Getting Over Getting Mad: Positive Ways to Manage Anger in Your Most Important Relationships (2 page)

“I'm going to write a book about love,” I told William. “Love, love, love,” he said half-mockingly. “Haven't you written enough about love? Write me a book about anger,” he said. “Now that would interest me!”

I could understand why he'd be interested in the subject. During the previous seven months he'd completed several rounds of chemo and radiation treatments and been told by his oncologist that there was nothing more to do. He could barely walk from the bed to the bathroom, his breathing was labored, and the hospice chaplain and a team of nurses were visiting daily. William had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and I didn't have to ask to know that my best friend, helpmate, and loving companion of ten years had a few weeks, maybe a month to live. He had every reason to be angry.

And I had my own reasons to be mad. Twenty years earlier, Jack, the man of my dreams, my boyfriend for five years, my husband for six years, had died suddenly of a heart attack. He died in March, exactly one month after we both turned twenty-nine. I wasn't prepared; how could I have been? I grew up believing that if you respected your parents, went to church, worked hard, and were nice to other people, you'd live happily ever after. When it didn't turn out that way, I didn't like it. Months of shock turned to years of mourning, and slowly became desperation. Thoughts of “Why?” tortured me night and day. “Help me!” I cried out to the universe. But God didn't hear me, or didn't answer. Or I didn't listen or know how to listen. Perhaps God did answer and I didn't understand. I wasn't sure. Was there a God? I was lonely, afraid, hurt, sad, grieving, and angry, plagued by many questions.

Now William was dying and I was losing another partner. I didn't like this either. “Why do I have to go through life alone? Why do I feel mad? Is it OK to be angry at God?” These were important questions; asking them brought up more questions and then slowly some answers—many of which I share in these pages.

This book has been on the back burner for the seven years since William died. I wrote the Wonderful Ways to Love series—the books that I had told William I wanted to write—and while involved in that process I observed how anger affects relationships. In my work as a family counselor, I've counseled and spoken with thousands of people, and I've learned firsthand that we all have circumstances—from something as major as the death of a family member, divorce, or illness, to minor irritants like fender benders, spilled milk, overdrawn checking accounts, rejection, and disappointments—that stimulate our anger. The reasons for our anger are varied, but if we're alive and walking around, something is bound to trigger an angry response. How we deal with anger is reflected in our relationships and families and is a significant factor in determining whether or not we work out our differences. It influences the quality of our relationships and how fulfilled and peaceful we are. My clients and the people who attended my workshops have given me permission to share their stories in this book. Their names have been changed and their circumstances disguised, but their struggles and the victories remain. By facing their anger and dealing with their frustration, they were able to love more fully.

While I know that we all have reasons to be angry, I can't think of one good reason to stay mad for very long. Life isn't easy; it seldom goes according to plan. Some folks get angry, get over it, and move on. Others stay mad for so long that it sours their dispositions, pollutes their daily living, and corrupts their connections. Some folks take the difficulty in life and turn it into something better—they become more loving, more radiant, and sweeter. They become positive beacons of hope. Others become enveloped in bottomless hate and bitterness. They become agents of destruction. No matter what injustice comes to me, I don't want to be like that. Do you? I want to use my situation to help me grow, so that I can enjoy my life. I will get angry, but I won't stay mad.

During the months that William was ill, we both got angry, but since we knew our time together was limited we decided not to waste precious moments staying mad. When he snapped at me because I accidentally
dropped the oxygen, or when I was cranky with him because I'd been up all night, we argued quickly, solved the problem as best we could, and moved on.

Life with our loved ones is very short, and if you want to enjoy each moment, it's best if you can express your anger gently and move on. To enjoy the sweetness of being connected, you have to know the difference between distorted anger, which tears families apart, and healthy anger, which keeps relationships thriving. We can get angry with the people we love, they can get deeply annoyed with us, and through it all, we can work it out together and come to a place of understanding, acceptance, and joy.

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and with out it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.

—THOMAS MERTON

Anger is the abyss that separates us from ourselves. From losing our tempers easily to feeling a slow burn to hiding how irritated we really feel, all of us experience anger as a troubling emotion. We all have trouble identifying anger when we feel it and difficulty expressing it appropriately once it's felt. When we're depressed and filled with panic, we blame it on our circumstances, our jobs, our hormones, the traffic, and each other. When we're gnarly to our loved ones and rude to complete strangers, we feel perfectly justified. It's their fault! A myriad of things make us mad, and we have a million excuses for our behavior.

How we express anger depends on our circumstances and conditioning. We hide under pleasant public faces, then in private we rant and rave, threaten, hit, smash objects, and throw things. Men and women are equally capable of verbally abusing each other. And we've all known folks who dump their anger onto children or onto someone less powerful than themselves. When it comes to anger, everyone's halo is tarnished.

Anger causes tremendous confusion. That's because there are two sides of anger. On the one side, anger is an indispensable emotion, which when used productively allows us to develop ourselves and our relationships. On the other side, when anger covers up pain and fear, it clogs our energy, dilutes our joy, and keeps us off track, going in circles, making no
headway. Instead of helping us, anger becomes self-defeating.

The moment you identify anger and admit to yourself that you feel it, you've taken a giant leap toward freeing yourself from its clenches. You experience a moment of liberation when you acknowledge that you're not happy about something, and even though you may not yet know what to do about it, you're not going to pretend any longer that everything is perfect. In that breakthrough moment, you're released from the fog of denial and can tap into the energy that you'll need to move your life along.

