Anger Management

Most people will have to live with others in a share house/ flatting situation at one point in their lives. It might happen when you are a struggling university student, when you spend some time abroad or when you are working. I find that having effective assertiveness skills is a must in this situation (i.e., living with others). Issues tend to come up more frequently in this area of our lives, that we need to address. The list of potential issues is endless: washing up not being done, music played too loudly, bringing random strangers back, inviting friends over.

The question really is: How can I be assertive with my flatmates so that I enjoy my living situation? Again the same assertiveness principles apply. For more information please consult my short e-book on assertiveness. Essentially this is what you need to do.

Identify where your boundaries lay
In the current share house that you are in, you need to be very clear as to what your standard of behaviour is? For example, what level of cleanliness, noise levels, respect do you expect from your flat mates? You need to be crystal clear about this and then when one of your flatmates cross one of these boundaries, then you will know that you'll have to do something about it (more about this next).

For example, I brought a slow cooker not long ago. I was speaking with my flat mate about where I could put it. She recommended that I put it in my room. Now for me this was a boundary cross because I was paying rent there and she had a number of her cooking pots in the cupboard and I didn't see any reason why she couldn't make some room for my slow cooker. And I addressed this situation with her.

Face your fears
A big reason why a lot of people in share houses don't address boundary crosses and essentially don't develop assertiveness skills is that they are ruled by their fears. In life we have 3 basic fears:

(1) Fear of failure
(2) Fear of loss of love
(3) Fear of failure

There are also a lot of other fears as well but they are the basic ones. What fears are operating for you at home in your share house? For example, a fear of mine and for a lot of people is that my flat mates won't like me or they'll want to kick me out and this is why they don't address situations at home. If you stop and actually challenge this belief for a second you will realize how ridiculous it is.

Act through assertiveness
The important thing now is that you do something about your frustration. You make it clear in your mind that you need to address that situation that is annoying you (like I did with the slow cooker). Now there are a number of different ways of going about this (which is the good news).

The bulldozer approach
You can confront your flat mate in person and address the situation straight away. For example, "Difficult conversation" or "We need to talk."

Alternatively you could send them a text or write them a note. For flatting situations, writing notes and leaving them in the kitchen is a really good way of addressing minor issues (e.g., chores not being done). Hint - get a pad of post-it notes.

Provoke approach
Sometimes flat mates are being passive aggressive towards us and it starts to negatively affect us and the vibe of the house. So another approach is to provoke them. You may bring up a topic of conversation or ask them a question that may allow them to open up (to us) as to the source of their concern towards you. Sometimes a good way to do this is to apologise for your actions in the past. Or you could quite simply ask them if everything ok or what you've noticed about their behaviour of late.