Am I Allowed To Be Angry With My Partner Who Is Depressed?
Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash
I was recently asked to do a podcast with the journalist Alex Beard. The pocast was called The Honesty Box, and I was brought in to answer the question “Am I allowed to be angry at my depressed husband?”
My kneejerk response to this question was… “Can I have another one?”
Why? Because questions like this are very tricky to answer. They are taboo. No one chooses to be depressed. And therefore, the idea that someone could be angry at the person who is depressed is thought to be unkind, unfair and unacceptable.
Questions like these often involve guilt, shame, and high levels of emotion on all sides. But this is why this question needs answering, and properly too, as these are the kinds of questions people live with but are too afraid to ask for fear of judgment.
When we don’t ask and/or get answers to these questions, the anger that we are worried about doesn’t go away, it intensifies as it becomes layered in self-criticism and shame.
This blog post will tell you:
Why it may be normal to feel anger when someone you love is struggling (I know it sounds odd but bear with me on this).
How to manage this anger if and when it arises.
Let’s get into it… Are you allowed to be angry at your partner who is depressed?
The answer is “it’s complicated and it may be more helpful to reframe this question and instead ask: does it make sense that you feel angry when you think of your partner who is depressed and/or struggling for another reason? And if so, what can you do when the anger arises?”.
What is anger - a recap
Depression is a serious condition that can make life feel like it is not worth living and like there is no hope for change in the future. If someone is having the worst time of their life, and you feel angry about it, how can that be fair?
If you have been following my blog for a while, you already know that emotions are energy. The energy our brain thinks we need in order to survive and/or thrive moment to moment.
We don’t choose the emotions that arise, our brain does - If you have not read my blog on emotions yet click here.
Likewise, you also know that anger is the emotion we feel when our brain thinks it has detected a threat in the world that we will need to turn towards and fight against. It is the adrenaline and stress response that we would be extremely grateful for, should we find ourselves in a fistfight that we cannot possibly avoid.
However, as our brain doesn’t know the difference between real threats to our life and perceived threats, anger can spring up at times when fighting is not the appropriate solution to the situation. Meaning anger is an emotion that can arise when it doesn’t seem appropriate. Such as when someone you love is struggling.
If you have not read my previous post on the causes of anger yet, please do, as it will form the foundation of this post.
Common reasons people feel angry at the people they love who are struggling with depression
1) Anger arises because of injustice.
A main cause of anger is injustice: the times when you see something unfair happening.
Is there anything more unjust than a world in which the person you love is struggling? Few people realise this but often when we feel angry at someone who is depressed or struggling it is because of this injustice. Watching someone struggle is horrendous and in this instance, the anger is generated at the world, but as few of us realise this it sometimes comes out at the person.
2) Anger arises because we are grieving.
Likewise, we may feel there is another kind of injustice: That the relationship we entered into has not turned out as we were expecting. This one is perhaps more taboo and people often feel selfish for saying they feel this. However, this kind of anger is usually linked to grief, the grief of the loss of a hoped-for and expected future, and the grief of the loss of the happiness of the person they love.
3) Anger arises because we feel helpless.
Anger sometimes springs up to defend us against our own threatening feelings. Such as times when we feel vulnerable, helpless, rejected or sad (click here for more detail).
When we see someone struggle our first instinct is usually to help. We want to fix the situation and try to make the other person feel better. When someone is depressed however it can leave us feeling helpless as we simply don’t know how to help.
I went through something very difficult not so long ago and someone close to me kept getting angry at me every time I talked about the situation. I now know they weren’t angry with me. When I talked about the situation, they felt panicked, helpless, and unsure of how to support me. They wanted to stop the situation causing the distress and they couldn’t. And so, anger sprang up to defend them against these feelings that were intolerable.
4) Anger arises because we feel rejected.
Also, when someone is experiencing depression, they often withdraw as they have little emotional energy to share with others (and for other reasons too). In a relationship, this means that intimacy may go out the window. This withdrawal can feel like rejection to the partner who is not depressed. And, as anger sometimes springs up to defend people against the ‘intolerable’ feelings associated with rejection, this can be another reason partners get angry.
