Whether it feels like “here we go again” or it is coming out of the blue, your husband (or wife) yelling at you never feels good. And it’s always too easy to do one thing that definitely won’t help the situation: blame one of you.
You might be feeling like his yelling means you did something wrong and need to figure out how to fix it so the yelling can stop.
Or maybe you don’t have any idea why he’s so mad and all of it seems like a big overreaction.
Either way, it’s helpful to approach your husband’s outburst not with a focused blame toward one of you, but instead with curiosity about what’s happening between the two of you.
After all, your first goal might be to get the yelling to stop but your second goal is probably to repair and reconnect.
Placing blame on one of you will create a bigger divide in the relationship and help spiral this situation out of control. Curiosity will help you stay grounded in yourself and respond appropriately to the situation.
So let’s get curious about what’s going on with him.
3 Reasons Why Your Husband Yells at You
Short answer: He’s yelling because he’s feeling some feels that are overwhelming to his nervous system and he’s having a hard time holding steady in his body.
But if that’s all that’s happening, why does it have to come out directed toward you? Why does it sometimes sound very convincing that it is actually all about you?
He’s yelling at you because 1) you’re around, 2) you feel like a safe person to be raw around, 3) the feels have to go someplace and he’s not sure what else to do with them, or 4) he has a story about why you’re the cause of his feels.
Regardless of what words are being used about you or what story is being told, the yelling is an expression of something your husband is feeling inside himself. It’s not yours to identify or manage.
Even so, it might help you in responding to him with curiosity if you can better understand what’s going on behind the volume, intensity, or blame.
With more curiosity, you can prevent the common pitfall of ping-ponging anger back and forth between you. Or the equally common pattern of shutting down and withdrawing from him — both in this moment and in future moments where there may be opportunity to bridge the distance or reduce the tension between you.
So what’s going on in him that’s feeling so overwhelming and is spilling out of him as yelling?
1. Anger
Obvious, right? But what exactly is anger? If you’ve read my introductory article about IFS and parts, you might have an idea. Through an IFS lens, your husband has this part of himself that expresses itself through yelling (and maybe other forms of anger, too) when a more vulnerable part of him needs protection.
These reactive protector parts are like firefighters who sense a danger and jump to the rescue to put out the fire. They are responding to someone or something (maybe you) getting too close to a vulnerable part.
So Anger pops up and says, “back off!” to keep your husband from having to experience more of whatever emotion or belief that vulnerable part is feeling. Which brings us to the next two things that could be going on behind the yelling.
2. Fear of loss
Firefighter parts are extreme and reactive because they aren’t meant to be on duty all the time. When triggered and called forward, they respond as if they’ve been startled awake from a deep slumber and are not happy about it.
Their extreme tendencies (like yelling) are usually a result of feeling a bit scared because the other protective part who was supposed to be on duty has either been bested or has gone offline. Those proactive protectors are called Managers because they generally determine how you interact with your world on a daily basis. And they do so by managing situations and ensuring they stay a certain way, with great effort and attention to detail.
If your husband is yelling, whatever manager that was running the show has stepped aside. Which means that whatever that manager was working towards has been “lost” — control, safety, expectation, comfort, reputation, connection, voice, independence, admiration, appreciation and on and on.
Anger is sometimes a direct response to the perceived loss of control, loss of safety, or loss of comfort in a conversation. Or maybe a response to the perceived loss of connection between the two of you – or appreciation and respect from you, his partner.
3. Hurt
But if you want to get to the core reason for why your husband yells at you, it’s probably underneath those reactive and proactive protectors all the way to the pain that a wounded vulnerable part of him is carrying. Maybe something touched a part of him that feels unworthy, unimportant, unheard, or unsafe.
Be aware that these vulnerable parts are often exiled from our consciousness, blocked by those protectors who are doing terrific jobs to keep us from experiencing any of that pain of unworthiness again.
Which means that if you were to ask your husband if he’s yelling because he’s feeling hurt, there are no guarantees he will have the awareness in the moment to say yes — or that his protectors will believe it’s safe enough to say yes.
So what good does it do to know why he’s yelling if you probably won’t be very successful in diffusing the yelling by talking about it with him on a deeper level?
Well, when his anger part is reacting and yelling at you, you have your own dance of parts that happens inside of you, too! How fun. Which brings us to…
3 Things Not to Do When Your Husband is Yelling at You
1. Do not stay in the yelling.
This first one is the big no-no: Do not allow yourself to continue being yelled at. Regardless of how much empathy you have for what is causing the pain behind his yelling, and no matter how much guilt or shame you feel about yourself in potentially provoking the yelling, do not stay for more yelling.
I’m going to say that one again.
Do not stay to receive more yelling.
No one deserves to be yelled at. So whether it’s one snap or a slew of yelling, offer yourself (and him) the space to calm down.
Everyone deserves to be respected and to treat themselves respectfully. Removing yourself from a space where you are being yelled at is respectful. If you can, do it kindly. But sometimes, depending on how intense the yelling is (or how much yelling has come your way in your lifetime), you may not have the ability to offer loving-kindness while you advocate for space and escort yourself out. Sometimes all you can do is walk away.
If he fusses about you choosing not to endure more yelling, keep in mind that he has protective parts running the show (just like those characters in the Disney movie Inside Out).
But again, understanding and empathizing with him in no way means it’s your job to put up with being yelled at more than one accidental snap. Everyone is allowed to lose their cool once in a while. And veryone is also allowed to move to a space that feels safe when they find themselves in one that doesn’t.
If it’s possible, you can always try saying, “Love, I want to hear what’s going on with you but the way you’re speaking to me isn’t feeling respectful. Please soften a bit.” If he can, great! If not, step away and help prevent the situation from escalating.
