My Girlfriend Yells At Me Too Much!

What you should do if your girlfriend yells at you too much and gets upset and angry way too easily.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer whose girlfriend yells and gets angry with him over the smallest infractions. He often responds with playful humor, but sometimes he says that it backfires and she gets even angrier. She will give him the silent treatment, not speak to him until she calms down and withholds affection.

He says that this kind of immature temper tantrum nonsense happens about once a week. She basically treats him like a child every time she gets upset with him. He asks my opinion on how to handle these tiring and trying situations. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

This is a really good email as a good example of setting and enforcing healthy boundaries. Because the reality is there are several types of people that you’re going to encounter in life. Ideally, you want to have as many calm, peaceful and relaxed and even keeled people as possible in your life, because when you’re in a peaceful and relaxed state, you’re going to make your best decisions, you’re going to be the most efficient and you’re going to be happiest.

If you have people around you that are always angry and getting upset and pissed off at you, that’s going to put you in a stressed state. And obviously, when you’re stressed, you’re angry, and you’re fearful, your decisions tend to bring about more anger, stress, chaos, things not going well, and things tend to spiral out of control. And the reality is not everybody comes from an environment where people talk and work things out. Lots of people come from environments where everybody yells at each other and gets angry, screams, slams doors, storms out, gives each other the silent treatment, all kinds of fun, passive aggressive nonsense.

And so, whether it’s your friends or people you work with, business partners or the women that you date, you’re going to encounter people that grew up in a pretty toxic environment, and they’re going to try to bring that into your life. And as I always say, no drama allowed. So this is important. If you’re like me and you want to keep as little drama out of your life as possible, you’re going to have to set and enforce healthy boundaries. And sometimes that may mean you might have to end friendships or end relationships if the other person just refuses to change or treat you the way you want to be treated.

The strongest negotiating position is being able to walk away and mean it. And if somebody is constantly violating your boundaries and you just allow it, you’re inviting more of that kind of behavior. You’re literally enabling their behavior. You’re inviting them to continue treating you this way. But when you’re seven months down the road and you’re in a relationship with somebody and this stuff is going on — like in this particular guy’s case, it happens every week and he’s not able to get past it — a big part of it is because he’s being too nice. He’s letting her get away with it, and there’s no consequences. And because there’s no consequences on her part, why should she change her behavior? What’s he doing to motivate her to change her behavior?

No one will ever do or say anything to you that you don’t invite them to do. Whatever you allow or you tolerate, you’re inviting more of that into your life. And in this poor guy’s case, if he’s got a bitchy girlfriend who’s always getting upset and yelling at him once a week, who wants to look forward to that? I mean, the weekends, for most people, when you’re not working and you’re off, you want to spend time, relax, unplug, enjoy your life, have a girl, hang out with your friends, hang out your family, go do something fun for yourself. The last thing you want to do after a stressful week of work is to be hanging out with your girl who’s bringing even more stress into your life.

Remember, no drama allowed. It’s an art, it’s not like a light switch. And sometimes you’re going to have to have unpleasant conversations with people that you care about, and in some cases you might reach an impasse where the other person just simply can’t get their act together. It’s not your job to fix or to save other people. You’ve got to take care of yourself first and make yourself happy, because you can’t give away what you don’t have for yourself. And if you’re allowing other people like this, you put up with it because you’re worried you’re not going to find anybody else, or the next person you won’t be as into, and she won’t be as into you, then it keeps you stuck and then you’re just enabling their behavior.

And this girl’s case, his girlfriend, whether it’s him or maybe the next guy or ten guys, however many it’s going to be, the only way she’s going to correct her behavior is if she learns that she’s going to lose people that she loves and cares about if she doesn’t get her act together. And the reality is she’s just choosing to lose emotional self-control, because he’s enabling that behavior. He continually puts up with it.

Viewer’s Email:

Hi Coach,

I’ve been with my girlfriend for about 7 months. She has anger issues and gets mad easily.

Well, behind anger is always fear. And so, you’ve got to ask yourself, what’s the fear? What kind of environment did she grow up in if everybody in her family yelled and screamed at each other? I mean, it’s nice if you have the ability when you guys are outside of her family’s house that she’s nice and sweet to you, but if she comes from that kind of environment, think about it. Even as she’s calm with you and she goes and gets around her family and they all start yelling at each other, who wants to deal with that?