So, with a depressed partner, anger may arise as a way to defend you against the distressing emotions you feel, such as anger at the world, anger at the loss of the expected future, and also due to helplessness and rejection.
Identify the reasons behind your anger
Now you know that it is quite common for people to feel angry when in a relationship with someone who is struggling, hopefully, you can stop beating yourself up (as this is not helping anyone) and start considering the reasons behind your anger. For example, is it due to one of the reasons mentioned above. Or is it something different?
Maybe you are a ‘doer’ and you are frustrated as you can see there are steps your loved one could take that would make a difference but they aren’t and this is making you frustrated.
Maybe your loved one is using coping skills that you know are bad for them, such as drinking to numb their emotional pain, or getting angry at you because anger is how they protect themselves from their sadness.
The first step to managing how you feel is to ask yourself, “why am I angry?”.
Decide how to address the underlying reason
Ignored anger often comes out as passive aggression. And/or explodes out of us at unexpected and unrelated times (have you ever had an argument with one person, then snapped at a totally unrelated person? It’s very common). And actually, many therapists believe anger turned inwards, when it goes on long enough, is a reason for depression. So, we need to find ways to safely express our anger. Here are 9 steps you can start today.
Forgive yourself for the anger. This is permission for you to stop beating yourself up. Feeling anger is not a problem. It is what we do with anger that counts. If you have been criticising yourself for feeling angry, you don’t have to anymore.
Identify the underlying cause of anger, address it. If you are angry because you feel rejected or vulnerable, soothe that emotion instead of showing your anger. Allow yourself to be sad. Remember that rejection is not because you have done something wrong, it is because the other person is struggling and has little extra emotional energy to give.
If you are angry because you feel helpless and don’t know how to support them, learn as much as you can about the diagnosis, ask your partner how they wish to be supported, and read this article ‘9 ways to support someone with a mental health diagnosis’.
Ensure your partner knows the anger is not directed at them. Most people who feel depressed feel like a burden, they have a loud inner critic and may assume your anger is further proof that there is something wrong with them. Explain that your anger is at the world, the injustice of them having to feel this way. Apologise for past instances of anger and explain what you will do to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Vent. You could vent about how you feel to a diary or to a friend. A diary is a great place to start as you can really go to town about your experiences without fear of being judged. In my upcoming book ‘A Manual for Being Human’ I give details on how to ‘rage journal’ effectively - it’s my absolute favourite coping strategy and something I think we will all benefit from.
Exercise. Get those angry feelings out of your body. Get the adrenaline and other stress-related chemicals out too. Run around the block. Practice yoga. Whatever works for you. Look after yourself as well as your partner.
Soothe yourself and get support. Supporting someone who is struggling is usually a marathon, not a sprint. Look after yourself. Learn how to trigger the relaxation response and switch off the stress response (click on the links for each exercise). You could also join a support group of people who share your experiences. You could get a therapist. Whatever you need. You deserve to be supported.
If anger is overwhelming, use this exercise to ground yourself and/or walk away for a moment, take a breather. Come back to the situation causing anger when you are calm again.
Consider whether you need to instill boundaries. For example, if your partner is drinking to manage their mood, do you need to put a boundary in place. E.g. do you need to let them know that the drinking is not ok and that you are worried about them? Do you need to say that you would like them to get support for their drinking? Are you at the point where for your relationship to continue you need to know they are getting support for their drinking, otherwise you won’t be able to continue? In which case you can share these boundaries. See this article for how to identify and share your boundaries.
Listen to this podcast. This is the actual podcast that started this discussion in the first place. In the podcast, you can hear our personal experiences, where we faced these experiences too.
That’s it for now.
In short, you are allowed to feel angry. What matters is how you make sense of the anger and what you do with it once you arise. For now, know that if you feel angry you are not alone. I see so many people who feel like this.
You now have plenty of different avenues to explore in terms of managing these feelings. What will you try first?
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I am a Clinical Psychologist trying to get effective psychological advice out of the therapy room and into everyday life.
If you found this article useful and want to learn more about:
improving your mental health… Order my Sunday Times Best Selling book “A Manual For Being Human”, which is out on July 8th.
breaking bad habits and getting out of your own way… Grab a copy of my new book ‘(Un)Stuck’.
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