family matters

them's fighting words

When you grew up in a family who fought all the time, it’s a pretty difficult habit to break. The thing is, I really hate conflict, but it seems to find me wherever I go. I look at certain situations and know the way I should react - but more often than not that goes against the grain of what I actually feel. And who I am. From a young age, I learnt not to let people walk over you and to confront things head on. How do I now train myself to bite my tongue?

It’s not that fighting was acitvely endorsed at home, but it was such an integral part of our childhood that I can’t remember issues being resolved any other way. For years Mum juggled the various duties of parenthood, a job and a husband who contributed little except emotional abuse and half the mortgage. Completely exhausted, stressed and exasperated, it didn’t take much to set Mum off and my father was always a willing contestant. His anger invariably made its way down through the ranks to us girls.

Now the dust has settled on the past and we have grown stronger and closer as a result, how do we change the habit of a lifetime? A good friend of mine who has been with her partner for 14 years, thinks the solution is simple: don’t go to bed angry.

I am getting better at not going to bed angry, but I am yet to learn how to stop thinking that someone is angry with me.