Quite frankly, when I grew up, that’s what I watched my with my family. Especially around Christmas time or the holidays, my mother would get together with her sisters, and they’d started yelling at each other and cussing each other. And sometimes one of them would storm out of the house and they’d leave. I remember one time on Christmas Eve, they all came over, and right away, my mom and my aunt started yelling at each other about something silly. And then my aunt left and took the youngest daughter with her, and then everybody else stayed. And so, they missed Christmas.

And she wanted my uncle to leave and my other cousins, and my uncle was like, “No.” He stood up to her. He’s like, “You’re being ridiculous. It’s Christmas Eve.” My aunt stormed out of there, and she came back a couple hours later after everybody had opened their presents and everything. And obviously, my smallest cousin, who was young at time, she missed out on Christmas Eve. It’s like, that sucks. But she was too young to resist or do anything, and so she just picked her up and took her with her. But that was the kind of crap that I saw, and quite frankly, I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to put up with that kind of nonsense.

And when I was younger, I had more people in my life. I had people that I worked with that were like that. My business partners were like that sometimes. As you get older, you’re like, “Man, I don’t want to deal with this.” Life’s too short. I don’t want to deal with angry people all the time. And plus, it’s unhealthy. It’s not good for your body. It literally creates acidic conditions in your body that have a negative effect on your health. If you’re stressed all the time, you’re going to tend to get colds and be sick, because it weakens your immune system.

So, if you have toxic people around you, whether you work with toxic people, you have toxic family members, or in this case, you’ve got a girlfriend that’s toxic, that’s going to make it harder for you to be healthy. And the healthier you are, the more efficient you’re going to be. But if you’re sick all the time or you’re run down, you’re just not going to be as efficient at getting things done, and it’s going to take you longer to accomplish your goals and your dreams because of it.

So, this is a big deal for a lot of people. And I know for me, I cleaned out all those toxic people in my life that I went into detail in my second book, “Mastering Yourself,” which you can read for free at UnderstandingRelationships.com. But I mean, I totally did a house cleaning in my life in my mid-thirties, and I got rid of all these people that were just always bringing drama and creating problems in my life. And it’s been wonderful ever since. So, let’s see if we can encourage this guy to do the same.

She will often make a big deal over small things that I do wrong, and basically chew me out for it.

Well, the other thing you’ve got to remember, and I wrote about this in “How To Be A 3% Man,” is that women tend to take little problems and they blow them up into a big ordeal. And it’s the man’s job to take those and shrink them down to their little parts and just handle them and solve them. Because remember, women tend to be emotional, more in touch with their emotions and their empathy than us guys are.

I usually respond playfully, saying things like “you’re so sexy when you’re mad” to change her mood. It works sometimes, but it usually makes it worse. 

So, when you use playful humor and then she just continues being verbally abusive — because this is abuse. This is emotional abuse, this is mental abuse, and this is verbal abuse — it’s not healthy and it’s not loving, it’s dysfunctional. Because she obviously came from a dysfunctional background. She learned it from her family. And by you allowing her to berate and abuse you with no consequences, you’re telling her it’s okay to continue doing this to you.

And so, you have to say, “Look, I don’t like how you’re talking to me. It’s rude, it’s disrespectful, it’s unloving. If you’re upset, I’m happy to listen and you can tell me what’s upsetting you. But I’m not going to sit here and take another tongue lashing from you and have you be abusive. That just doesn’t work for me. You’ve got to be nice and sweet to me and we can talk things out.”

And if she continues berating you, you just say, “Look, if you don’t cut it out, I’m going to leave.” And if she just keeps doing it, it’s like, “Alright, I told you. I’m going leave. You call me later when you calm down and you want to act like an adult and talk things out, because I’m done with this. You’re not going to treat me this way anymore.” You might have to leave. You ask her in a loving, respectful way, you’re setting a boundary, but if she just keeps abusing and crossing the line, just like kids do it all the time — little kids will do that with you to see what they can get away with. And so, women are going to test your strength, and its weakness as a man to sit there and tolerate abuse and being berated. It’s a beta male move, dude.

So, you have to stand up to her, put her in her place in a sweet and loving way and ask her to cut it out. But if she keeps it up no matter what you’re doing, it’s like “I’m just going to take you home, because I don’t like your attitude. I’m over it. It’s like, you do this once a week and I don’t want to be treated this way. I want a good relationship. I want to be happy. I’ve had a stressful week, and I look forward to our times together, so we can have fun. And then when I get around you, all you want to do is be angry and pissed off and get upset at the littlest thing. So, I don’t want to deal with it. So, be nice and sweet, or I’m leaving. It’s your choice.” You have to do it. The strongest negotiating position is being able to walk away and mean it.

