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As I read and respond and think and study, I find that I am becoming rather angry. It is like I am being drowned by 16.5 years of pent up emotion and it all wants to come out as anger. Has anybody else dealt with this? If so, what are some ways that I can deal with the anger without lashing out at anyone. I know that I have the right to be angry but I don't want my anger to consume me and I don't want to act on it in unhealthy ways. I can see where I am being passive/aggressive and sarcastic in response to my anger.

Poetry has helped me get out my anger. The lame punching a pillow thing can help. Talking to yourself out loud, as if you are talking to the person who wronged you can help A LOT. Exercise. Really, I'm not the best at this myself, but that's what's helped me!

I know, you feel cheated out of some good years of your life that you can't get back.

The anger lessens once you start to realize this was your choice, your own failings to do anything about it is what you got you there.

The biggest driver behind anger is resentment, as you start to cope better the resentment lessons more to periods of frustration which do not create the simmering anger.

That is not a criticism of you, we all did this.

Once you get your life back on track it will be of a quality you never had before

Anger and rage are very explosive, energy-laden emotions, unlike sadness and melancholy which tend to sap our energy.

Giving physical expression via some type of sport or physical activity sounds like the best thing, if possible just to loosen the grip of these powerful emotions.

Of course, getting to the bottom of the origins of these feelings is important, otherwise they remain with us.

Anger is a normal, healthy response to abuse, and is a stage of grieving, so first off don't make yourself wrong for it, it doesn't sound like you are, and you're right, we don't want to do something that we'll regret later because we let it loose in the wrong direction.  I was extremely angry for a while too, and if the wrong person had said the wrong thing at that time I'd probably be in jail, but on the other hand, some people need to be lashed out at, part of reestablishment of boundaries.  What works best for me is getting my diet, sleep and exercise in line, everything goes better when those three are where they need to be, and then just enjoying the process; I've learned in the last year that as I work through anger my perceptions of things change, my mind finds a way to see things differently and better, and lately I'm really enjoying that.


You might also try reframing some of that.  Instead of being drowned by or consumed by anger, maybe anger is what pain leaving feels like?  Try that on and see if it takes some of the energy out of it and feels better.  Take care of you!

I went through a period where I wrote a lot of poetry and did a lot of journaling. I haven't been able to sit down and write anything at all in quite a while. When I think about writing something, all I want to write is "I HATE YOU". That is not good at all. It is actually quite scary. I am in a really down period right now and there is a lot of stuff going on around me. My husband's stuff, my family of origin has a bunch of drama going on right now, one of my daughter's has been facing a bit of a crisis, and I am just getting angrier and angrier because every time I think I have things  together, something else comes along and throws me off kilter. Instead of taking it all in stride and riding it out like usual, I am just angry.

Thanks for the reminder and encouragement. I think part of the anger is stemming from the fact that I have made these choices and have nobody to blame but myself. I am angry at myself and my partner and my family of origin. And yes, there are a lot of resentments.

It sounds like you're not very comfortable with your anger. I think most of us here aren't. Anger is a good thing, it is reasserting our own value. It is saying "I DESERVED BETTER". Hate on the other hand is unresolved anger/pain. It paints someone or something as black and causes us to hide from our unresolved issues.  I'm not above any of those issues though, I struggle with both myself. I think as long as you find productive ways to express it, you should. It is truly an outrage how they treated us, and how we let ourselves get treated.

Vortex--

Oh my goodness-- passive-aggressive and sarcastic, that's me too! All the years I didn't realize that was my anger. I have fought the "passive-aggressive" title, but I guess that's really what sarcasm is about.

All the stuff you're feeling is so normal! It really sucks to realize that you are the one who wasn't protecting yourself. I've just had to see that in a really big way myself. The childhood trauma left my poor little girl feeling so alone, and then I constantly abandoned her again and again when I let myself put up with my uBPDh's rages at me. This is the moment when we realize it sucks to be us.

The awesome part of that is that we are recognizing something new, it's a point of growth (painful thought it is.)

I've been the worst person to judge my feelings. I've told myself it's wrong to be angry, it's wrong to feel resentful, etc. etc. But i'm finally learning to just feel the feelings and know they will pass, and that gives them so much less power to hurt. I'm finally learning to "sit with my feelings." Just let 'em wash over me like a wave and grieve 'em.

Something that has been helpful for me is to get these affirmations and guided imagery cds that are done by Belleruth Naperstek (they have them on iTunes and i'm sure elsewhere.) I've loaded them onto my phone and play them with headphones before I go to sleep. The cd for Trauma I played like 3 times a day for a while--I would lay down and relax and listen. It started getting some important realizations into my head and my heart. Worth checking out! They really helped with the process of learning to just recognize and feel those feelings. And start to heal.

Most important to remember--all you're talking about here is so stinkin' normal! We don't have to like it, but it's normal.

The first step is to know where your anger belongs, this comes as you consolidate on your own values and boundaries. It stops the anger lashing out at side issues and spreading like a cancer.

Feelings are real, it is important to be able see them for what they are, understand their origins and channel them in a way that doesn't create collateral damage.

You are spot on about me not being comfortable with my anger. Growing up, I only saw anger as a very scary thing. When people got angry, bad things happened and I would get scared and hide. I witnessed way too many instances of anger turning people into monsters because they didn't know how to channel that anger appropriately. I try to keep from being angry as much as possible because I am afraid of becoming a monster.

It is interesting that you bring up hate being unresolved anger and pain. I will never ever forget being a kid and getting in fights with my sisters or even getting annoyed with my siblings (2 sisters and a brother). Whenever I would try to talk to my mother about it, she would always say, "You can't hate your sister." And then she would proceed to tell me all of the reasons that I should be grateful for my sister. She would lay on this guilt trip about how my sister almost died when she was a baby, blah, blah, blah. As a result, letting myself be angry or even express feelings of hatred is something that I don't usually do. All of my anger and pain through out my childhood and my marriage have been buried. I have that running dialog from my mother running through my head as to why it is not okay to be mad or upset or angry or even have fleeting feelings of hatred.

