“You are not your feelings. You just experience them. Anger, sadness, hate, depression, fear. This is the rain you walk in. But you don’t become the rain. You know the rain will pass. You walk on. And you remember the soft glow of the sun that will come again.” ~Matt Haig
Being a relationship-oriented person all my life, I’ve found it fascinating and frustrating how easy it is to feel annoyed with one’s spouse—the person we are supposed to feel most happy to be around.
I used to feel quite annoyed with my husband on a nearly daily basis. But with a bit of effort, annoyance has now become only an occasional companion who I feel pretty much at peace with.
But boy, it was no fun back in the day. Little things that probably wouldn’t bother others really rubbed me the wrong way: How he hums sometimes when he chews. The slightest aggravation in his tone when speaking to our sons. The way he’d ask me to move when he was putting the dishes away and I was chopping veggies for dinner.
When I learned I was a highly sensitive person (HSP)—one of the 25% of people who have a genetic trait that leads to processing all stimuli, including emotions, more deeply than others—it put things in perspective. And it helped me begin learning how to go from feeling overwhelmed by annoyance to it being a very occasional and mostly mellow experience.
HSPs have a stronger tendency to feel easily annoyed or irritated by our significant others, as our systems are sensitive, and we tend to notice every little thing about others—so even small imperfections can loom large and get irritatingly under our skin.
But you don’t have to be highly sensitive to feel frequently annoyed in your intimate relationship! I know plenty of non-HSPs who are also often accompanied by that old annoyance monster.
Whether you are an HSP or not (here are some positive clues that you may be!), annoyance and irritation are much more likely to crop up when you are already in a state of stress or overstimulation, which happens more quickly for HSPs than it does for others.
The frantic pace of the holiday season a few years back brought this into sharp focus. And it wasn’t just me. Many friends and fellow HSPs around me expressed sentiments like “I’m so irritated lately,” “My husband is so annoying,” “He’s just driving me crazy,” and “I’m worried that I’m annoyed with my partner so often.”
Several women even confessed that their annoyance had led them to question the foundation of their relationships, fearing that something was fundamentally wrong and that perhaps it meant they shouldn’t be with their spouse anymore.
I heard this more often from the HSPs I know. This is because HSPs tend to be highly aware and conscientious, and so we recognize this tendency to be more irritable than others, and we worry about its impact on our relationships and ourselves.
Although I never personally feel that worry anymore, I remember it well, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I had started to feel a resurgence of that annoyance toward my dear hubby during those holiday weeks. So I know how uncomfortable these feelings can be, and how hard they can be on our partner as well.
Because when we feel annoyed, we act—dare I say it—annoying, or at least difficult. And that can be hard for everyone—kids, our partner, and others—to be around.
So, let’s delve deeper into why we can be prone to annoyance in our intimate relationships, why HSPs are particularly susceptible to strong feelings of irritation, and how I successfully stopped letting these feelings damage my marriage—and how you can stop feeling so bad about your annoyed feelings and allowing them to be a problem in your relationship.
Why Do We Get Easily Annoyed by Minor Issues?
The human brain is more focused on things that go wrong (about two-thirds of the time) or things that are lacking than those that are going well (about one-third of the time). This is called the negativity bias of the brain, and it’s a survival thing: If it’s really zoned in on what’s wrong or missing, its primal logic goes, it will keep us alive longer! So it judges things as bad or wrong at the drop of a hat, always keeping a vigilant lookout for all that is not right. In more truly threatening situations, this tendency gives rise to such emotions as fear and anger.
But in times of less actual threat, such as a hectic holiday season with loved ones, the emotions this part of our brain generates are less intense. Say hello to annoyance, aggravation, and irritation!
Pair that with all the time we spend living and navigating choices and chores with one particular person who may do things differently than we would—our intimate partner—and we are bound to have lots of opportunities for annoyance to crop up regularly.
And since HSPs experience all stimuli with greater intensity, for us, even the most subtle or minor irritants, which might not faze others, can become quite aggravating.
That holiday season I mentioned was particularly hectic for me. Juggling three kids’ needs, running my own business, and managing a large extended family, I anticipated that these few weeks would test my patience. Therefore, when I found myself persistently irritated, it wasn’t unexpected.
When I began to get aggravated by every small thing my husband did (such as retelling the same story over and over) or didn’t do (like failing—again!—to light the wood stove first thing in the morning as I’d requested regularly), I didn’t let myself spiral into despair about my marriage.
Instead, here’s what I did to gracefully get myself through those days of annoyance.
