Tip #9

Explore the root of your emotions.

No one likes being told that their emotions stem from anything except their true feelings--especially women with PMS. But the truth of the matter is sometimes your emotions have been tampered with and may not reflect who you truly are.

For example, I am a terrible human being if I'm hungry. If I miss a meal, not only am I bitchier, I'm stupider, more impatient, and often downright mean. It's actually embarrassing how quickly my entire attitude changes after a few bites to eat. Should I find myself with my stomach grumbling and my demeanor souring, I have two choices: force my fiance to accept every irrational mood swing as legitimate or realize that my bad mood is exclusively due to my hunger and that I'm probably not really as angry as I think I am.

By unearthing the root of my anger and sharing my findings with my fiance, we've avoided a lot of fights. He doesn't take my negative emotions seriously if I'm hungry and I don't take offense at his lack of empathy. More importantly, this understanding means the both of us take my true negative feelings seriously. On occasions when I'm honestly angry and not just hungry, I know he will listen.

This goes both ways, of course.

He has put time and effort into learning when my anger is legitimate and when he shouldn't be bothered by it and I owe it to him to do the same. Thanks to the honest exploration of why we feel what we feel, we have far fewer altercations over misunderstandings.