I forget what it was that I read that made that light bulb go off. It may have been one of the books on emotional and verbal abuse. Passive agressiveness and sarcasm are all little pieces that add up to abuse. When I first read that book on verbal/emotional abuse, I honestly thought that I was the one that was abusive because of my tendency to be sarcastic or passive aggressive. I had to chronicle different events and think about our entire relationship. I think that is when it dawned on me that I am surrounded by a lot of people that don't know how to handle direct communication. If I say, "I need X." they will hem and haw and screw around or say no. However, if I act like a jerk and get sarcastic and passive aggressive, they will respond. My mother and my husband are both really bad about ignoring me unless I start acting like them.


I had to take a deep breath and read this snippet several times. It makes so much sense. It is like being that little girl that is wanting and expecting somebody somewhere in the universe to protect them. Only, I am not a little girl anymore and it is my job to protect myself. The problem is that when I was a kid and would try to protect myself, all hell would break loose. It was easier to get small and quiet and become invisible until it stopped. I have repeated that same pattern with my husband. It was easier to be quiet and let things go than it was to protect myself. When I try to stand up for myself, it becomes a fight and I hate fighting.


Thank you so much for this! I can really, really relate to being judgmental towards myself about my own feelings. It is difficult for me to feel the feelings without repressing them or talking myself out of them. Just the fact that I am openly admitting to being angry is a big step for me. I have talked myself out of being angry so many times.


Thank you, thank you, thank you! This, more than anything, means a lot. I have felt so abnormal and so crazy for so long because of my feelings.

Oh my friend Vortex,

I feel like you and I have so much the same brains in many ways. Accepting ourselves and our feelings is so hard when we've been stomped on as small children. And we carried those same "survival skills" into our marriages, but they didn't work any better in marriage than in childhood because we didn't realize that "surviving" isn't actually what we want--we want to thrive! We need to thrive! We've repeated our childhoods but they looked different enough that we didn't catch on right away. (Okay, you definitely win this round--me, 30 plus years to catch on! lol )

But we're getting there, one realization at a time. A year ago I couldn't see that i'm the one who's allowed the abuse. Now I see it as the sad truth it is. I'm not abandoning myself any more, but it takes practice. You're getting there. I'm getting there. :)

I can identify with your anger there, Vortex. It can be difficult to know what to do with it. Let me assure you that like all your other emotions it is not likely to consume you although it may feel like that as you stand before it. I mean just for a moment compare it with the emotion of happiness - do you feel any concern over the idea of being consumed with happiness? Probably not! I think feeling a nervousness about emotion is quite natural when emotional systems weren't laid down in a meaningful way at the start. That causes a need to check them against a yardstick.

What would be the worst case scenario of you fully feeling your anger? Are you afraid f something? How do you feel about your sense of self control?

Is it possible to reassure yourself that feeling your anger will not result in backlash?

I know I struggled with feeling angry and it took me quite some time to identify that I always got punished for being angry growing up. Actually it would be more accurate to say I was shamed for it. I would get a huge adrenaline rush if I even tried in later years to assert about something that made me angry.

It might be worth your while to check your memory for times you have expressed anger before and work out what the consequences were.

As far as expressing it healthily,you may wish to thump at pillows or yell at people in your mind. Occasionally out loud. Definitely more useful to imagine it than to carry it out which obviously I'm not endorsing!) Also writing  aletter that you don't intend to send may give you some release.

I also do this great great exercise where I am the prosecutor of a legal case and i am bringing the case against whoever I am angry at to trial. this helps me name the causes of my emotions and puts me in the position of requiring the 'defendant' to be quiet for long enough for me to have my say without being shouted down.

Anyway i think you are making terrific progress by identifying your anger and preparing yourself to move in to that phase of your healing. Well done!

Ziggiddy

DreamFlyer: It's interesting that my marriage started out so very different than anything I experienced in childhood. My husband didn't seem to be addicted to drama like my family of origin. He seemed so safe. His family of origin seemed so normal. I really thought that my relationship with him would allow me to thrive rather than just survive. I think that is one of the things that has me so angry. I am angry at myself because I was so wrong. There have been so many times when my husband and his behavior remind me of my mother.

Ziggidy: The worst case scenario of me fully feeling my anger is that I lash out and hurt somebody else. I don't want to do that. I was actually talking to my brother about this the other day. We were raised by two people that tend to act on whatever it is they are feeling. I feel like I was programmed to think feeling equals actions, which is really an extension of feeling equals facts. If you feel something, it must be true therefore you must act on it. I have fought that for years.

I feel like I have quite a bit of self control unless I am backed into a corner. When I feel backed in a corner, I tend to come out fighting.

I am not sure that I can reassure myself that being angry will not result in any backlash. My history is full of times when I was told that it was NOT okay for me to be angry. Or, the few times that I actually did get angry, I behaved in ways that were not good.

With my husband, when I get angry, he acts like I have no reason to be angry and then he gets defensive and upset and I know he lacks self control so I don't want to do anything to set him off. It is very much like what happened when I was a kid. If my husband or family of origin isn't around, I think I can handle my anger and have lots of self control. When it is just me and the kids, I am able to say stuff like, "I need some space because I am angry right now." I can tell my kids that I am angry and need space and they seem to respect that without asking a bunch of questions or telling me that I shouldn't be angry. If I tell my husband that I am angry, I feel like he pushes my buttons.

Right now, my way of dealing with big emotions is to go sit on my front porch and smoke cigarettes. I have quit smoking several times but can't seem to stay quit. I have often laughed that I will be able to quit smoking when people quit pi$$ing me off. I know that is not healthy.

THAT is perfectly said! My problem exactly! When we didn't learn what to do with our emotions in those formative years we end up making up rules on how to handle them and how great of rules can a 5 year old come up with? So some of us then end up worrying about too big/not big enough? about our emotions. (MEEEE!)

