Is Your Partner's Nickname "Bamm-Bamm Rubble" From The Flinstones? If So, Here Are The Top Five Tips For Dealing With The Adult Tantrum.

By Melody Chase

People want what they want in the way they want it and will do what they know or have been taught on how to get what they want either consciously or unconsciously. Sometimes the way people may try getting their needs and wants met is through having tantrums.

However there may be other factors going on that may encourage the tantrums as well, so before we go write-off our partners or other adults in our lives that have tantrums, we need to seek to understand why they are doing what they do.

So the following are 5 possible reasons for the “Adult Tantrum.”

1) It’s the Only Way They Know on How To Get Their Needs Met: Many people who have tantrums may have learned, picked up or absorbed this way of trying to get their needs met, usually from early childhood and early caregivers in their lives. Often this tantrum is what is called a control drama.

A control drama is a way or technique that people use to try to get what they want which often causes conflict and is usually learned or developed unconsciously. Although the ways that people are using control dramas may appear to work for them in the moment, often it doesn’t achieve their goals and causes damage in the relationship.

Common control dramas include crying, yelling, screaming, hurting themselves, (consciously or unconsciously) breaking things or throwing things or even criticism or guilt-tripping.

Your partner may be choosing to use control dramas either consciously, because it is all he or she knows or unconsciously and are just going on automatic pilot.

What you can do as the witness or the partner of the control drama king or queen is not to judge him or her, just allow your partner to be who he/she is, understanding that your partner either does not know what he/she is doing or is choosing to do so because he/she doesn’t know of any other way to get his/her needs met.

The next most important thing is while acknowledging your partner’s needs and his/her tantrum, understand that it is a control drama and do not give in to him or her all because your partner is trying to be dramatic and intense in order get you to do what he/she want you to do.

Lastly, as a couple, offer to go for Communication and Conflict Resolution Classes or Courses or read some books together so both of you can learn alternate ways on how to get each other’s needs met, but do it together so it doesn’t look like it is your partner who has the problem.

2) People Have Learned That Life is all About Survival: Similar to people who use control dramas, most people have been taught to believe that they need to fight, struggle and be aggressive because they have been conditioned to believe that the world is not abundant and there is limited resources so in order to strive they have fight, it is either win or lose in life.

In a case like this, one of the best ways to deal with an aggressive partner, who flips his or her lid, is not to react or retaliate back, be a silent role model of how one gets their needs met without being aggressive. I don’t mean ignore your partner, but just don’t up the ante to your partner’s level if you are having a disagreement or a discussion or not getting what you want.

It’s really hard to have a big argument with someone if you are not fueling the fire, eventually your partner will defuse because he or she is not getting any resistance from you.

3) They have a Trigger: When a person has an unresolved emotional wound, usually from childhood, what often happens is that they will be “triggered” when something reminds them or makes them feel like they did when they had the original emotional wound happen to them.

You can tell if a person has been triggered because they will overreact way out of proportion to the situation at hand.

For example, your partner was ignored by his/her parents as a child, and today you didn’t respond to your partner’s question because you didn’t hear him/her and he/she go off they deep-end thinking that you are intentionally ignoring him or her.

So your partner needs to release and heal the original emotional wound. Your partner can get therapy of course, but you can also talk with him/her and ask him/her what other time in his/her life did he/she feel the way he/she does when he/she has been triggered.

Having you listen and be a witness to your partner’s pain, and especially if you can validate and empathize with him or her, that may be enough for him/her to be able to heal and no longer be triggered anymore.

In the meantime, if you know what your partner’s trigger is, try not to antagonize him or her with it.

4) Their Personality Is More Pre-dispositioned To Getting Angry or Blowing Up: There are many different types of personality styles and ways of testing personalities, but for the purposes of this article, let’s talk about two types of personalities that are more prone to be emotional or flipping their lids known as Driver Personalities and Expressive Personalities.

Just a brief explanation, Driver Personality people are bottom-line, aggressive people who like results, tasks, control, dominance and authority. They are independent, goal-oriented, bossy, and sometimes even rude.

Expressive people are emotionally based, love people, dominant and friendly, love freedom and appreciation, approval, centre stage, change their minds a lot, are charming, humorous and fun. They have excellent people skills.

Drivers get especially upset if they are taken off task and if their A-B is disrupted, plus because they are what is called a task-centred personality versus people-centred, meaning tasks come first before people, they really aren’t focused or concerned if they offend or make other people upset. They are also a dominant personality, so they are more likely to use control dramas.

Then the Expressive personality, even though they are people-centred, are the Control drama kings and queens because they understand people, are very influencing, emotional, where their hearts on their sleeves and need their freedom, so they will react strongly when things aren’t going their way.

So once again, you need to love and allow your partner to be who he/she is instead of being in judgment of his/her personality, and when you can, try to assist your Driver partner in accomplishing his/her tasks and getting from point A-B and if your partner is Expressive, love him/her for who he/she is, compliment him/her and give your partner as much freedom and fun as you can.

5) They May Have a Medical Condition or Have a Low Frustration Level: An adult having a tantrum may also have a medical condition or be physically or mentally exhausted.

I walked around for years having Hypoglycemia without being aware of having it, until this one point in my life were I started having too much processed foods and refined sugar.

