Thoughts on Anger

We never fought in our marriage. Not ever. We didn’t know how to. And this became a real problem, because infidelity is a huge issue that a couple has to tackle. Both parties have to feel safe communicating their feelings honestly, and both have to be able to accept the other party’s comments. We were a mess.

I’ve said this before – I’m not good at anger. Actually it’s more than that. I suck at anger. I mean it. I think it’s because I end up feeling worse afterwards. Not immediately afterwards, but a day or so later I feel I have to apologize to everyone who may have had to witness my tantrum. And I feel childish afterwards. It just doesn’t work for me, and isn’t worth it.

Brad is on the other end of the spectrum. He’s a master at anger. Apparently he had a terrible temper as a child, which is a really scary thought, because his temper now is, well, terrifying. Once when we had been living together for about six months or so we got into an argument. We were living in an apartment at the time. He threw his wine glass at the sliding glass door. It shattered. The plate glass window exploded. The wine glass was obliterated.

I learned quickly that making him feel bad about himself is a no-no. That is the worst thing you can do to him. Doesn’t matter what the subject is - money, friends, sex, kids, jobs, household stuff – whatever. If he feels that he’s being accused of being a bad guy he comes out guns blazing. His attacks are vicious, and he leaves his victims barely breathing. My discomfort at displaying anger increased, because now I was afraid of angering him. So I shut up. Or rather I swallowed the feelings and shut down.

One time a friend of his sent an email chiding him that he was losing his athletic touch. Granted the email had a few more zingers than it needed but it was meant to be funny, not mean. But Brad was terribly offended and felt foolish (which is another form of feeling bad about himself). He was furious. He went off. And that was the end of their relationship.

So where am I going with this? What happens to a couple of such extremes? Well, it worked, because I just backed off, and he controlled the house. If I didn’t like something, or was hurt by his behavior, I couldn’t tell him, so I didn’t. And if he didn’t like the way things were going he’d yell, scream and break something to regain what he felt was the upper hand.

We were really good at communicating through humor. When I was angry I could still use jokes to get through the day. And I could diffuse him with laughter too. It removed the stress.

Please don’t think that we lived together with him forever simmering and me simpering. Our life was really terrific 99% of the time. But we never learned how to handle conflict. I never learned to speak my mind confidently and he never learned to take responsibility. So when we found ourselves in the middle of this affair, neither of us was prepared to work our way through it because we had never learned how to fight. And it is so necessary if a marriage is going to survive.