Self-Restraint

What Self-Restraint means in a partnership

You disagree about which station exit to use. The street sign confirms that you were right. You also know the cutting remark about your partner’s sense of direction that would finish the exchange. You leave it unsaid and point to the street you need. Being right is useful: you can get to the station. Turning it into a verdict on your partner would add nothing to the journey.

Self-Restraint keeps the wish to hurt from deciding what you say. In a close relationship, you may know exactly which private vulnerability would make a remark effective. That knowledge increases your responsibility for its use. Withholding the attack leaves the disagreement available for discussion. You can still state that you are upset, correct a fact, request a pause or end an exchange that has become harmful. Restraint concerns the needless injury, not the disappearance of every forceful feeling.

Finding the balance

In ordinary life

The recurring fight

Keep “you always” and an old score out of a disagreement about what happened today.

A message in anger

Remove the sentence whose only purpose is to make the recipient feel small.

Nearby virtues, different work

Gentleness

Self-Restraint checks a harmful impulse. Gentleness shapes the wider manner of response, including affection when no attack is tempting.

Recognizing a counterfeit

Controlled cruelty counterfeits Self-Restraint when a measured voice delivers a deliberately humiliating message. The quietness of the delivery does not change its purpose. A pause can help if it changes what you intend to do next.

Cultivating Self-Restraint

• Identify the part of the message that addresses the problem.
• Choose a pause when your next sentence would use closeness as a weapon.

Try it today

Before responding in a disagreement, remove one personal attack from the sentence you intend to say. Keep the concern that needs discussing, or choose a pause if that is what you can manage.

Questions worth returning to

• What would the cutting remark have accomplished besides hurt?
• Did I preserve the concern while changing the way I addressed it?

Choose your practice

These pages offer ideas for reflection and character practice, not professional advice. Choose practices suited to your circumstances and abilities. You may adapt, pause, or skip an exercise; putting yourself or someone else at risk is not proof of virtue.

Quotations and further reading

Seven readings, one for each day. All remain available here. Historical arguments and fictional dialogue are identified in their source notes.

1. For such a union Love must lay the foundation, but patience and gentle consideration and self-control must work unremittingly to perfect the structure.

   Edward Carpenter · Love’s Coming-of-Age
   Marriage: A Forecast, printed page 94;
   Edward Carpenter · 1902 Chicago, Stockham Publishing Co.; Project Gutenberg 63081 display edition

   Carpenter distinguishes the beginning of affection from the conduct that sustains it. Self-control belongs to the daily work of treating a partner with consideration.

2. I had not slept well, and ought not to have written to you till the effect of it had gone off.

   Elizabeth Barrett Browning · The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. II
   Letters, volume II, postmarked 17 June 1846; Tuesday. 6 o’clock. [Post-mark, June 17, 1846.];
   Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Elizabeth Barrett Barrett in the correspondence) · Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1899, second impression; correspondence 1845–1846

   Barrett recognizes that fatigue affected a letter she sent. Naming that influence helps her distinguish what she means from what a depleted moment produced.

3. Katya, I’ve been worrying you! Darling, forgive me!

   Leo Tolstoy · Anna Karenina
   Part VI, jealousy over Veslovsky’s attentions; Chapter 7;
   Konstantin Levin · 1878 Russian novel; Constance Garnett English translation (1901); Project Gutenberg 1399 display edition
   Constance Garnett; Russian to English, 1901

   Levin recognizes the distress his jealous questioning has caused Kitty. The moment turns his attention from a rival’s imagined threat toward his own conduct.

4. I was angry, perhaps, at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction.

   Jane Austen · Pride and Prejudice
   Chapter LVIII, Elizabeth and Darcy discuss the first proposal;
   Fitzwilliam Darcy · George Saintsbury preface and Hugh Thomson illustrations; George Allen copyright notice 1894; selected novel text only

   Darcy distinguishes his first anger at Elizabeth’s refusal from the self-examination that followed. The conversation turns toward what her criticism taught him about his own conduct.

5. If you honestly feel resentful against some one, but, having understood the foolishness of fury, intentionally mask your fury under a persuasive tone, your fury will at once begin to abate.

   Arnold Bennett · The Human Machine
   Chapter VIII, The Daily Friction;
   Arnold Bennett · Captured edition lists sixth edition, August 1913; first publication November 1908

   Bennett proposes choosing a calmer tone before resentment has subsided. His practical suggestion is to interrupt escalation in one’s own manner; it does not settle the disagreement itself.

6. There is surely,—I trust, surely no impatience here, in this as in the other letter—if there is, I will endeavour to repress it …

   Robert Browning · The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. II
   Vol. II, letter reflecting on the tone of his earlier message; Friday Morning. [Post-mark, June 26, 1846.];
   Robert Browning, writing to Elizabeth Barrett Barrett · Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1899, second impression; correspondence 1845–1846

   Robert considers whether eagerness has made his letters impatient. His willingness to check that tone leaves Elizabeth room to respond.

7. … my own tied tongue, and a system of patience I can well resolve upon, but not be sure of, as experience makes sure.

   Robert Browning · The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. II
   Vol. II, letter considering whether to postpone a visit; Monday Morning. [Post-mark, August 3, 1846.];
   Robert Browning, writing to Elizabeth Barrett Barrett · Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1899, second impression; correspondence 1845–1846

   Robert considers the risk of a confrontation with Elizabeth’s father. Recognizing the limits of his own composure helps him ask whether the visit should happen.

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