She lives in an apartment complex, and the apartment manager has told her before to have her guests keep masks on. 

I deal with this in a couple of buildings. And even though I’m in Florida and everybody talks about how Florida’s open, all the mayors are communists. They’re all socialists, they’re all Marxists, and they want to tell everybody what to do. And so, even though the governor doesn’t have a mass mandate statewide, all the commie mayors make you wear masks any time you go inside restaurants or whatever. And sometimes people still say shit to me about it, and I always have choice words for them.

It’s especially the obese and out of shape people that tend to run their mouth the most about it. I tell them to get their fat asses in the gym and other really nice things that I’m not going to go into here, but I don’t put up with shit from other people. And people that have come at me with that before, I give them a tongue lashing, and they don’t say shit anymore to me. So, it’s like this is something that you just have to do. It’s a good thing to do to other people. When they want to be abusive towards others, put them in their fucking place.

This morning when we both left her apartment for work, I forgot to put my face mask on for a few seconds. She angrily told me to put it on. I put my mask on and ignored her rudeness at first.

Well, that’s a mistake. You don’t ignore the rudeness. You just say, “Don’t talk to me like that. I’m not your child. I’m not your bitch. I’m your man. You need you to treat me with respect, the same way that I treat you.” And if she starts raising her voice and cussing you out, it’s like, “Don’t talk to me that way.” And if she doesn’t, I don’t know if you guys go to work together or whatever, or you kiss her goodbye, but it’s like, “You know, you need to apologize to me. I don’t want to hear from you unless you’re ready to be sweet and loving and apologize to me, because I’m done putting up with you talking to me like this.”

As we were walking to her car, she continued to rant at me and tell me I should’ve put my mask on.

I would’ve taken an Uber. I would be like, “I’ll just take an Uber. I’m not going to put up with this shit. You’ve got two choices, you can be sweet to me ,or I’ll take an Uber. And you can call me later and apologize and come over and make me dinner at my place and do some serious sucking up, because this just needs to stop. If we’re going to stay together, this needs to stop and it stops today.”

She finally said, “So put your fucking mask on.”

Can you imagine putting up with a chick like this? No drama allowed. Come on, man. Have some fucking self-respect and stand up for yourself.

And that’s when I said something back. I slightly raised my voice and told her, “Don’t talk to me like that. Do you think that language is okay? Watch your mouth.”  

That’s good. But you let it go on too much. It’s like, you let her abuse you four, five, six times and you speak up once. Because every time you let her get away with it and you don’t, if you check her once and then the next time she does it, you don’t do anything, you don’t stand up for yourself, you’re telling her it’s okay. You’re giving her mixed signals. You’re being inconsistent. You’re vacillating between masculinity and being feminine and submissive. And you don’t want to be feminine and submissive with something like this, because then you’re inviting more aggression.

She stopped talking, still very pissed off. She got in her car, didn’t kiss me goodbye like she always does and drove off. It’s only been a few hours, but there has been no contact between us yet.

I wouldn’t call her. Let her have the no contact, because her behavior’s inappropriate. Ye who speaks first loses. If you’re looking at this from a negotiation perspective, just imagine you got up from the negotiating table, you told her not to talk to you that way. She’s angry and pissed off, didn’t kiss you goodbye. So she’s like, “Okay. Well, I’m going to withhold affection and I’m going to withhold being nice to you.” And if you don’t like that, if you set a boundary, then you don’t call or text her again for any reason. Because you told her to stop and she basically told you, fuck off.

If you’re enforcing the healthy boundary, say, you were negotiating and you wanted to offer twenty, and the dealer wanted twenty-five for the car. The dealer says, “No, I can’t do that.” Then you say, “Okay. Well, call me if you change your mind.” You get up and you walk away from the negotiating table. Now, a couple hours later, a day or two later, you call and go, “Hey, is that car still available? I think I could maybe pay twenty-two for it,” now they know they’ve got you, and you didn’t really mean that you could only pay twenty. So you didn’t really mean what you said.

So you’re looking at it from a leverage perspective. She has to know that you’re serious. Because for seven months, she’s been successfully intimidating you with anger, and then you allowed her to get away with it. So the worst thing you can do is call her and text her after you just set a boundary. Because she went off all butt hurt because you put her in her place and set a boundary.

