My [28F] husband [34M] implemented a "safe word" for when we're getting frustrated with each other. Saying the safe word means we have to silently hug for 5 seconds.

We've been having some downs (and ups, but definitely some downs). I've been frustrated with how he dealt with stress, and I didn't respond as well as I feel like I could have - by getting frustrated rather than just talking it out when something happens.

We talked about marriage counseling, and we figured it's a good idea - to help us deal with our stresses - but this month is extremely busy with work. So we implemented a safe word, or phrase actually, where one of us says it when we're getting frustrated and we just have to hug for 5 seconds minimum, no words. I truly thought it would help me. When he gets angry at the printer and starts yelling, I just want him to stop because we all know that it's not the printer. I thought this was a good thing for me.

It's been two weeks, and he's used our phrase far more than I have. I didn't realize that I got agitated as much as I did, and he really took our safe word commitment to heart. And every time he did, I catch myself getting agitated first. I genuinely didn't even realize that I was contributing to our problem that much.

So /r/relationships - besides marriage counseling, which we will try to organize as soon as we can to help us deal with stress and not take it out on each other - what other tools can I use to accept my part of the issue? I genuinely blamed my husband for 90% of our (relatively minor all things considered) problems. If you hear it from me, or if you did two weeks ago, you'd have told me to leave and look after myself and my kid, but I am only now realizing how much I contribute to making these minor problems into issues.

And the safe word/phrase works great. It allows us to nip non-issues in the bud before they become issues. Great idea. It helped quite a bit, but not in the way I expected.

Tl;Dr - my solution to our marital squabbles made me realize that I'm much more responsible than I thought. What can I do, internally, to help me help myself?

Submitted December 06, 2019 at 06:00PM by recercar https://ift.tt/2qvbvqD