And the shame... .oh the shame! I remember the rush of shame at the realization I HAD MADE A MISTAKE when I was in kindergarten. HOLY. Somebody shoulda loved that little girl and told her everybody makes mistakes, but by 5 I already "knew" I should not be imperfect, and that if I ever stepped out of line I would be made to feel horrible in my soul about it.   


Doesn't it say something to you and me that we thought our spouse's families were normal? Shows how ABnormal OURS were! Bahahaha!

I'm pretty sure I believed that my h would support me and love me and allow me to heal from my Poo FOO, because he had issues with his family too so he should understand, right? I interpreted things based on how I would do them, know what I mean? I knew I was loving and he sure talked and looked loving (especially in that dating and early marriage time.) So I was too naïve to recognize that people can look very much one way and feel very much another, or however all that worked. i'd imagine you did something similar, believing he would think the way you thought.

I think anger at ourselves for not seeing this coming is pretty reasonable. It has really made me mad at myself to realize that I was the only person who could have protected me and my sad/terrified little child girl inside, but I was too blind to see it. It was like when a lock is stuck and you try to force it, and usually something just breaks--the lock or the key. My marriage was like that, I kept trying to force it to "work," but that left out the variables of my husband's way of thinking AND any self-awareness and self-preservation. THAT pissed me off bigtime! Here I was so angry at what he was doing to me, but I was actually the one who was letting me down. And I had to get through that anger to see that "okay, the self-awareness and self-preservation starts NOW."

So do like Zig says, pace the floor, argue your case loudly--but for YOU, not at the person themselves. It's an exercise to get our words out that we would uselessly throw at them. They don't care what we think, not really! So why waste our breath? Or our energy? Use it for something that will help you.

When you can say to your kids "I'm angry and need some space" and they get it that you need time to process what you're feeling, AWESOME! you have taught your kids something that you were not taught and your husband does not understand! BE PROUD OF THAT. But don't bother telling him you're angry and need some space--like you have pointed out before, that's just something he can now use against you. Simply act out your boundary and tell him you're going for a walk, or out for coffee, and do it.

That's been one of my therapist's main refrains for me-- "Live your boundaries." I too would try to explain, but it was useless and pointless and only led to another skirmish my h was determined to "win" (because everyone knows a marriage should be a competition, right?   ) You know you need some space, so take some space. He does NOT get it like your children do, so save your energy for you.

I have lived in that place where it seemed the Name of the Game was "Button Pushing." Why give them the satisfaction of getting to play the game when we don't want to?

Vortex, you are learning, you are changing your brain as you go, beginning to recognize the lies you were believing and changing the script in your brain that allowed you to live them out, even though they were scorching your soul.

My drug of choice is pretty much chocolate and possibly more chocolate. We are in process. I have thought at times about smoking because it keeps people from eating, but knowing me I would just end up a fat smoker.

I'm amazed by how much of a triggered response I can have to my husband showing me one facial expression and saying only one word. I can go back to doubting if I am doing the right thing. I can feel guilt in half a heartbeat. We have to learn to gently detach our emotions from them and their emotions. Again, a process.

Oh man, that is so true. Even as an adult, I am having to deal with a lot of this crap from my family of origin. My grandmother is in the hospital right now and there is all kinds of drama around it. My mother has put a password on grandma's hospital account so that nobody but her and my dad can get any information. My mother only gives people the information that she wants them to hear. My oldest sister is a raging b***h. I have been no contact with her for about a year now. I saw her at the hospital and she said that I tried to have her thrown in jail. Nope, I did no such thing. She is the one that called the cops on ME because I wouldn't let her in my house and I didn't want to talk to her. She acted like she was the victim and that everybody was withholding information from her. It doesn't matter what I say or do with my FOO, people are going to make stuff up. I can tell the truth all day long and people are going to make stuff up and be accusatory. And, God forbid I have an emotion and share it with somebody. If I shared anything with anybody, it would later come back and bite me in the butt. I learned early on that I had to be perfect, I had to walk on eggshells, I had to find a way to please everybody and make everybody happy, and I couldn't be sad. I have taken that into adulthood. Every time I try to step out of it, my FOO and my husband will suck me right back in.


If only I had known then what I know now! That is quite hilarious. I hadn't really thought about it like that but that is so unbelievably true. I don't know if I could handle somebody that was normal any more. I feel like I am broken beyond repair some days and that fuels my anger.


Oh my, yes, I know exactly what you mean. My husband came from a small town in the midwest and lived a very sheltered life. His family wasn't horrible but he was also the youngest and often times felt ignored by his family because he brother was the golden child. It was like we were saving each other. We could get married and leave our familial ties and start our own family and do everything different. I had no way of knowing that he was addicted to porn or that he was so set in his ways that he would stay checked out most of the time. In the early days, it didn't matter as much because I had other things that I could do and there were no children involved. With the birth of each child, things gradually declined.


That is so true. I am still living with my husband and I find that everything he does these days annoys me. I have been trying to force myself to overlook this and that thinking that things would be better if I would learn to be more forgiving or overlook more things or be more accepting. He is being pretty good these days and that is making me even more angry because I know it is an act. It is the same pattern that he has had for years. It is the same pattern that my FOO has had my entire life. Crap will hit the fan and things will get ugly or uncomfortable or dramatic. Once things blow over, everybody is so nice and wonderful and it is like nothing bad every happened. People will be on guard for a while but then once everybody relaxes and lets things go again it is WHABAMMMM! Something else comes up.

I think what makes me the most angry is that there are times when I feel like my husband and I could stay married forever if I could just find it in me to let everything go. If I could accept that he is in a 12 step program and is making slow progress, then everything would be okay. If I could somehow find a way to be the good little wife that follows her husband's lead and takes whatever is given, then we could stay together. It makes me angry that I feel like it is my fault. I don't think he will ever leave me. He may lie, cheat, be a jerk, or whatever but he will never leave. I think it is going to take some major doings on my part for us to go our separate ways. He can talk about it abstractly but whenever I start to get even remotely real I can tell he is bristling and is going to fight me. I don't want that at all.