But when you let a normal, healthy woman stew about that, she’ll think about it over the course of a day and go, “You know, I really was a bitch to him and that was wrong.” And they’ll call and apologize. They’ll say, “Thank you for being so calm and calling me out. I’m sorry for being a bitch. I’m going to make it up to you. I going to make you dinner tonight. I going to make your favorite meal,” whatever it happens to be. The worst thing you can do is chase after a woman, after you just put her in her place and set a boundary, and then you run after her. That tells her it’s okay to resume the abuse.

I’m sure we will work it out like we always do, but my point is, things like this happen about once a week.

Yeah, because you’re enabling your behavior. So, it’s your fault, dude. Whether you like it or not, it’s your fault because you keep putting up with it. If your life is no drama allowed like mine is, you don’t put up with this. The first time it happens, you nip it in the bud.

She will often yell at me like I’m a child for very small mistakes that I make. How should I respond to her behavior?

By calling her out for it. Just say, “It’s not sweet, it’s not loving. I don’t talk to you that way. And if you’re going talk that way to your family and your friends, that’s fine, but you don’t talk to your man like that. If you want to keep me as your man, you’ve got to be as sweet and loving. I’m not going to put up with this. I don’t want to deal with it. I’m over it.”

When she’s yelling at me, I never yell back.

The idea is you want to remain calm, but also matter of factly, tell her the way things are going to be. And if she just keeps crossing that boundary, you have to leave. You have to do that, because she’s got to recognize that her being nasty to you causes you to not be around her. And if she values you and loves you and cares about you, she’s not going to like that.

I either try to make her laugh or tell her I understand and repeat things back to her that she’s saying. But when she’s yelling at me for something this small, I feel like me understanding her/apologizing is not the right thing to do.

Yeah, you’ve got to call her out on the behavior, dude, because every time you let it slide, you’re saying it’s okay to do it. Just remember that. So, if out of five times of her being abusive, you only call her out on it two times, it doesn’t matter. Those three times you said it was okay, she’s going to keep doing it. Women have to know, because calling her out only two out of five times, that’s a weakness, that’s a chink in your armor that she’s going to exploit. And because you keep letting her give it away with it, that’s why she keeps doing it.

Unfortunately, that’s what I usually do in these situations, wait for her to call me…

Which is the right move.

…then understand her side, even though she’s yelling. 

You’ve got to tell her, “You can’t yell at me.” And ideally, these things should be done in person. But as soon as she starts yelling, you’ve got to nip in the bud. So whenever she yells, you leave. Whenever she yells, you ask her to stop. If she doesn’t stop, you leave. Simple as that. You have to be 100% consistent. You can’t do it four out of five times. You have to do a five out of five times, ten out of ten times.

Because all you have to do is slip once and let it slide, and then she’ll do it again, because you’re letting her get away with it. Just like a kid would do. There’s no consequences for it, so you’re not really doing anything to correct her behavior. You’re telling her it’s okay. And obviously, if she’s got a family full of people like that, this is normal to her. It was normal in my family, and I don’t want to live like that, and I don’t. I won’t put up with that shit these days.

It feels like she’s walking all over me when I do this.

Yeah, you’re being a bitch. You’re allowing her to treat you like a doormat.

Anytime I try to stand up to her, she gets even more emotional and it makes things worse. How should I handle these situations? 

Bob

Well, if she’s not going to talk to you in a calm, sweet and loving manner, you give her the gift of missing you. If she treats you properly, she gets the greatest gift you can give her, which is a gift of your time. And so, from this perspective, bro, you’re not following what the book teaches. Because you’re you’re worried, on some level, if you stand up to her, the relationship might end, you might break up, you might not see her for a while, you might lose access to the box, or whatever.

It’s like, no amount of any of the access to the box or being around her, it’s not worth it if you have to put up with this. Imagine having kids now. Your kids are going to grow up and get involved in the same kind of relationship. Is that what you want for your future children? I don’t think so.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge or something you need my help with, whether it’s personal or professional, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.

“Having a calm demeanor and living a relatively peaceful and relaxed life helps you make the best and most efficient decisions and helps maintain optimum health. Being angry, frustrated, fearful, stressed and arguing with others is literally toxic to your body and overall health. Our decisions and actions while being in a fearful and angry state tend to bring about more anger, stress, difficulty and chaos. Displaying weakness and not standing up for ourselves invites more aggression, conflict and drama from others. No one will ever do or say anything to you that you don’t invite them to do. Set and enforce healthy boundaries when people don’t treat you how you want to be treated. Otherwise, you are simply inviting others to continue abusing you.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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