How To Be Less Snappy With Your Husband

Welcome to Mom On Purpose, where it’s all about helping moms overcome challenges and live their best lives. My hope is by being here, you are more inspired to become the mom you are made to be. I’m Natalie, your host, a wife, boy, mom, dog, mama, Chicagoan, and former lawyer turned professionally certified coach. If you’re here to grow, I can help. Let’s go.

Hello my beautiful friends. Welcome to the podcast. Today I am delighted to talk with you about how to be less snappy. Do you ever snap? I know, I sure do. And today the topic is brought to you by someone in our community who I had the pleasure of talking with, chatting with in Instagram dms. So I have been chatting with you all over there so much more. It reminds me of when I first started blogging, it feels like a different lifetime ago, and comments were a thing.

Like I would chat back and forth with the people who would comment on my blog and it feels like dms are like that. So if you’re new to this community, I love saying hi to you, welcoming you, kind of seeing what’s on your mind. And with that, it has been so fun to have some new content ideas as another way for me to just offer tools and help any way that I can. So that’s where today’s topic came from. I was chatting with someone on Instagram over at mom.onpurpose in dms and she was saying to me that motherhood is going great except she wants to be less snappy when she gets frustrated with her family, but especially with her husband. So I thought it would be a really helpful topic to cover here because I have tools that can help. I know how easy it is to just, you know, have a little remark here and a remark there.

And before you know it, the day’s ruined. And that’s exactly what this person said. She said that, you know, her husband will say some snarky remarks and it gets her all riled up and then she’s snapping and it’s ruining her day. And I dunno about you, but I can for sure relate to this. And the only reason why I feel like I have it somewhat under control and really feel connected in my marriage and I’m able to not snap is not because I am a unicorn it is because I have these tools and I practice them. And so I want to share with you exactly what I do, exactly what I would recommend if I was coaching this person, and also invite you inside the Mom On Purpose Membership where I have a Marriage and Relationship Toolkit. I have lots of other communication and marriage courses and tools, and then the coaching there is nothing that substitutes me being able to help you specifically with your situation.

So whether that is inside the membership or private coaching, 10 outta 10, recommend one of them so that you can get the support that you deserve my friend. So more on that over at momonpurpose.com/coaching. Or if you want to learn more about private coaching, it’s momonpurpose.com/support. With that, let’s dive in to today’s tools. So after I went back and forth with this person, she explained that she is planning an adults only trip to Aruba with her and her husband for a wedding so they can attend a wedding. And her husband has been making comments like, you wanna do this instead of the family trip, you would rather go to Aruba. And the way that he’s saying it is making her feel really bad because they usually do an annual trip to Universal, but instead they would be doing this Aruba trip.

And so she’s feeling a lot of guilt, she’s questioning whether she should redecide. And kinda what we’re gonna focus on in this episode is she is snapping and she’s really letting those comments from her husband get under her skin and it’s ruining her day. So, alright, now you know what’s going on. Here’s how I can help. The first tool that I want to go over is the thought feeling, action cycle thoughts, create feelings and feelings, drive all of your actions. So when you are snapping at your husband, that’s an action. And what that means is there is a thought and a feeling that are driving that action. So if the feeling is frustrated, there’s a thought that’s creating the frustration. Like he always gets to me, I hate when he says these things, he’s being rude again, this isn’t fair. I didn’t get the actual thought, but if I was coaching this person, I would definitely be asking her, okay, what’s the thought that you’re thinking right in the moment that’s creating the frustration that causes you to snap thoughts, create the feeling of frustration and there might be some resentment, some irritation, some anger, or any other negative emotion.

And then those feelings lead to snapping. Because snapping is one of the ways that you can respond to a feeling. You can respond to a feeling by processing the feeling, by reacting to the feeling, by avoiding the feeling or by resisting the feeling. So if she would have gone in the kitchen and just eaten some cookies, that would be avoiding the feeling. But here, which I can totally relate to, we think thoughts like, why is he saying this? This isn’t fair. That’s so rude. It feels frustrating when we tell ourselves that story and then we react to that feeling and it happens so fast.

