation is affecting you.

This will give them another perspective on your request. The problem is not their behavior, but how you feel about it. Use anger to make statements about yourself, not your partner.

Final thoughts

I hope this article helped you understand how to deal with anger in your relationship and how anger can be used as a tool for personal growth.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below and I will be more than happy to answer them.

All the best,


  (Accredited Counsellors, Coaches, Psychotherapists and Hypnotherapists)

For counselling and coaching appointments scan the QR code or press here.

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12 thoughts on “How to deal with anger in a relationship”

  1. Hi Ioana,
    Thank you for this article, you wrote it in a very constructive and understandable way! I think we need to avoid taking a sudden decisions been in anger because after expressing anger we probably will regret afterwards.
    As you mentioned in the article, we need to use that anger in a constructive way and work on ourselves.

    • Hi Alex,

      Thank you for your comment. You are completely right, taking decision whilst we are angry is one of the biggest mistakes we can do. By learning to understand our anger and express it in a constructive way, those situations can be avoided.

      Kind regards,

  2. Hi Ioana,

    This is another great and very important article for couples. I know of one couple who have actually split up during the lockdown, they were not getting on anyway and I think the lockdown just fuelled those fires in the wrong way. I really wish they could have seen your article then. However, I am going to send this on to all my friends and family who are in a relationship, just so they can use it as reference in the future.

    There are a lot of people throughout the world who are in relationships, or even married that don’t believe they need to read articles like yours. Meaning they don’t believe that they need to work on the relationship. When actually, these are the people who need your articles and need to work on the relationship the most. I know because I was one of these people not so long ago before we eventually split up. So, speaking from experience, I advise anybody reading this article to take the information in and use it.

    Thank you for sharing and keep up the amazing work.

    All the best,


    • Hi Tom,

      Thank you very much for your comment and for sharing this article with family and friends. I hope they will benefit from the advice here and learn how to deal with anger in a constructive way, that won’t damage their relationship.

      Kind regards,

  3. Relationships are not always easy, and anger can cause a lot of damage. I liked your tip to use anger to grow and to point out how your partner’s behavior is affecting you and your feelings instead of playing the blame game. The more you blame, the more you push away. If we focused more on talking about how certain behaviors made us feel instead of pointing the finger at our partners and yelling “You do this!” “You do that!”, I believe that more conflicts would be solved.
    I also liked the quotes. They are very true, all of them. Couples would benefit from reading this article.

    • Hi Christine,

      Thank you for your comment. You are absolutely right, taking responsibility for your own feelings and desires and learning how to use anger to express them to your partner in a non-blaming way is the key to improve relationships.

      Wish you all the best,

  4. This is an amazing article about how to deal with anger in a relationship. I feel this applies more to the intimate relationships. As there is the place where you will be more emotionally involved and may face these reactions.
    Both partners who come from a complete different life and experiences and all off sudden you can’t expect one or the other to completely agree about every single thing. I think that will be wrong to do that.
    You should respect your partner for who they are and not try to change them, because this will lead to anger and frustration which will damage the relationship like a wood worm.

    I really like all the points you have discussed here. I loved reading the quotes too.

    Many thank for the share

    • Hi Habib,

      Thank you for your comment. You are completely right, trying to change your partner will only lead to anger and frustration for both parties. Learning how to redirect the anger and use it to get to know your feelings better rather than changing your partner it is a very important skill.

      Wish you all the best,

  5. Hi Ioana,

    Could you please write another article on the causes of anger in relationships? I really enjoyed reading this article. What should couples do when anger is sourced from financial imbalance, career aspirations, cultural differences etc.?

    I really enjoy reading your thoughts on relationships.

    • Hi Ali,

      Thank you for your comment. Of course, I will write an article on the causes of anger. Keep checking my page for future articles.

      Kind regards,

  6. Great Article! I agree that all emotions we experience derives from the degree of closeness or separation we feel from ourselves or others. Once we truly understand this we  are no longer fearful and can change and control our anger better. I used to watch Tony Robbins talk about this in some videos. It is spot on.. I like that you call anger a tool for change. I think it is a good term to use. What other anger management tools are there?  What do you think about expectations regarding anger? Do we expect too much of others? And how can our expectations lead to anger? 

    • Hi Hilde,

      Thank you for your comment. Indeed, our expectations can increase and decrease our level of anger. We all have the tendency to expect too much from others and to let them affect our inner peace. When our expectations are not met, we become angry and resentful towards others. I hope this answers your question.

      Kind regards,



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