Forum: 

Anger

Trixy's picture
Submitted by Trixy on

My friend, Fish, is moving out here tomorrow and is going to be crashing with me and my fiance until he has a job and enough money to get into his own place.  I have been friends with Fish for 7 or 8 years and love him to death; he is like my older brother.  However, he has, and has always had, an anger problem and I am not sure how to broach the subject of him trying to keep his cool while living here.  He tends to punch holes in walls, break things simply out of anger, shout, storm off at all hours of the night, play with his rather large collection of knives, etc.

I am not afraid of him ever physically injuring me, but I'm going out on a limb to let him crash here temporarily and I don't want to regret it.  Any suggestions on how to explain there are limitations and rules in this house that have to be abided by?

...umm, tell him? Perhaps I'm over simplifying. Thought of like doing the 'motherly' thing and having conditions on his stay? Like... no mooching, for example. Or perhaps just stop putting the mild sedative in his coffee.

So apparently anger hasn't been our main problem since his arrival two and a half days ago.  Laziness is what I am having to deal with, now.  He hasn't done a damn thing since arriving.  He plays video games all the time (if he isn't sleeping) and hasn't done anything to look for work.  I just spent a few hours cleaning the house and he didn't even offer to help.  Grr!  It makes me so angry when people are selfish and lazy.  I don't know what to do...

Or you could do it the sneaky under-handed way. Offer him coffee every morning, and drug it with a mild sedative that will be sure to keep him in line. :-p

If you are sure he won't injour you, just tell him the rules of the house, explain to him that punching holes in walls is just unnacceptable, and that sticking to the rules should be his way of showing his grattitude for letting him stay.