So I like to start off with this and there’s an entire course called the Inner Framework course inside the Membership portal that goes over this because it’s foundational to solving the problem. I can help you get to a place of feeling empowered and feeling calm and feeling confident, connected and at peace and still showing up how you wanna show up. And that might be having a conversation with your husband or it might not be, but I will get you to a place of feeling so much better, so much more empowered, so much more connected to yourself and your husband and your family. And it’s all about what’s going on internally for you. Because what I can’t do, and you know this already, I can’t control your husband, I can’t control your spouse. We can make requests and I’m all for that. We’ll get to that later. But what I focus on and what I can help you with the most, and it is a life changing when you do this work is how you think, how you feel, and how you respond.

So let’s go over it again because it’s so important. The reason that you’re snapping ever is because you’re telling yourself a story. And that story is creating frustration. So your mindset, your thoughts create frustration in your body and you react to that frustration by snapping. And this doesn’t mean that your husband was to blame before, but now you are to blame. That’s that blame cycle I talk about where we go from blaming our circumstances to then blaming ourselves. That is entirely unhelpful. So it’s not that he’s to blame and you are also not to blame. But when we own what’s ours to own our thoughts, our stories that we’re telling ourselves and the feelings that we are feeling, then we can respond however we want. And it actually becomes so helpful and empowering because it’s what you can control because you can’t control him. And I think it’s really important to remember that your brain is wired to protect you.

It’s not wired to look for the benefit of the doubt, it’s not wired to be easygoing, it is certainly not wired to feel happy, it is wired to look for the negative, it’s wired to protect you on default. So your brain will have these automatic thoughts and they will be negative and it will put your guard up and it will feel very protective. But it will get you into this fight flight response state where you’re defensive, where all of a sudden it’s you against your husband. And this reaction is often unnecessary and unhelpful. So understanding the brain and how it’s wired for survival is so important to solving this because once you understand that, you realize you have so much power to rewire your brain to choose differently. And I wanna mention here that this does not mean that you want to feel so positive when your husband makes snarky remarks.

I say this to my clients often, it is not my job to tell you what to think, it’s my job to show you what you’re currently thinking and help you build the skill of how to think so that you can decide how you want to think. So when a husband says remarks and you want to think that they’re snarky remarks, how do you want to think? Most likely, I would say 9.9 times outta 10. We don’t wanna think the way that our default brain is thinking, but in an instance where our husband is spouting snarky remarks, we often don’t wanna go too completely positive about it either. So this is where we slow it way down and we decide we’re gonna own what’s ours and choose intentionally how we want to think, feel, and act. When I was talking with this person over on Instagram, she said she was considering changing her mind about the family trip.

She was considering canceling it. She was considering just forgetting all about her desire to go to Aruba and you know, asking for advice, what should she do? And I told her I can’t possibly tell her what to do without coaching her because what you do is the action that you take. And it’s an important question like what should I do? It’s just not the best first question because if you are making decisions about what to do from feeling really disconnected and frustrated with your spouse, you’re never gonna create the best answer for yourself for what you should do. Instead, what I like to do with my clients is, okay, let’s take a step back and let’s decide what you want to think how you wanna feel, and then what you wanna do. So for this person, how do you want to think and how do you want to feel when your husband says whatever he’s saying to you and how do you wanna act?

It’s very clear that she did not want to be snappy, and I get that right. It’s very reactive, but how do you want to respond? And when we slow it way down and we explore the limitless options to this, it actually creates so much more intimacy and vulnerability. For example, you might decide that you want to think I can handle this calmly or he doesn’t realize how his comments impact me, or it’s okay for him to prefer the universal trip and for me to prefer the Aruba trip, that’s totally fine for us to have different opinions. You might decide that you want to feel calm, connected, confident. You might decide that you want to feel loving. Most of the time when I suggest love, people often assume that we mean love for the other person and that is part of it. But what I first and foremost mean is love for yourself.