I need to find another place to argue my case. I used to blog a lot but I feel like all of my writing energy has dried up. Writing here helps but I still feel tied up in knots some days.


I can have all sorts of conversations with my daughters. They are really awesome young ladies but they are picking up stuff because of things between me and him. If I don't tell him, then he is going to freak out. It is easier to give him some kind of tidbit than it is to have him nag or badger me. I met him to do the switcheroo with the kids so I could go to work. I was tired and cold and hungry and just feeling bleh. He kept asking if I was okay. I told him that I was cold and tired. Then, he asked me again in email. Ugh! And I read on some of the boards how partners are doing this and that and I see myself. I see myself being distant and cold and behaving in ways that I don't like and that makes me angry.

Today, I had a bit of an epiphany. Yes, I love my husband and I likely always will. However, I keep asking myself: "Who do I love more? Me or him?" I shouldn't have to think about that. I should be able to say that I love myself more than I love him or my family or anybody else. I can't do that yet because it feels too selfish. Every time I have tried to love myself or take care of myself, I have been made to feel selfish or horrible.


lol I know. I feel like I have gotten to a place where him walking into a room pushes my buttons.


My brain has a lot of changing to do. I am trying to heal from a dysfunctional family as well as a dysfunctional marriage. I have certainly learned how to find the fun in dysFUNctional.


Yep, that is exactly what I have become. . .a fat smoker!


Like I said, I get annoyed by everything he does these days. I don't know if he is being sincere, putting on an act, or what. I walk around in a constant state of doubt. When I add the crap with my FOO to his crap, I don't know which way is up some days.

I missed most of this... .but want to get back to feelings of anger, from a couple different perspectives.

First, feeling angry is very different than REACTING to that anger in a rage aimed at another person. VOC, given your history, I'd say that you are much more at risk of stuffing your anger. Only when you've stuffed so much you can't possibly stuff any more are you at risk of blowing up.

Which brings me to the better and healthier approach.

Try to stay with your feelings. You have reasons to feel angry, and the anger is telling you something that you need to know about.

It is OK to write "I hate my husband" for three pages in your journal if you feel like doing that. (Just make sure he doesn't read it!  lol )

My take on feelings like these, from a meditation teacher of mine: When we aren't ready to cope with the feelings, we find a way to keep ourselves protected from them, until we are ready to experience them more.

For 16 years, you weren't ready to feel anger at how you were treated. So you found ways to stuff those feelings and not experience them. It was what you needed to do at the time. Today you are in a different place. Perhaps you have more capacity to feel the anger. Or perhaps there is more anger, and you have less capacity to stuff it successfully. Either way, you are ready.

Try to be with those feelings. No need to act on them, at least for right now. Try to be interested in them, just to see what feeling angry is really like. (And don't be too surprised if when you take this sort of interest, the anger may go away for a while. It will probably return later!)

Beautifully said, Grey Kitty. :)

Yes, I am the master of stuffing my feelings. I am usually a pretty bubbly and happy person. My daughter came to work with me the other day and watched me interact with people. She told me that I am really good with people and that I have a way of setting people at ease. I can look back and see the times when I have blown up. I remember talking to a counselor when I was in high school. The analogy she used was that of filling up a trash can. If you don't periodically take out the trash, it is going to overflow and you are going to have a mess on your hands.


I have such a hard time staying with my feelings. My inclination is to run from them or bury them because I see feelings as nothing but trouble. Feelings alert me to things that I don't want to see. I forget which thread it was and who said it but it caused a bit of a light bulb to go off. With non's feelings tend to follow facts. My husband (or other people) don't have time for me or act like I am there for their use repeatedly, so I feel rejected. Instead of sitting with the feeling of rejection, I talk myself out of it and try to find ways to put a positive spin on it so that I no longer feel rejected. Same way with anger. When I get angry, I tend to try to see the other person's point of view and understand why he/she may have done what he/she did. When I do that, the anger tends to dissipate. In the process, I end up denying my own feelings and telling myself that I have no right to feel whatever feeling it is. I think part of that comes from growing up around people that always had it worse. And then I married somebody that has the same tendency. If I am not feeling well, it seems that he has something that makes him feel worse. I think it goes back to that little saying, "Be grateful for what you have, somebody else has it ten times worse."


I don't know if I am ready or if I have backed myself into a corner where I don't have any other choice but to deal with this stuff.


I have definitely been doing a better job of sitting with the anger rather than acting on it. I realize that part of the problem with me and anger is that I was raised to act on anger rather that sit with it. I have example after example of times when people around me got angry and created all sorts of problems. Sitting with it is definitely something new for me.

Anger leads to blocking of insight, this means the anger often spills out into collateral damage or at the best to areas where you cant defend your reason to be angry. Hence the ensuing guilt. Insight is easier to keep focused when you acknowledge and accept your anger before it has too much momentum. To blow a vent is a safety device, dont be afraid to use it.

To admit your anger when it is growing is to keep insight and keep the anger where it is based. The damage that may ensue is far easier to contain and then repair as necessary. Any lessons to be learned from cause and effect is also easier learned for all concerned without distractions.

Dysfunctional FOOs display lack of insight and so often hold themselves up as the benchmark of what is right and "normal'. Growing up in this environment teaches you to either be the same, or to bury anything that might be seen as straying from their abnormal.

Believe me, I wasn't suggesting you sit with your feelings because it is easy!


I've found that my feelings often remind me of things I don't want to see. I see that as a good thing, not a bad thing. Because they often are things I should be paying more attention to.

For instance, I'm NOT normally a jealous guy. A few years back I noticed that I had been feeling jealous in regard to one guy my wife was spending time with for several years before that. I successfully stuffed those feelings, or just reacted to them at the time. We had a few minor fights over this.

