The Outburst: A Glimpse into Road Rage Emotions
WTF! GET OFF MY ASS. Fine, GO. Motherfucker. Fucking people!
Husbands and road rage issues. It was 7 a.m. and Chris was driving us back from the gym. This was the second time this morning he had a mini road rage episode.
That moment felt like a little jolt to my body. Kind of like when your alarm goes off in the morning. No big deal. I just let it be. And after about 10 seconds, it disappeared. Then we were back to life, smiling, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company.
As I sit here and reflect on it now, I can’t help but feel grateful for how far I’ve come.
Do you want to know what I would have done in the past?
I would have glared at him. I would have said sternly as if I were his mother:
“CAN YOU CALM DOWN? THERE’S NOTHING TO BE UPSET ABOUT”
I would have thought:
“Oh great, here we go again.”
“A real man would know how to control his emotions.”
“You never take any responsibility.”
“I already have so much to deal with. I’m sick of this.”
He would have felt the sting of my criticism in every cell of my body, like citrus juice on an open wound.
It would have escalated his anger to being enraged because now he is also dealing with judgment from his wife.
For the rest of the day, I would have given him the cold shoulder so that he can “learn his lesson” and change his ways (which never actually worked).
The bottom line is MISERY – for both of us.
The Transformation: From conflict to understanding
But that didn’t happen. What changed? For the most part, it was me.
You see, the old me (which I didn’t realize at the time) was trapped in an invisible box. Life needed to look a particular way, from how I looked, to my personality, to my house, my career, my reputation, my kids, how people perceived me, how people perceived my husband. This box represented the borders that defined my definition of success.
Being angry and expressing anger was outside of that box. In fact, I believed it was dangerous because it hurt people.
Can you relate?
So when my husband would often show his anger, whether it was road rage-related or elsewhere, immediately I felt my body contract. Immediately, I would feel threatened.
“How could my husband be so irresponsible?”
“Only weak people can’t control their emotions.”
“Who did I marry?”
And how did I cope with this threat? I tried my best to fix him and change him so that he could change.
Over the 15 years we’ve been together, I can’t even tell you how many weeks, months, maybe even years we spent wrestling about this. It usually looked like me trying to convince Chris of what he was doing wrong. And then Chris vehemently defending his need to express his anger. And me being exasperated by him again, not taking any responsibility.
You can imagine how this rotted the dynamics of our relationship. Instead of our marriage being a sunny garden with bountiful flowers and fruits we could enjoy, it felt like we were constantly pulling out weeds.
I even tried to convince him to go to couples therapy, which he completely rejected.
Of course, there were many great things about our marriage, but mostly, I felt totally miserable and trapped.
Here’s the pinpoint moment things changed.
When my coach challenged me to step up as the leader and take 100% responsibility, RADICAL RESPONSIBILITY, for my marriage. Which meant that I had to have the COURAGE to accept this concept:
Decoding Reactions: The underlying emotions
My husband is ALWAYS reacting to me.
It took me a while to really let this sink in. I kicked, cried, screamed:
“He has HIS problems that he needs to deal with. That has nothing to do with me. He needs to do his own work. I can’t be the one that is always taking responsibility. IT’S NOT FAIR.”
But then I sat with it. The old way that I was operating wasn’t working. What’s my downside in adopting this concept?
So I leaned in. I swam in this new pond. I dived into my inner world…DEEP into dark, murky waters. At times, I was deathly afraid I would get lost and wanted to swim back to the illusionary safety of the shores.
But I didn’t. With the guidance of my coaches along with the fire in my belly to crack the code of my marriage, I kept diving deeper.
Each time, I found an undeniable glowing treasure chest filled with gold.
Is Anger a natural human emotion in relationships?
This is what I know now: Anger isn’t necessarily bad or wrong. It is an authentic part of being human.
My compulsion to reject anger comes from my upbringing as a child of immigrant parents who escaped to the US after the Vietnam War. We don’t complain. We don’t get angry. We sacrifice. We work hard.
It is also true that irresponsible expressions of anger are violent and harmful.
It is also true that my husband has work to do to heal and transform his anger.
All of these concepts can be true at once.
Knowing that now, when other people express anger, especially my husband, I have more capacity to ALLOW, without judgment.
This doesn’t mean that I’m lowering my standards. Far from it. It just means that I am able to handle the moment with more compassion and respond instead of react.
From confrontation to compassion in handling anger
In other words, I stopped fighting fire with fire. I started meeting it with water.
Want to know the real irony? When I stopped resisting Chris’ anger, he became less angry. I found myself becoming an ally in his healing journey, instead of unconsciously deepening his pain.
And eventually, we were less exhausted from pulling out weeds, and our energy was freed up to enjoy the harvest of our garden.
I share this story because husbands and road rage is something we never talk about, leaving amazing women like you feeling lost and alone. In the long run, this feeling can really crumble the dynamic of a marriage, because it’s about more than the road road rage. It’s about trust. It’s about expectations. It’s about us, as wives, feeling this exasperation that we can’t make difference.
I’m here to tell you that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I meet new married women daily, and almost all of them are resigned about the lack of communication in their marriage. I noticed that there is an undeniable theme behind this.
They are not owning how they contribute to the problem.
They resist the truth (like I did) that their husband is almost always reacting to how they communicate.
The response is usually, “But I’m just reacting to him being rude to me.”
I totally get it.
This is where leadership, courage, and radical responsibility come in.
You, my dear, have all the power to do the work, dive into your inner world, and emerge with gold.
And if you take this on, what is available to you is paradise. Not as a destination, but an everyday state of peace, excitement, and intimacy.
Imagine nurturing your marriage garden as a team with your husband.
Imagine sinking your teeth into a juicy, delicious fruit from your garden.
Imagine putting work on hold and spontaneously having a picnic in your garden on a Tuesday afternoon with your husband, reading a book, listening to music, sipping your favorite drink (which for me is cacao).
https://leadwithjulietran.com/
I’m revealing this picture of you.
Imagine this garden as your paradise.
And if you would like some support to help navigate this journey, I invite you to book a 30 minute no pressure clarity call with me.
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