So in this case, she was really beating herself up and giving herself a hard time feeling guilt and maybe some selfishness. And we can clean all of that up with intentional thinking and feeling. So she might wanna feel love for herself and love for her family and for her husband and decide it’s totally okay and valid for us to all have different opinions about how we travel this year. That’s okay. And then from that place of feeling connected and grounded and loving towards herself and towards her family, then the question becomes, okay, what do you want to do here? I think that is such a more helpful and empowering way to approach it because then it takes the reaction out of it instead of reacting in the moment you are calm and you’re responding. I like to remember the concept of agency here too. Agency is the power for us all individually to do whatever we want.

So you can think whatever you want, you can feel however you want, you can do whatever you want. And this applies to every situation and every person, including your husband. Now of course there are consequences, if you go and break the law, there’s a consequence. You’re probably gonna get arrested, maybe go to jail, X, Y, Z happens if you do A, B, C. So I’m not suggesting you would want to do whatever you want, but when we truly understand that everyone has free agency to think, feel, and act however they want, we become so much more empowered because we stop trying to control other people. We are not supposed to be able to control other people. I like to think that’s God’s business. That’s none of my business. When I think about my dad, for those of you who have been listening a long time, you know that he passed away a handful of years ago and he spent most of his life as an alcoholic.

And it was a very complicated, hard relationship and one of my best relationships and I did so much work on it and I got to so much peace and freedom in our relationship when I stopped trying to control him. It’s none of my business why he is choosing alcohol and it’s none of my business to try to stop it. And it was just like so freeing and created so much inner peace for me when I saw like this was his journey. I don’t know why, I don’t have to know why his spirit’s journey and that allowed me to love him and of course have boundaries without trying to control him. How does this relate to this instance about planning a vacation and snapping at your husband? Well, when we think husband shouldn’t do that, husband shouldn’t say snarky remarks. Husband is supposed to be a certain way.

We think we have control over their agency. And that doesn’t mean again, that I’m suggesting you are apathetic or you don’t care. But think of the spectrum. On one side of the spectrum, there’s apathy. On the other side of the spectrum there is control. And most of my clients kind of, which is the case here, it’s like they’re trying to control their spouse and the thought is he shouldn’t do that. And whenever we think someone else shouldn’t be doing what they’re actually doing, we create so much resistance for ourselves. Now again, it doesn’t mean you have to like it, but in the middle of that spectrum is you care, but you’re focusing on who do you want to be with a spouse who says those remarks.

So in this situation, instead of reacting and snapping and feeling all of this frustration, you can work on controlling your emotions, processing them instead of reacting to them thinking more intentional thoughts and then responding differently. And when you respond differently, it will create a completely different experience for you and most likely for your husband as well. Like I mentioned earlier in the podcast, you absolutely can make requests. I think having a conversation out of the moment is one of the best types of marriage communication that you can have. Nine times out of 10 when I am coaching a client, the conversations that they’re having are in the moment. So it’s after husband says a snarky remark after you’ve snapped and now all of a sudden you’re bringing up all of these things and both of you are already feeling combative in this defensive state and it’s just not gonna produce the most helpful conversation.

So what I mean is having a conversation out of the moment, not after he’s made a remark, not when you’re feeling reactive. When you’re both calm, that’s the best time to have a conversation. And you might approach it like this, Hey honey, when you make remarks about the Aruba trip, the story I tell myself is that I’m doing it wrong and we shouldn’t be going and it makes me feel like I’m being selfish in a bad way. And I just want you to know that. And that’s it. Oftentimes we think that a conversation has to have some sort of resolution, but so much connection and so much intimacy happens just when we share our experience. So you can say, this is the story I’m telling myself, and when you do X, Y, z, when you say A, B, C, whatever it is, it’s hard for me and I get that that’s about me.

I’m not blaming you. But if it’s the same to you, if you wouldn’t mind not making those remarks, it would mean the world to me. Do you see how that’s making a request? But it’s from the mindset we’re on the same team. It is not from the defensive tug of war, push pull type of dance that it’s really easy to get in because of that primitive brain. It’s not your fault, it’s not your spouse’s fault, it’s just that we are not taught this. We’re not taught brain management. And because you’re with your spouse so much, it’s so easy for the brain to kind of go haywire and to create disconnection and feel like you’re not on the same team.

