Sometimes, with the best will in the world and both of us trying our hardest, it still goes wrong. Normally when I am coming down with something or premenstrual or just plain worn out and I just lose my temper. I am a shouter and Matt hates shouting. I shout, he freezes, I shout more. I am not proud of it, in fact I am extremely ashamed of it. So why write about it publicly? Because I said I would be honest and this is the honest truth. Sometimes it is just not possible to get it right. We upset each other, we don’t communicate clearly or in a good way. And then, we have discovered, the important thing is what we do afterwards.

As I say, I am ashamed when I act like this. Matt normally feels like he has done something wrong, one because I have shouted at him and two because he often takes responsibility for things that aren’t his to take on. With both of us acting from those emotional places it could run and run. The first thing I have learnt is, as soon as I can interject some logic into my head rather than my emotional brain talking, I need to walk away. This seems counterintuitive, surely we need to communicate and sort it out and I need to explain he has done nothing wrong. That’s true but not right now when we are in the heat of it. So I need to walk away, calm down and get back in my logical brain. It is helpful if I can tell Matt what I am doing but not essential.

Whilst calming down I need to try to avoid falling into the pit of shame. The more ashamed I feel, the more defensive I become and that carries things on much longer. Rather I have to be kind to myself, to tell myself things like “OK, that wasn’t a way in which you wanted to behave. But it’s happened now. It is no use dwelling on it. You can figure out why afterwards, for now lets concentrate on getting to a better place.” This is hard. I am a woman who loves to wallow in guilt. But there is no point. To get us both to a better place, I need to let go of the shame.

When I have got to a point where I have calmed down and managed not to be wallowing, I need to go and explain to Matt that although I shouted, that is not reflective of what he has done, but rather of my own state of mind. I need to stop him from feeling guilty. If there is something that he has done that was contributory to me losing my temper, I need to explain that again in an adult, non-shouting way, so he can process it. I also need to explain that I lost my temper and that the blame for acting like that lies with me not him. He really does not understand why I have got like this, because he doesn’t tend to be a shouter. He thinks something must be terribly wrong, rather than minorly wrong but I have overreacted in the way I have dealt with it. He thinks this every time even though it has happened over and over again in the time we have been together.

And then, once we are both back in a good place, I need to reflect on what has happened and try and figure out why. He does too, I suppose, but mainly me because I am the one who has lost my temper. And guess what I generally find? I have lost my temper because I haven’t been taking care of myself properly, I have let my boundaries be crossed and I haven’t made my feelings clear in an adult way earlier when I could have. So once again it comes back to the same thing. In order to avoid losing my temper I have to make sure I am getting what I need. Every day. No matter what is going on. No excuses.