When you first start a new romantic relationship, it can feel like heaven. You feel deeply in love and excited about the other person. However, this honeymoon phase can come to an end when reality strikes. Which can make very challenging to keep going in the relationship when problems arise. You might get the want to disconnect, yell or be mean. Which can lead some people to ask if yelling is healthy in a relationship, when yelling is in a fight or discussion, the answer is: No, yelling is not healthy in a relationship because when you yell you’re shifting the attention from your words to your voice tone, this can actually make the other person focus less on what your saying and more in your voice tone, which goes completely against what you wanted in the first place (to be heard and understood in a better way). On top of it, this can lead them to get really angry and if someone doesn’t stop the cycle you can end up saying things you really don’t want to say.
Not doing it can be challenging tho, specially if you were taught to yell to solve problems
Besides yelling going exactly against your purpose, yelling can be damaging to the relationship because respect is lost, abuse is invited and self esteem is broken.
This post focuses on answering the question: is yelling healthy in a relationship. And 3 great alternatives to yelling that anyone in this position should know about.
When you yell, you turn off your reasoning.
Respect is Lost
When you yell to someone the implicit message is something like “You’re stupid, I need to yell to you because you won’t understand”. You’re telling the other person indirectly that he’s not worth respect. Telling someone this can cause resentment, which later on can lead you into a destructive cycle where vices are being practiced. (vicious cycle)
It goes against making that someone feel valued when supposedly they’re a value to you. Which is a terrible contradiction.
When I value something I need to take care of it so that it doesn’t die. For example, you can’t expect your phone to be in perfect condition if you throw it to the ground. That’s a contradiction, if you value your phone you don’t throw it to the ground because the screen will break.
In the same way, I shouldn’t yell at my partner if I don’t want the relationship to break apart.
Abuse is Invited
When you’ve gone into the vicious cycle, yelling has become a habit and a way of living. Which can clearly be a sign that someone is being abused. Depending on how serious the yelling is and what is saying.
When you yell the chances of being abusive go way higher, and this is because yelling can put a person down. Because yelling is not about who is thinking better, is about who’s stronger. Rational thinking doesn’t count, what counts is who’s louder.
You can be saying completely nonsense stuff and you win because you yelled at a higher volume.
Self Esteem is Broken
When you yell you’re directly affecting your self esteem. Someone with good self esteem doesn’t tolerate contradictions, values himself enough to value others correctly, and doesn’t build an abusive reputation.
Normally you can tend to think the person being hurt is the person being yelled at, but you would be missing a crucial point. You could definitely argue, that the person being hurt the most is oneself. Because his self esteem is being destroyed.
People that are abusive fall in the trap of thinking that they’re not getting hurt, when in fact, their self esteem is being torn to the ground.
We’ve evaluated if yelling wether yelling is healthy in a relationship or not, we’ve seen is not and why. So here are 3 Great Alternatives to do instead:
- Choose a Strategic Moment to talk
- Invite the other person to think with you
- Take turns to talk
1. Choose a Strategic Moment To talk
Often times people say something right when they get mad about it. And normally, if you’re not a great problem solver, this can be said in a very unstrategic way.
The first thing that you must understand is that it’s TOTALLY OK to not say what you were bothered about right in that specific moment. You need to determine if it’s appropriate or not by identifying 2 main things. Firstly, identify if there’s tension in the environment already, if there is it can wait. Secondly, identify if the other person is likely to listen or not, if he/she is emotional at the moment, the answer is no.
When is the best time to tell your partner about a problem/concern? On a totally different day when things are going perfect.
You don’t want to have a conversation about a problem when you’re mad about that problem if you know you can easily yell. Because it wouldn’t be strategic anymore.
Instead, find a time where you are calm to communicate in a good way what you want to say, and also that he/she is likely to listen.
This will make it much easier to not yell, and you will get much better results.
2. Invite the other person to think with You
When you yell at someone, you’re clearly telling them that you’re enemies. This is a common terrible mistake.
You want to communicate to the other person that you’re not enemies, and that you are in the same team. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step.
Which is, invite the other person to think with you, not against you. When you tell someone you’re both in the same team, you’re inviting them to not think against you. After doing this, you can explain what you think and feel in an open way, where you clearly show you want to know what the other person is thinking.
If your arguments are reasonable, the odds are that the other person is going to end up agreeing with you.
When you invite someone else to think with you, you’re indirectly telling them that they’re valuable, respectable and important to you. Which won’t invite resentment into the relationship, and you’ll have it much easier when it comes to solving problems.
3. Take turns to talk
Make it clear that the conversation will be a fair conversation. This will make a person feel secure that they will have a time to say what they think, and they don’t have to fear not being heard.
When you communicate this to a person, the automatic reaction is calmness, since the fear of not being heard (which can produce yelling) lowers.
Both people will be less likely to yell, thanks to a very simple and powerful agreement. I hear you, and you hear me.
IMPORTANT: Make sure that you are actually listening when it’s the other person’s turn to talk. Not talking doesn’t equal listening. If you’re just waiting for your turn to talk you’re not listening. Be careful to actually listen. This will significantly impact your conversations in a positive way.
In conclusion, yelling as a technique to solve problems is a terrible choice. Instead you can try to do any of the alternatives mentioned above. This will highly impact your relationship communication in a much better way.
This post was all about discussing wether or not yelling is healthy in a relationship and why, and what things can someone do instead to improve his/her communication significantly.