Somewhat later, my wife admits to having some kind of obsession with this guy, and having a fantasy life where she wrote in her head something like a romance novel with him and her starring in it. This was at worst an emotional affair only... .but proves that my feelings were guiding me well.

I am going to have read and reread everything that you wrote. I am really big on insight and being logical. I can see so many instances where I let my anger spill over into areas of my life where it didn't need to be because I was trying to block it, deny it, or simply ignore that it was there.


THIS! This explains so much. I have tried so hard to be different than them. I have tried to be self-reflective. I have tried to admit my flaws. I have tried to NOT be angry. When I am like them, I get crap for bad behavior but, when I try to be different, they accuse me of trying to be better them, arrogant, or who knows what. No matter what I do with regard to my family of origin it seems like a losing proposition. And that makes me feel sad and angry and helpless and confused. Part of me wants to say that I don't care what they think but the truth is that I do. I would love nothing more than to fit in. What makes it even odder is that I was cast into the role of the golden child to a degree. Everybody tried to protect me while at the same time using me to tell tales and triangulate. I used to listen to all of the crap and run and tell tales. If I shared what others told me, I was a trouble making gossip. If I kept things to myself, I was being secretive or was plotting. It was and is a mess.

If I see those things, then I will have to deal with them and that sometimes feels way too overwhelming. Denial is a very powerful thing and I am working so hard to see things and address them and stop living in denial.


Thank you for this example. I know that there have been a lot of times that I have had feelings that seemed weird, unexplainable, or out of the ordinary for me. Sometimes, it is with my FOO and sometimes it is with my spouse and sometimes it is with friends. Instead of paying attention to those feelings and what they may be telling me to look at or think about more closely, I tend to stuff them. As a result, I allow myself to be treated in ways that I don't think are that great. And then, I find that I get angry and don't know what to do with the anger. I get angry because I feel like I deserve better. A really wise person recently told me that saying I deserve better is too outwardly focused because I am expecting other people to treat me in certain ways. Well, if I don't stand up for myself and pay more attention to the red flags that my feelings and insight are trying to alert me to, then I am simply perpetuating a cycle where I put myself into undesirable situations and then get angry.

HEY! GET OUTTA MY BRAIN!

lol lol

Hello VOC,

In my view it is pretty straightforward what is the matter with you.

You've said that as a child, your parents did not validate your feelings, they invalidated them instead.

This has a huge impact on a child : the child loses the confidence and trust in its own feelings, and "stuffs" them away, like you say.

The child becomes socially backhanded, has only few real friends through life, and focuses on logic and insight; all the while mistrusting and staying away from its own emotions.

I've just described how a lot of boys have been raised; hence the capacity of most men to be logical, direct and having troubles with emotions.

Been there myself... .

The anger you are feeling are your suppressed emotions from your lifetime.  One cannot suppress his/her feelings all the time and go free.  Those feelings are an important part of you as a person, so you have basically been denying a big part of yourself.  Your emotional half is ready to go on the barricades to finally demand recognition for its existence, and you're still trying to keep a lid on it.  After all these years, the pressure inside of you has become enormous.

And to make it worse, you've been around people who have invalidated your feelings time and again, and that has reinforced your belief that emotions are bad and should be suppressed.


They were WRONG, ALL OF THEM!




(please read the previous sentence 20 times, so it will start to dawn)





And if you can accept that fact, you're ready for a way out of this.



Jack

In all honesty, I don't think the childhood stuff was as hurtful as the stuff that happened in my marriage. Even though my family didn't always validate my feelings, I had friends and other people that did. I have lots of fond memories of having really long talks with my grandma as a kid. She would listen to me and validate my feelings and explain how childish my mother is. And, as a kid, my siblings and I would have times when we validated each other. Even though my FOO was completely dysfunctional and messed up, I still had outlets. As an adult in my marriage, all of those outlets disappeared. Being isolated mixed with the invalidation from my husband did way more damage than some of what I suffered as a child. As a child, people could see that my family was screwed up so I didn't have to pretend. People knew what I was dealing with for the most part so it was a lot easier to cope with. As an adult, nobody really knows what kind of stuff I have had to deal with from my husband because he projects an air of righteousness. He is the good little Catholic boy from a good family and I am the heathen from a dysfunctional family. That has been really tough to deal with and makes me angry because I feel like I am getting punished for being real.


I have never seen a problem with only having a few real friends. I don't need a lot and never really have. Even though my dad is messed up in a lot of ways, one of the things that I did get from him is that I can know something and feel something without having to have other people validate it or back it up. The truth is the truth whether other people can see it or not. My dad and my siblings tried to protect me from a lot of stuff when I was a kid. I attribute a lot of the feelings that I have now to stuff that I have experienced during my 16.5 year marriage to my husband. In college, I went to counseling and dealt with a lot of the stuff from childhood. In the couple year relationship that I had before I met my husband, I think I was pretty good with my emotions. I feel like I could share them with that guy. I have spent a lot of time talking to people online and one of the things that is missing from my relationship with my husband is the ability to share with him. It wasn't that way in the very beginning but over the years I programmed myself to shut down because of the way my husband acted when I tried to share things with him. In 16.5 years of marriage, I don't think he has ever really comforted me. I have been left to deal with everything alone. It wasn't that way when I was a kid because I did have friends and siblings and even school counselors that I could and would reach out and talk to. I never had a problem reaching out to other people until my marriage.


lol I have to laugh at this because I have often said that I should have been a boy. Maybe it was because I spent so much time with my dad as a kid. I hung around all kinds of male dominated places as a kid. I always felt safe when I was running the roads with my dad as a kid.


