“Why are you mad at me?”

It was his 14th rotation working weekend nights. This had always been his favorite shift. The officers were hungry and proactive, the calls were righteous (not a whole lot of tax-funded parenting at 0300 hours) and he was able to drive his kids to school in the morning. It was a win for everyone … or so he thought. Logistically and on paper, there shouldn’t have been any problems, yet his wife kept asking him over and over again, “Why are you mad at me?”

Now, I’m going to be honest: That question is a trap. You have zero chance of answering it in a way that is both accurate and comforting. 

If you say, “I’m not mad,” that leaves your spouse feeling confused and irritated, and you just told them they are wrong. 

If you say, “I don’t want to talk about it,” well, they might, and now the argument about when to have an argument ensues. 

You could always say, “Yes, I am, and here is why,” but generally speaking, the “Why are you mad at me?” question does not come at opportune times when both parties are feeling calm. 

If you choose to say, “Relax,” I really can’t help you and may the odds be ever in your favor. 

However, if your response is “Honey, I’m not mad at you. Work was a lot this week and I just need to zone out for a little while before jumping into family life. If it’s OK with you, I’m going to go for a run and when I get back I will be more engaged,” then you should be moonlighting as a life coach, accepting under-the-table payments from your clients and considering leaving your chosen profession to become the next Dr. Phil. 

What your spouse is really trying to say is “You are different right now and I don’t know why.”

I digress … a trap.

This is a pretty common communication loop in public safety relationships — the reason being that you may think you leave work at work, but your spouse may be picking up on something even you don’t recognize yet. Perhaps you’re a bit more despondent than usual, or tired, or distracted. Maybe you are replaying the conversation you had with your subordinate, or replaying the movie of the incident, or maybe you are just not thinking about anything but your body language is telling another story. Regardless, what your spouse is really trying to say is “You are different right now and I don’t know why. I want to help you, but I don’t know how.”

Words sometimes get in the way of what we are trying to say. Personally, I prefer the pragmatic, succinct and direct conversations to the circular “This could have been a text; why am I standing here?” conversations. My message gets across clearly and effectively, the person I am talking with gets their message across in the same way and the world moves on. At home, my pragmatic, succinct and direct approach can come across as callous, uncaring, uninvested and emotionless. In law enforcement, we get so used to this way of communication that we often don’t recognize we are doing it at home. Not ideal. At least, not ideal for my husband.

How often is it the case that on your first day off you are still a little checked out, fatigued, stressed, hypervigilant? Did you know it takes nearly 18 hours for the cortisol that pumps through your body at work to exit your body when you’re off duty?

How often is it the case that you are tapping out of family engagements, not hanging out with friends and avoiding interacting with real people at the grocery store (automated checkout lines were made for people like us, were they not?) because you just don’t have the energy for menial conversations?

How often is it the case that you avoid coming home, because at home you seem to get it wrong but at work you are seen as that guy who gets it right?

There are biological reasons — both brain- and body-induced — that give good cause for why these things might be happening. There is a lot to say about what happens in the body and brain because of the job. However, this article is not about the why, but rather about how we salvage communication at home when this is where we find ourselves. There are absolutely legitimate reasons why you might seem disengaged, curt and apathetic, but reasons are not excuses and this article is not about giving you permission to be an asshole in your marriage.

Hard conversations often start with your significant other being upset and bringing to the table a comment that might leave you feeling defensive, hurt and angry. I am suggesting you fight against the defensiveness and lean into what they might be trying to say. Here are a few examples.

Spouse: “Why are you mad at me?”

Decoded message: “You are different right now and I don’t know why. I want to help you, but I don’t know how.”

Response: “I must be giving off signals that something is not OK. I would like to some time to think about it before I respond so I can give you an accurate answer. Can we circle back after the kids are in bed?”

Spouse: “You’re never here.”

Decoded message: “I feel alone.”

Response: “It must feel like I am gone a lot, and I know that it can be hard. I have to go to training again next week, but before I go, what can I do to support you at home?”

Spouse: “I have to walk on eggshells around you all the time.”

Decoded message: “Stop bringing your work shit home. It’s not fair I have to change for you.”

Response: “I don’t want you walking on eggshells, but it’s not something I can fix on my own. I don’t like being angry all the time, either. How can you and I align and work together to make it better?”

Spouse: “You’ve changed.”

Decoded message: “I am afraid. I don’t know who you are anymore, and I am afraid our relationship will be in jeopardy because of it. Am I still good enough?”

Response: “I have changed. You can’t see what I see and not be changed by it. Maybe you should read this book [insert book about how and why one changes in law enforcement, such as Kevin Gilmartin’s Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement] and we can talk about it. Some of how I change is out of my control, and some of it I might need your help with.”

It is unreasonable to expect that in every conversation we can be our best selves, especially when the conversation is emotional and comes after a hard shift. It is unlikely you will always, or even more often than not, say the right thing … but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it to try. It should also be noted that rolling over and “giving in” to your significant other to make the conversation go away is another kind of trap — the kind that leaves you feeling resentful and isolated and that builds over time into other kinds of nonproductive conversations. The best way to deal with communication problems is to deal with them. How’s that for pragmatic, succinct and direct?