A bad mood almost always sets the stage for some “drama”. And most of the time, the one who assumes the victim’s role would be the one closest to you. It’s always best not to get into action when you’re having a bad day.

Driving home from a pesky, tedious part time job, you had had a bad day filled with angry, ranting bosses and lazy colleagues. You are in no mood for a traffic jam, yet here was one –stretching as far as the eye can see with cars, and sure to make you late for dinner again, which meant you would have to eat it cold, and you hate cold food!
Listening to the radio to beat the boredom and frustration of a traffic jam, your thoughts turned toward the fight you had with your girl earlier that morning –a small one, because you both love and annoy each other so much that you squabbled over who drank more coffee. Neither side won and you both hang up in a mock-huff.
You had thought nothing of it at first, but as you battled the traffic, you start to get agitated. What did it matter if you drank too much coffee? She drank equally as much, so why is she accusing you of drinking yourself into insomnia? You are convinced that she clearly does not understand you have a lot of work and needed the caffeine. She never understood you, period.
By the time she calls you, you have already worked yourself into a bad mood, and was ready to rehash the morning coffee argument, and this time, you fling the words ‘you never understood me!’ at her.
Now, read over the situation again. What went wrong? How did it go from a harmless huff between a loving couple to something you resented? By now, you would have figured that it began at the point where you convinced yourself she never understood you. Sounds far-fetched and preposterous?
Not really.
Fact is, when your mood is low, you can convince yourself of practically anything negative. It is all-too-easy to confuse your own frustrations and bad mood with a teeny issue you have with your other half. When you convince yourself that he/she is unsympathetic, unloving, and unappreciative, the harmless disagreement becomes a full-fledged fight.
When you are filled with negative feelings of stress, anger and agitation, it is perfectly reasonable that you will think negative thoughts –suddenly your partner doesn’t appreciate you (remember how he stood you up at the cinema?) and he doesn’t have a clue how to make you happy. The little things even seem awfully big all of a sudden.
As a result, you turn around and lash out, fighting with him/her when your mood is clearly not right. Ordinarily you would have shrugged it off and made it up, but because your entire being is suffused with inner anger, you fight, you bicker, you take it out on each other.
Truth is, obsessing on your daily irks and your ire really isn’t helpful. Trying to solve a problem is a good idea, but stewing in your anger is not. Very often, when your mood lifts and you feel happier, things are not as negative as it looks and your fight was really quite laughable.
Also, dealing with anger and a lousy mood is much easier when you know what you’re really angry about –and more often than not, it isn’t at your partner. Once you get past that, determine what you’re seething about: was it the traffic jam? Blame-game ranting boss?
Once you identify what you’re really annoyed at, you can shift your negative thoughts to somewhere more constructive and not towards a small issue with your partner. You then can begin to see more clearly. Maybe she just really wants you to cut down on the caffeine, which, anyway, was really giving you a hard time sleeping.
There is a simple strategy to deal with this: when you’re feeling down, stop taking your thoughts and feelings as seriously. Remember this: when you’re in the wrong mood, you feel less loving, have less perspective on things, and much less rational common sense. This is where you check yourself and wait it out. Avoid analysing and pay no attention to that nasty voice in your head that brings you down.
After all, it’s just coffee –it’s all really small stuff. The rest of the fight is all you: your anger, you frustration, your stress. Don’t confuse that with the silly things in life and love.