I actually think the invalidation of my husband has taken more of a toll on me than anything else. In the last several years, he is the one that I have been around most. Up until a year or two ago, the only people that I was around were my husband and my kids. That is a far cry from how I grew up. I grew up getting out and about a lot. My parents had a family business and I was always helping out, talking to customers, and making friends with people. They were more of acquaintances but it was fun to talk to and listen to other people. That exposure to all of those people helped me keep a little bit of a grasp on reality. And when certain family members were in a good place, we would validate each other like crazy. lol


The one that I need to accept as being wrong is my husband. He is the one that has done the absolute most damage to psyche. In a lot of ways, I was the golden child growing up. I was the baby of the family. Everybody protected me and took me under their wing at different times. I may have limited or no contact with my siblings now but when we were growing up, we tried to support each other as best we could. I have lots of memories of hanging out with different siblings while validating each other and talking about the craziness of our lives.

Some people had an abusive childhood, and do have deep emotional wounds from that... .and probably picked a partner who ultimately cut more deeply in very similar places.

Some of us didn't have that in our childhoods. I didn't get any of that from my parents. Looking back, I did get some from the other kids I went to school with. I too found that I was in a marriage that slowly crept into abusive territory and slowly went deeper in there.

There is no need to force that kind of history on yourself. I still don't find it. Recently I have noticed some of the patterns in my life I want to change do go back to examples I did (or didn't) get as a child, so perhaps you will find something there someday. Still, it wasn't the sort of abuse that many experienced as a child.

VOC, I do see one glaring opportunity in this last post: You had lots of other people providing good validating support as a child, which allowed you to cope better then. Through random events and choices you have made over the last 16+ years you don't have that today. It is past time to change that.

Look for good people in your life and put more time and energy into those new relationships.

Look back at people who were supportive before, who you are not in much contact with, and work on re-kindling those relationships if you can.

Hello VOC,

Thank you for the clarifications.   It appears that we've had a similar childhoods.

You estimate that your marriage has had a more negative impact on you than your childhood.  Very valid point.

As a side note : looking at your childhood will help to understand why you are who you are today, and why you accept some things and others not.  Basically, how you got here.

Now, for your current situation : I understand that your husband is the emotional one in your relationship; you seem to be more down to earth about things.

You also indicate that your biggest issue is that he "punished" you for sharing things (emotions), and he never comforts you.  As a result, you have stopped trying to share feelings with him long ago.

You basically feel unsupported, like living with a stranger.  No connection, no closeness.  Just 2 people living under the same roof.

The things is, all humans need to share their feelings, and problems always arise when the 2 partners are not in sync about this: each one has his/her own subjects to share and not share about, each one shares in different ways, each one needs to share different amounts,  etc.

You said it wasn't that way in the beginning of your marriage.  Was there a defined point in time when he changed his reaction to your attempts? Or did it grow gradually?

Jack

I have been looking at my childhood and dealing with that craziness since I was a child. lol I feel like I am pretty aware of where I came from and am able to see the good and the bad from my childhood.


Being down to earth is one of my strengths. I can sit back and feel stuff and identify identify the source pretty easily. In identifying the source, it makes it easier for me to decide whether or not to act on what I am feeling. One of the counselors that I saw when I was in college boiled everything down to making choices, which was very helpful for me. If I don't like something, what can I do to change it. I don't like my own anger so I want to change it. I don't know that my husband is the emotional one. He is the one that shares the most but that sharing doesn't necessarily have anything to do with his emotions. A lot of times, his emotional responses are completely inappropriate and do NOT fit the situation. Really, I am not really concerned about talking about him or his emotions in this thread. Yes, looking at different pieces of my life can help me figure myself out but there are times that I think people look outside themselves too much. That is one of the things that I have allowed myself to do in my relationship with my husband. I consider myself to be a very strong person and I have very rich internal dialogue and am very self aware. No matter what my husband or family of origin does or has done, how I respond to anger is MY choice. It is up to ME to find ways to deal with my anger and everything else in a way that is in line with MY values. That is another source of anger for me. I think it is ridiculous that grown adults, like my husband more specifically, sit around making poor choices while blaming parents or spouses or other external events. Yes, those external circumstances can cause me to have all kinds of crazy thoughts and feelings and I have done some stupid stuff as a result.

However, I feel that my actions are my responsibility and mine alone.



I am aware of all of that. If you look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, you can see that physiological needs are at the base. From there is a need for safety. After that is the need for loving and belonging. Above that are esteem, which is then followed by self-actualization.

I have never ever thought that one person could completely meet another person's needs. We are complex and dynamic beings. People grow and change. There are so many different types of relationships that can meet a person's needs. I guess I am wondering what this has to do with my anger. I am aware of a person's needs. Sure, maybe my anger comes from unmet needs with my husband. I don't think so. I think it has more to do with me knowing what I know and being who I am yet allowing myself to get into the position that I am. I know better. I have read and studied and been looking at some of this stuff for years yet I have gone down the rabbit hole so to speak. 


I honestly have no idea when his reaction changed. I have been with my husband for 16.5 years. I don't know if he changed or if I did or if it was a little of both. Really, I don't think his reaction is what feeds my anger. I know from experience that you can't share everything with your partner. Some things are best NOT shared. If somebody didn't want to listen to me growing up, I would find somebody that did. I can be pretty precocious at times. If I am not happy with something, I will find a way to change it even if it takes me years to figure it out. I have been working on myself and my marriage for 16.5 years. I spent all that time taking the wrong approach because I didn't have the right information. Given my profession, it makes me angry at myself for being so stupid. My husband is who he is. I don't think that he has really changed that much during our marriage. Yes, I have some anger towards him and my FOO but I think most of my anger is at myself.

This is exactly how I was raised, there was no tolerance for uncomfortable emotions such as anger and hurt.  Suck it up "or I'll give you something to cry about" is what I heard.  Or I'd get a swat for expressing said feelings. Now, I am so damn uncomfortable with my own anger and hurt.  I've spent my life avoiding and repressing it!