So you are in this together not to attack each other. And when you feel that way, when you think that mindset, the way that you communicate will be completely different. Aside from having a conversation out of the moment, I think it’s also important to touch on the work that you can do individually in the moment as well as out of the moment. So out of the moment, work that you do on yourself I say is like 80% of the work in the moment, work is about 20%. Super important that you realize this because a lot of people, especially when they start working with me, they just wanna learn how to process their frustration so that they don’t snap. Yes, that is helpful, but if you only do that, you will still have frustration as a top emotion and that’s not fun, right? We wanna get to a place where you feel like you are creating your emotions deliberately based on who you wanna be, not based on husband’s remarks.

And that is done out of the moment. Out of the moment, thought work, practicing the thoughts. You want to think ahead of time. Your husband is predictable as we all are. So how do you want to think, feel, and act when he says certain things to you? That’s what you can control. I would journal about this just for five minutes in the morning and you will be amazed at how your brain starts to focus on what you are journaling, your brain practices, thoughts, and on default it will practice the past thoughts that you’ve had because that’s easier. Your brain is really efficient. So if you always think every time that he makes a snarky remark, there he goes again, he doesn’t respect me. I should just cancel this trip. You will continue to think those thoughts because it’s a shortcut for your brain. Okay, we know what happens here, husband does this, says this, I think this.

Then I snap. And that’s a habit loop that your brain is on. So to break that journal in the morning every morning for five minutes and just ask yourself, when my husband says X, Y, and Z, how do I wanna think, feel, and act? And it might be something like he can think whatever he wants to think. I’m so glad we’re going to Aruba. I need this trip. It doesn’t make me a bad mom or a bad wife. And it’s okay if my husband doesn’t fully understand this. I don’t have to love his jokes, but I also don’t have to take them so personally, I know that they have nothing to do with me. I love my life, I love my family, I love my kids, and I love my husband. I love that we are going to Aruba and we will go to Universal next year. I got me. And you write that down and you practice that. I promise you, you will start to remember that Joe Dispenza calls this future memories that you’re creating and it works so powerfully because then as you’re presented with opportunities to practice this, you won’t feel the frustration as much. You will start to feel calm and you’ll increase that, pause that response time and you will respond from the person who you want to be, not from that reactive, negative, primitive brain that is wired for survival. This is the best work you can do. It’s amazing for marriage, it’s amazing for parenting, it’s amazing for challenging moments. When you practice redirecting your brain to more powerful mindsets and perspectives, you will feel different and you will take different action. That’s how you know if you’re doing it right. And that’s the support that I offer you ongoing inside the Mom On Purpose Membership because I can get in there, get in your brain and help you specifically with your situation.

We have group coaching calls just about every week that you can attend live, and you can also listen to the replay of and really get the support that you more than deserve. So this goes for the person who wrote in as well as everyone listening. The next time that you find yourself feeling snappy, pause and reflect on it out of the moment. Go through what happened in your mind and ask yourself, okay, what was I thinking? What’s the story I was telling myself that created the frustration that led me to take the action of snapping? And instead of being absorbed by your own thoughts and feelings, you will observe them, write it down, and then choose intentionally how you want to think, feel, and act the next time. Remember, you can make requests. You will best make requests when you clean up your own thinking and feeling first so that you’re not approaching your husband from frustration, from irritation, from agitation, from resentment, from control.

When you feel calm, loving, connected, confident, you will make requests in such a more empowered way. Because the truth is you can’t control your husband, but you can control yourself. And when you choose to feel empowered and intentional in your responses, it’s like taking off dark colored sunglasses and putting on rose colored sunglasses like husband’s still still there and he’s still saying the same things, but you see it in a rose colored way, you see it completely different. You’re not so frustrated, and that’s because you’ve done the inner work. It’s changed my life, my friends. I’m so passionate about this. Thank you so much for being here and for those of you who have been chatting with me on Instagram, it’s been such a delight. I will talk with you next week. Take care.

Thank you for being here and listening Now, head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more about the Mom On Purpose Membership, where we take all of this work to the next level.