tell your partner to take time off every once in a while

There is a completely normal kind of anger in a relationship

November 25, 2024 2:27 p.m.(Updated 2:29 p.m.)

I recently found some surprising relationship advice from actor Charles Dance – specifically the benefits of telling your partner to fuck off.

Dance is in a relationship with a woman named Alessandra Masi, whom he met in Italy in 2018 while filming a film. Discussing his relationship with Masi, he said The times: “We get along well and she does her job very well. She is either a delegate producer or production director. It’s difficult. It’s hard work if you’re a woman and it’s doubly hard if you’re a woman in Italy because Italian men don’t like women telling them what to do, you know. But she’s a tough cookie.

At that point, the interviewer asked if Masi was tough on him, to which he replied, “Yes, when I get pompous, which I tend to do from time to time, I tell him: ‘Just tell me to fuck off.’ She says, “Fuck you!” Wonderful! But not very often, fortunately.

It’s a line from a long interview where he talks about his career, his marriages, and his life, and upon first reading, I didn’t think much about it. But it stuck with me, and over the next few days I found myself returning to it again and again.

I have been in a committed relationship for most of my adult life. With the exception of a period of celibacy after my separation from my husband, I have almost always had a man with me. And I spent many of my waking hours trying to talk rationally and intellectually to these men about our respective feelings.

It’s hard to say how many hours I’ve spent talking about my feelings, their feelings, my feelings about their feelings, but it’s a lot. Regardless of the number, lengthy and complex assessments of the emotional landscape during conflict are the hallmark of being in a relationship with me (I promise, I have more attractive qualities too).

This isn’t unique to me – it’s true for most women I know who have been to therapy. I am a firm believer in therapy, and it has been a vital part of my survival throughout adulthood, but I am not the first person to discover that many therapies can allow you to speak as if you were you -even a therapist.

When arguing with a partner, I take great care to present each point with calm fairness, to cite evidence for each assertion. I make sure to start with “I sense that you are” rather than “you are” so as not to sound accusatory, I have as much trouble listening as I do speaking. Basically, I would get an A* in couples therapy if couples therapists didn’t consider handing out notes unethical.

But now I can’t help but think how cathartic it must be to throw all that good behavior out the window and occasionally tell your partner to fuck off. I also can’t help but wonder if this could be more productive? Sometimes after a long discussion about feelings, I feel bored, tired, and ready for the discussion to end, but I don’t really feel like I’ve gotten it out of my system.

Besides being more cathartic than a long, measured conversation, I feel like telling your partner to fuck off can be perverse and quite respectful. This sends the message that you view them as robust and adult enough to handle you, rather than tiptoeing around their feelings.

Obviously, anger can be toxic in a relationship. There are types of anger that are corrosive, dangerous and unforgivable. But there’s also a kind of anger that’s completely normal, and I think in a safe, happy relationship, maybe there’s a place to occasionally let that anger out without having to work through it. a filter and disinfect it beforehand.

I resolved that the next time I argue with my boyfriend about constantly losing my phone or his refusal to admit he’s hungover when he clearly is. , I will not engage in a long conversation about this. our respective feelings. I’m just going to tell him to fuck off. I have a feeling it might make me feel better and – if I’m really honest with myself – he might prefer it too.