How to Handle Your Annoyance with Your Partner
1. Own your feelings as your own.
The first thing I did was to remind myself that my frustration wasn’t a result of my husband’s actions. I realized that he hadn’t changed or become any more bothersome than usual. He was just doing things as he usually does them. My feelings were entirely about what was happening within me.
2. Acknowledge what your feelings feel like in your body.
Next, instead of simply being in those feelings, I examined them, like a scientist might examine a cell through a microscope—with real curiosity—specifically, about what they felt like in my body. I noticed the heat they created, especially in my arms, and the almost prickly sensation in my head and chest.
As I stayed with these sensations, I noticed they were not comfortable, but not really so bad, either. And that the feelings seemed to fade as I simply acknowledged and sat with them like a good friend. I learned that this was a great way to ease my annoyance and stop letting it erupt out of me at my husband.
3. Delve into what is fueling these emotions.
With continued curiosity, I examined what could be driving these feelings, again, knowing it had everything to do with me.
I recognized that physical factors were contributing to my irritation: fluctuating hormones, stress, the endless gray skies, and the long, dark nights—all contributing to a sense of cabin fever.
I also noticed that I was fixating on what was wrong, slipping into a critical mindset, rather than acknowledging what was going well. My thoughts were very fixated on the ways my husband wasn’t being who I wanted him to be or doing what I wanted him to do. They were quite engaged in a big old game of judge, judge, judge (hello, negativity bias)!
Seeing this freed me up to deliberately shift my focus to the positive aspects of my partner and our current situation—of which there were plenty. This change in perspective helped ease my irritation a bit.
4. Notice the stories your mind is weaving about what these feelings mean—and disbelieve them.
Most of us, especially HSPs, take our thoughts about our feelings really seriously. As in, “If I feel irritated, something must be wrong with my husband, or with me, or with US!”
How do you feel when you think like that? Likely worried. And pretty upset. I know I did when I used to buy into that kind of thinking.
Although I no longer believed my thoughts about what this upsurge of annoyance “meant,” they still came up, such as:
Could something be wrong with me and my ability to love? Does this annoyance mean I’ll never feel good with my husband again? Does it mean he’s an annoying person and I made a mistake marrying him?
I knew those thoughts were normal, and I didn’t give them much stock. Truly, thinking such anxious thoughts and analyzing their implications through a fear-based lens is typical for the human mind—like a habit (especially, once again, for the sensitive human mind). It doesn’t mean they have any truth.
I realized more than ever that these emotions, rather than being an indication of a problem in our relationship, were signaling that something was off for ME, about ME. In and of themselves, they mean nothing about my husband’s character, whether I love him or not, or how compatible we are.
So, when any “meaning making” thoughts came up about my annoyance toward him, I’d just let them drift on by like passing clouds. I reminded myself I am human, and humans feel annoyed around other humans sometimes, no matter who the other person is. And it’s just no biggy.
The ironic thing about this was, as the annoyance stopped feeling like a threat and I felt less stress around it, it actually stopped rearing its head so much.
5. Look at what you’re doing to annoy yourself.
My biggest realization was that I was the one annoying myself. Because I had not been supporting myself well during the chaos of the season.
For highly sensitive people, a lifestyle full of genuine self-care and quiet moments is essential. Without it, we easily become overstimulated, which naturally leads to irritability. Actually, anyone who is overstimulated or stressed is easily irritated—and in our modern world, most of us are chronically stressed.
By neglecting to schedule adequate downtime, skipping my walks, staying up later and later each night, and cramming every available minute with work to finish everything before my vacation, I had been putting myself in a chronically over-aroused state and therefore annoying myself.
Often, the amount of annoyance we feel is in direct proportion to the amount of nervous system-regulating self-care that we practice. In other words, if you feel annoyed, try adding some self-care—specifically things that regulate your nervous system.
So I did just that when I could make time for it during the holiday bustle. Once the festivities ended, I dedicated even more time to quiet and relaxation and got back to a much more peaceful place inside myself.
The result of doing these five things?
My annoyance was completely replaced by natural and strong feelings of affection and appreciation for my husband. I started feeling so much love for him and being more loving, so he, too, became more loving, and our time together became fun once again.
That’s because it’s easy to love and enjoy someone who is so obviously loving and enjoying you.
You can follow the same approach I did to alleviate the annoyance you might be experiencing.
We all want to feel relaxed and content, truly enjoying the company of our chosen partner—and to feel that love reciprocated! Sometimes, it requires a bit more intentional effort to achieve this. It’s simply part of being a person, highly sensitive or not, navigating a hectic modern world.