Often a spiritual or personal crisis provokes this shift. When your psyche is cracked, when your heart is broken, when the world you've built your dreams upon is lying in shambles, there's not much left to do except to notice miracles and patterns. Miracles are brief “hellos” from the Divine that assure you of a better way, that a bigger plan is in the making. Patterns are automatic behaviors that you've overlearned. In the past, those behaviors may have helped you survive, but they've now outlived their usefulness. Seeing and changing your patterns requires your attention and your willingness to struggle. Like it or not, we all go through life's initiations, and in the process we discover who we really are. Often that might include asking the questions: “Who am I? Where am I going? What am I doing? Why am I feeling so mad?”

Getting to know yourself and all your emotions—including anger— is the process of becoming an individual. It is not a quick or an easy trek. It's certainly not as simple as deciding one night that you won't lash out again and then putting your resolve into practice. It's a process full of thrashing around. No one gets it right all the time. It takes years of polishing and practicing.

It's worth the difficulty, however, because when you're honest with yourself you do feel better, and life gets sweeter. So try not to beat yourself up for what you did or didn't do in the past. Instead, notice how your circumstances are changing and what you're learning. Say to yourself: I can get angry, but I won't stay mad.

When you're mad, hurt, or afraid, frown and frown freely for as long as you like. It sounds simplistic to say that frowning can be the beginning of a change in some of your destructive patterns, but it's worked for me. Frowning actually makes me feel better than pasting on a phony-baloney grin. Here's my experience:

I was raised in the “Be nice” school of anger management, which holds that no matter what I'm feeling or thinking I should always put on a happy face. I can still hear my mother's voice saying, “Why can't you just be nice?” After my husband died, I thought that I literally had to “grin and bear it.” Believe me, I was trying my best to smile, but I couldn't fake it. I couldn't laugh, giggle, or pretend that I was fine. I was frowning and gloomy most of the time. People noticed and didn't like it. Strangers made the most ridiculous statements to me.” It can't be all that bad,” they said. “Smile,” they coaxed. Wanting to be nice, I'd try to accommodate them, but wearing a mask of cheerfulness felt so bizarre that I could barely muster up a grimace. I was frowning and struggling to ignore the disapproving glances.

Standing in the grocery line, the clerk said, “Smile, it's not that bad.” Without skipping a beat or apologizing I stunned myself by answering, “I don't feel like smiling. My husband died.”

The clerk's eyes widened and he stuttered something about being sorry and not wanting to upset me. His face turned red and he bagged the groceries as quickly as he could. I told him not to worry, but I must admit I felt relieved to see him blush and grateful that I hadn't apologized.

Whatever you do, please don't paste a phony smile on your face. Plastic smiles do damage to your soul. We've all known people who've wore silly grins while they talked about something sad. This tendency to smile even when you don't feel like it developed in childhood, when our parents coaxed us into smiling for the camera or for other people even though we didn't feel like it. Making kids smile when they aren't up to it sends a message that it's not OK to be authentic. Even in front of the camera it's better to capture genuine irritable faces than phony stares. The
most fascinating snapshots are candid, those that catch people being real. Fake people plaster on smiles when they'd rather be crying, or they smile when they're angry or sad. Slowly they lose touch with their souls.

Some of the most interesting characters are slightly cantankerous. You wouldn't think of telling grumpy old men to smile. People like Walter Matthau or Albert Einstein aren't smiling for the camera. Sophia on The Golden Girls is charmingly cute, cranky, and candid. The next time you see a frown on someone's face, don't be so quick to judge them. Perhaps they're simply hurt or angry. Be happy that they can show it, and that they're being honest.

Frowning when you are unhappy is healthier than covering up your pain by smiling.

Underneath each little sting of anger is a hurt, a disappointment, a letdown, a small betrayal. Don, a client of mine, says, “When I'm hurt, I get angry. Instead of feeling sad, I get mad. I act as if I don't care. I don't want anyone to know what bothers me.” Anger and hurt swirl around together. Anger acts as a shield, covering the hurt underneath. Sometimes we pay more attention to the anger and overlook the wound. If you ignore how hurt you feel, anger is guaranteed to surface unexpectedly. Figuring out what the pain is about will automatically lessen the anger.

Carla wants her marriage to survive, but she can no longer tolerate Don's irresponsibility. Don is unable to hold a job, because whenever he gets annoyed he tells the boss where to go and walks out the door. He makes commitments but doesn't follow through on them.

Don's father abandoned his family when Don was thirteen years old. His mother was devastated and turned to Don for support. Don tried to please his mother, but she was never satisfied. If Don mowed the lawn, washed the car, did the dishes, or folded the laundry, it never quite met her standards. The more she criticized, the more discouraged Don became and the more hurt he felt. He didn't argue about the chores; he just wouldn't complete his homework. The look on his face said something was wrong, but if anyone asked, he shrugged his shoulders.

Instead of crying, Don kept his pain locked away. Once in awhile something unexpected would poke a hole in the wall that he'd encased himself in; then he'd explode. Afterward he would feel ashamed and scold himself for being a failure. He was depressed and immobilized.

You may not know that you're covering up hurt with anger, but if you're troubled, worried, anxious, pacing the floor, depressed, out of sorts, snapping, raging, bellyaching, and going nowhere fast, chances are good that something is gnawing at you. If people describe you as negative, if they have to walk on eggshells around you, or if you'd describe yourself as a “people pleaser,” you've probably been avoiding pain.