VOC, your experience of finding your husband and everything he does annoying is exactly what I experienced in the last few months of my marriage.  All the things that I felt empathy and compassion about ended up driving me nuts in the end.  And I didn't trust his thoughtful gestures or words any longer.  I always saw something sinister in everything he did, good or bad.  I became numb and unfeeling towards him.  I didn't want to give him the attention and affection he seeked.  I think it was my way of detaching emotionally.  Maybe that's what you are doing?  Starting the process of detaching as you've made it pretty clear that is your objective?

Yes, I am in the process of detaching. Even if I wake up one day and decide that I will stay, I still need to detach and become unenmeshed. That is a healthy thing to do no matter what my state in life is. Untangling myself leads to lots and lots of anger. At myself. At him. At everyone.

This is a big problem to be aware of, once this sets it you start triggering them for real reasons of being invalidating, whilst you just don't care and justified in the way you react. It can viciously spiral from there.

You can almost pick the straw that broke the camels back (ie your patience). As you say even the good bits you no longer trust and seem empty to you.

I have to be very, very careful with that. I do find myself getting angry and being passive aggressive and making snide comments here and there. That is what I do NOT want to do. It is that whole self righteous thing where I do things when I am angry and make excuses for doing them. I think that is probably what is behind me wanting to get a better grip on my own anger. I don't want to make things any worse because my husband and I have 4 kids together. Like it or not, we are tied together for life!


I don't know that there was a single straw. For me, it happened so subtly over time and now I don't trust anything that he says or does and that feeds my anger. lol

For me there were so many straws the whole thing sucked.

You've kinda got this.

I'd suggest rather than controlling your anger, control your interactions with your H.

Try to be aware that you are feeling angry, and that you want to be passive aggressive or snippy.

Then give yourself a time out, so you don't act on it. (Or at least STOP acting on it once you start! lol )

Allowing yourself to feel the anger really helps. Reacting in a way that harms your marriage doesn't help...

You know... .your H has said things indicating he notices you are changing... .Most pwBPD are VERY perceptive of emotional stuff going on. They may read correctly that something is going on... .then miss-interpret the reasons completely and act in the worst possible way in response, but that doesn't mean they don't notice!

Telling him that you've been feeling really angry these days, and don't want to either talk to him about it now, OR take it out on him now might be worth considering.

Maybe meditation, go for a walk and definitely get some help. You've been hurting a very long time and it's time to let it go, but in a healthy way that allows you to heal. These r/s take their toll and leave a lasting mark that makes us feel as though we are the ones with a disorder. You can't keep it in. I hope you find peace soon.

This is very true, once I started calling him on his stuff and not being the totally validating person I had been he became way more possessive and out of control.  It did spiral for sure!  This is where contempt started to enter the r/s which spelled doom.

My uBPDh would have tiny moments of clarity, like once he said "and when you tried to have boundaries I just made it harder." My jaw dropped. but then the next minute he'd be back to his old ways of trying to control. Hope I haven't already said this in this thread, but my T has said "You can have epiphanies all day long, but unless you act on them... ." I know for me that meant that I couldn't get too excited about his rare moments of clarity, but boy when I come to a new understanding I better act on it!

In response directly to this sentiment, go on ahead and write it.  You have a right to be angry.  You have a right to all of your feelings  Write it over and over and over again and eventually the words will change.  Your brain will lead your hand toward the answer.  This technique has been used as a form of meditation by some. Writing the same word or short statement over and over again can lead to other words or statements that you're feeling and help you through those, too.  Try it. It may help lead you where you want to be.

You've been through a lot.  Own that.  Respect that. 

Hi, vortex.  I can identify with the anger that you experience.  So many deep thoughts have been expressed here that what I say may sound simplistic.  I do have a minimalist mindset.

When I first came here, I was so angry and I wanted to know how I could even forgive.  Waverider’s response that forgiveness is closely tied to resentment moved me to look closer at all that happened over the years and compare it to what I was learning about BPD.  I was able to categorize all of those hurtful behaviors into 7 out of 9 characteristics of BPD and make some sense of what seemed to be senseless.  I realized that like any other person who has a form of mental illness or any kind of disability, this is not a disorder that my uBPDh chose, and I was finally able to forgive the events of the past.

Then I found that I was angry with myself for the ways I had betrayed myself and gotten myself into this mess and stayed in this mess.   I considered how before we married, I did not heed the red flags that told me that something was amiss.  I thought about how I explained away the warnings of my family and friends.  I considered what experiences in my FOO shaped my thinking, what my thoughts had been about his behaviors, how I responded, and why I made the choices that I did. I thought about all of the reasons that I stayed, even before we had children.  I was able to pinpoint the reasoning behind all of my thoughts and choices, and instead of being angry, I was able to love and forgive myself instead.

I think that anger is justified and that it does take time to work through.  Now that I have been able to settle in my mind what the behaviors were and are about, understand why I've made the choices that I have, and forgive him and myself, I know that dwelling on the hurt of the past will take me nowhere good.  I feel that doing what I can to look after myself in the here and now and planning for the future is the best place to put my thoughts efforts.  Of course, that doesn't keep me from being angry at the present behavior from time to time.   

Anger is a normal emotion. It is only a bad thing when you cant keep it in perspective and it runs rampant causing collateral damage.

You wont be able to keep it in perspective until you allow yourself to acknowledge it.

Anger is a stubborn beast. It wont be denied, and sooner or later it will break out of the cage. Much better if you let it out for a bit of exercise now and again.

VOC,

Forgive me for bring a bit slow on this, but I've seen mixed signals now as to the reason for your anger.  You've said that you think it is anger at yourself for letting those things happen to you and not coming up for yourself; other times you said it was because of life throwing too many challenges at you; and in other messages it was clearly anger at your husband.

Is it possibly a combination of those 3? Accumulated anger from separate sources?

If you don't mind, I think it is important to get to the root of your anger(s).  Otherwise you'll end up firefighting at the wrong house.  As long as you haven't clearly identified the real cause (s), you cannot work on an effective solution.  For example: each one of the three sources mentioned before requires a totally different approach.