It caused my sugar to go out of whack and to my surprise (since I am usually a mellow and gentle person) I became a raving maniac when my sugar was plunging and there wasn’t anything I could do until I got my sugar up. Ask any Diabetic who would have the same problem and they’ll tell you what I am talking about.

As well, a person may snap if they are under a lot of continuous stress and if their nerves are frayed, they may not be as resilient as they used to be which can lead to low frustration levels.

You can’t force your partner to change his/her diet or lifestyle, but you can keep an eye out for him/her to see if he/she has eaten.

Often once someone’s sugar’s plunged and they are already really upset and angry they are not focused or interested in eating so you have to keep an eye out for them and encourage them to eat or help get them food or something to drink or help prepare food.

If you are arguing, step back and let them eat and resume your discussion at a later time - it is in both of your best interest.

Same thing for if you see your partner struggling on his/her last nerve either support him/her or give your partner some space, nothing is going to get resolved if your partner is having a tantrum for either of you.

As I always say, people always do things for a reason. When we give people the benefit of the doubt and seek to understand we can support and resolve both the people in our lives including our partner’s needs and our own needs with ease and comfort.

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Are You Having Anger Management Issues In Your Relationship?

The Story of Gwen Stephani and the Importance of Dissipating Anger

I was watching an evening entertainment show a few months ago and I saw a story about how there was a religious based student group in Malaysia who was angry at Gwen Stefani, the singer.

The student group was offended by Gwen, her lyrics, how she dances, her back up dancers, the L.A.M.B. t- shirts, her videos, you name it they wanted to ban it- ban it from the country!

Now you are probably thinking the same thing I was at the time –what? How and why of all the singers and entertainers did they target Gwen?

Dr. Robby (Director/Counsellor for the LMC Relationship Centre and my significant other) and I have always admired Gwen’s Creative Process and how when she did what she felt inspired to do amazing creations developed like her clothing line where are all the clothes that she likes to wear was designed with her in mind.

So what was going on?

The first thing that hit me is that she’s angry, full of resentment and her vibration matched with the vibration of the angry university students.

I don’t know the specifics about her anger and resentment, my suspicions, my feelings and my observations say that she has a childhood pattern or childhood wound of not being accepted for she is. It may not have been triggered until she went solo and broke away from the Band “No Doubt”. This childhood pattern or wound maybe why she was hesitant to break away from the band because she was afraid that people wouldn’t be able to accept her for who she is even though she practices following her own desires already in most areas of her life.

A pattern, just to explain, is created when your subconscious mind is impressed by an event or strong emotions. Since your subconscious mind is a broadcasting system, and everything is made up of energy, it continuously broadcasts the energetic vibration of what was impressed, then since like attracts like (as you may know if you are familiar with the Law of Attraction) what you are broadcasting will be drawn to you. You can recognize a pattern when you notice events happening in your environment that reoccur but don’t seem to make sense.

In the case of Gwen, this pattern we are talking about may be reflected in the Malaysia students who cannot accept who she is, what she does or anything about her.

All I know is that she definitely has an edge to her solo songs along with her creativity so I have a suspicion that she is angry towards people who don’t’ accept her highlighted by her childhood wound or pattern. She may also be angry and bitter because she has lost a lot of time catering to the fear of people not accepting her and she’s blaming others for her loss of freedom and opportunity of creation.

Now that’s fascinating in and of itself but it also made me ponder the power of anger. Now anger like any emotion is a signal that a feeling is being coloured a certain way by how we are thinking, something that we are not unconditionally loving about ourselves or others that we have to release. Anger is only supposed to be used as a signal, not something we are supposed to hold on to. It is something that helps to fuel the fire and gets our solar plexus ready to take action.

However, if we hold on to anger, not only is it not healthy for our body, it also causes others to react with anger. They act as a mirror, others are directly reflecting what is going on within you, so if Gwen is not unconditionally loving herself the Malaysian students may be reflecting that by not unconditionally loving her and if not she may be just intently angry about something else and that intense anger is just reflecting back.

Have you ever noticed that if you are angry you find others who are just as angry right back at you? Two exceptions to the rule are passive or repressed people, instead of getting angry at you, you will get even more angry at them no matter how polite, nice and patient they are towards you. That is just because they are furious at you a deeper level but will not openly admit that to you, so they just get walloped with your fury. They are still angry but the battle between the two of you is going on at a deeper level.

The other exception of the rule is when someone is open and unconditionally loves and embraces your anger. What will happen instead is that your anger will dissipate and you will feel loved and supported even if the other person isn’t verbally validating or empathizing with you.

Until the world gets to the point where everyone can unconditionally love themselves and others, the most important thing you can do for yourself if you find yourself angry a lot or are on the receiving end of others being angry at you, is to take note of your anger, see what the message is for you and what you need to unconditional love about yourself or others then let go of the anger. Then you just have to dissipate the residual emotion and adrenalin of the anger in your body by doing activities such as running, jumping, stomping, (Gwen’s Hollaback song and video is actually probably a good way to dissipate anger) yelling, kicking, biting , punching, slamming doors, throw things, don’t be afraid to have a really good deep scream even.

Anger is as we said only a signal to allow you to be able to embrace and unconditionally love all aspects of yourself, it’s not necessary to hold onto it and the benefits of dealing with it is a benefit to you and through you it is a benefit to the world.

Melody Chase