2. Do not blame him.
Okay, so I’m saying that it’s his work to figure out in himself why he’s yelling and learn how to express anger and hurt in a more respectful and responsible way. Yes. 100%.
But stepping back to let him be responsible for his own self is not the same as blaming him — although they often get tangled up a bit in how we understand the difference between responsibility and blame.
Blaming is an accusation of fault, usually accompanied by a message that there is something bad or wrong about the choice or the person. Responsibility is a recognition of what belongs to who without it meaning anything negative about anyone.
If blaming in a conversation looks like metaphorically pointing a finger (sometimes pretty aggressively), taking responsibility is like holding up a hand.
Blaming your husband and pointing a finger at him (in your head) will breed more animosity toward him within yourself and more tension and disconnect between you.
It also isn’t taking into account that you also probably have protectors who respond in extreme ways. And when yours come out, whether they yell or do something else instead, you probably would appreciate some gentleness.
So instead of finger pointing and just redirecting blame and fault, try holding up a hand, holding the line of what is yours and what is his. He yells and you simply hold up your hand, palm toward him. You’re advocating for a boundary and differentiating between his yelling on one side of your hand and your receiving on the other side. You’re not flinging the energy anywhere, you’re stopping it in its tracks.
This is where you can practice holding space in yourself for both of you hurting. You can empathize with yourself in how painful and disappointing it is to be yelled at and treated disrespectfully. And you can empathize with how much hurt he is going through and how difficult it is to look at the parts of ourselves we aren’t proud of — like the parts that yell.
This is the art of compassion. It is not reducing or dismissing unacceptable behavior (which yelling is), but it’s also not being cold and unkind to it. It is holding the experience of both of you at one time without having to point fingers and blame. It is oriented towards truth, love, kindness, and connection.
3. Do not blame yourself.
This can be really hard not to do if his yelling is telling you that you’re to blame.
It can be easy to take responsibility for his emotions. As humans, we are tremendously skilled at not exactly knowing which feelings respond to which person.
Now, did you say something that was pretty critical and might have felt hurtful or dismissive to him? If so, certainly take responsibility for that. But taking responsibility for your own actions is very different from taking responsibility for someone else’s experience.
Allow him the opportunity to work with his own reactions. If you both allow you to be blamed for the yelling, it will never change because it is ignoring the truth.
He is the only one who can do that work.
Your work is to attend to what is going on inside yourself.
When being yelled at, most of us respond in one of four ways: we yell back, we withdraw, we shut down, or we appease and make nice. These are the commonly known “fight, flight, freeze, fawn” survival responses.
So are you a person who fights fight with fight? Meaning you’ll rise to the challenge and meet your husband with a similar level of intensity and aggression.
Or are you more likely to shut down, close off, sulk, shrink, hide, or stew? Maybe you over apologize and then do some extra things you wouldn’t normally do to help him feel better (which we could also refer to as an attempt to manage his feelings for him so he doesn’t have to).
Knowing what’s happening in yourself is important because remember the reason he’s yelling? He’s yelling because he’s feeling some feels that are overwhelming to his nervous system and he’s having a hard time holding steady in his body.
Which means you can’t actually do anything about his yelling. It’s happening in himself because of himself. It’s not actually about you. And since it’s not about you, there’s not a “you” in the situation to blame.
If his work is to look at himself with radical honesty in what’s going on that’s leading him to yell at you, your work is to look at yourself with radical honesty in what’s going on when you are yelled at.
Take a look at your own protector parts and see what they are needing from you so you can take care of yourself in a way that feels appropriate to the situation. Get curious about your response to the yelling. Don’t point fingers at yourself for “making it worse” or “losing your backbone” — just get curious.
5 Things to Do When Your Husband Yells at You
1. Walk away.
This one is so you don’t continue to be yelled at. Practice offering respect and loving-kindness toward yourself by removing yourself from situations that feel emotionally unsafe.
2. Attend to what is happening in yourself.
Whether you tend to fight fight with fight, withdraw and close off, shut down and check out, or appease and manage, look again at those three reasons above for why he might be yelling and see what applies to you, as well.
Be sure not to blame yourself, remember? Be curious and offer yourself loving kindness for being imperfect.
3. Get curious about him.
You probably won’t have much access to curiosity in the moment of him yelling, so this is more of a task for after the moment.
When you’re curious, the part of you that is eager to learn, interested in taking action, and receptive to information is present. See if you can find a space in yourself that is warm toward him and genuinely interested in what is happening behind the yelling.
If you sometimes feel curious in the moment of yelling, take some time to look at this. Is it coming from an authentically open space in yourself? Or are you curious because a part of you wants to de-escalate the situation and stop the yelling?
That form of curiosity isn’t the kind I’m talking about. It has an agenda and a motive. And if the result of learning more doesn’t reach the goal (stopping the yelling), you might be more likely to spin out in another protective part who is upset that your efforts didn’t pay off.
Authentic curiositiy has no motive. Its goal is not to stop the yelling or to get an apology or to feel better about the situation. Its goal is to simply be curious about the lived experience of another human.
This curiosity comes only when you’re grounded, secure, and centered in yourself. If you’re oriented towards fixing something between you so you can feel better, try finding some ways to connect with yourself first and see if you can access a type of curiosity that feels less eager, more relaxed, and generally more open.
4. Talk to him about what’s happening.
Talking about what is arising in your relationship is very important. But it’s not likely to go well in the moment. So just like fostering curiosity, try talking about it outside of a yelling situation, when you both may be more receptive to working together and finding a way through this.
5. Reach out for support.
If you can’t seem to step away, can’t be genuinely curious toward him, find yourself blaming him or you, or can’t talk about it in a productive and respectful way, it might be time to reach out for support.
You don’t have to live in this pattern forever.
No one deserves that.