Managing your stress well

One of the best things you can do for your spouse is to manage well your own stress. If you ignore it it will spill into your interactions and it is unfair to expect your spouse to constantly adjust to your unmanaged stress.

How well do you manage your stress?

Our Experience

“It will take 40 hours of therapy for me to begin to answer this question,“ was Libby’s immediate reaction.

”You are stressing me out!“

OK. I’ll admit that not all prompts produce good conversations. But they still may produce valuable personal reflections.

“I feel like when something hard is coming up my options are either to dread it or avoid it. Dreading it always makes it worse,” she adds.

One of my observations is that she really doesn’t give herself enough credit for the things she does daily to meet the normal stresses of life. She has a rich devotional life, goes on long walks, often with close friends, listens to books, does pottery, watches Jeopardy and best of all, enjoys grandkids. And her close friendships are mutually supportive.

I am still learning that it is not Libby’s responsibility to manage my stress, although by temperament she has always been more than willing.

How well do you manage your stress?