I also believe that from understanding comes resolution of anger.

Jack

Thanks for pointing that out! Yes, I have been sending very mixed signals about the source of my anger. I am pretty sure that it is a mix of all three. Here lately, there has been a lot going on in my life. My grandma was in the hospital and is now in a nursing facility for rehab. I just found out that my aunt died. My husband is stepping up a little more but I am not putting a lot of stock in it. I have 4 daughters that can be very challenging at times. I work two part time jobs (one from home and the other not).

I am not sure what you mean when you say that each one of the three source requires a different approach. As I have been reading this thread and others as well as living my life on a daily basis, I don't think that there should be a different approach. I have recently been paying closer attention to how I deal with anger and how my kids deal with anger. Since kids tend to mimic the adults, I have been paying more attention to them and have been telling them (and reminding myself): "It is okay to be angry but it is NOT okay to be a jerk when you are angry. If something is making you angry, let's talk about it calmly and see if there is a way that we can make things better. Being angry is perfectly acceptable." And then we go on to talk about it. I try to help them figure out whether or not something can be done about the situation or not. I have been trying to do the same thing with myself.

It doesn't matter what the source of the anger is. It is okay for me to feel the anger. I can look at the sources of it and see if there is anything that I can do to change the situation but I can't sit around being a jerk to those around me. I have seen with myself and my kids that sometimes it is enough to acknowledge the anger. It is enough just to have somebody say, "You know what. I would be angry in your situation too." For me, I think the key to dealing my anger is being able to internally validate it instead of second guessing it or trying to deny it. I am trying to figure out how to validate my own anger and then figure out how to use it as a sign that I need to change something (or not) without being a jerk.

Allow me to correct my point : all three sources require a different solution.

The approach you use is the correct one in my view : in general, any feeling is always allowed; but not any action coming out of that feeling.  Your kids are learning an important life skill, and I commend you for it.

Concerning self-validation, again: the right approach.  Using self-validation, you basically become independent from others for an important emotional need, and avoid a lot of frustration there.  Let me know if you need more tips on applying it.

Now, about solutions: in my view, anger is fired up by frustration; and frustration comes from a repeatedly unmet need.  As soon as you get the need met, the frustration disappears and there's nothing left to keep the anger alive.

It is good to validate the anger, but as long as the source is not removed, the anger will not go away.  And that's how you end up with more than one of them eating at you in parallel.

As has been pointed out, staying angry is not healthy.  If you need more details to solve the 3 mentioned before, I'd be glad to help.

Jack

I am not sure that I understand what you are getting at. Frustration can come from all sorts of different sources and I don't think that it necessarily comes from repeatedly having an unmet need. I am thinking about how one day getting cut off in traffic is frustrating and makes me angry but the next day it doesn't. I react differently to the exact same event from one day to the next. There are a whole lot of factors at play.

I disagree with the notion that the source of the frustration has to be removed in order for the anger to go away. For example, let's say that my big toe frustrates me and makes me angry because I keep stubbing it. The way I am reading what you are saying is that, "My big toe is the source of my frustration and anger so it must go away in order for my anger to go away. I don't agree with that at all. Life is full of sources of frustration. They aren't all going to disappear. In my opinion, I feel like a person (more specifically me) should find ways to control him or herself without relying on external sources to change.

One thing that helps is realizing anger is a secondary emotion; there's always something underneath it, be it a feeling of disrespect, rejection, condescension, patronization, whatever, and what they all have in common is a lack of love.  We feel that lack of love, it hurts, we say fck that no one's going to treat us that way, and we get pissed.  Not a bad option really, considering we could just conclude we're unlovable and live with that.  Anger is better.

The problem is when we get stuck in the anger and don't dig under it, feel whatever it was, process it, and grow and act accordingly.  Then the anger can come out in a lot of inappropriate directions and become chronic; I know people like that, I've been that guy.  So although anger gives us a feeling of strength and may feel better than the hurt underneath it, it wears on us, and it's better to stop, breath, be very honest with ourselves about what's really going on, live in those feelings until they're processed, and then get on with our bettered lives.  Sometimes, as in the case of my ex, there was a lot of digging to do and things revealed themselves over time, but the process is the same.

One man's opinion... .

Anger is an emotional reaction, that follows on the back of another emotion, as fromheeltoheal points out. As a result the real trigger for anger is often not always apparent and we can hang blame for it on the latest issue. At times even looking for new reasons to explain anger that already exists.  We bandwagon issues that otherwise be a problem eg "and another thing that gives me that drives me nuts is when... "etc

This makes resolving it difficult. pwBPD are the extreme examples of this, but we all do it to some extent.

Often it is a result of compounding triggers, hence the reason anger management is quite a difficult topic in itself.

And also, I noticed that when I did start really digging under the anger around my ex and the relationship and started processing some of that, the floodgates opened and issues, and their anger, I'd been successfully repressing for years bubbled up.  Sucks to get pissed off about things that happened years ago, but hey, if it's in there it's gotta go, and fortunately I didn't go to jail as all that crap came up, but ultimately it turned out to be the biggest gift of the relationship, an emotional purge I didn't know I needed.

You have trouble understanding because you need to dig deeper for the source, and connect it to your needs.

Getting cut off in traffic does bother you when you are already stressed, otherwise it does not. The source is your unmet need for  control of your life, and your need to be relaxed. If those needs are unmet, you will get frustrated by someone cutting you off.

And also : the frustration from being cut off will also appear when someone carelessly crosses the street right in front of your car.  The frustration is actually the same one as the one from being cut off, because in both cases it is linked to the same unmet need; it just gets activated by different circumstances.


Same applies here as well: your toe is not the source of your frustration,  but your unmet need to live without pain.  By wearing protective shoes, or removing that sharp corner cabinet, you will not hurt yourself anymore, so you fulfill your need of a pain-free life, your frustration disappears and your anger "about the problematic furniture" too.

It takes some practice to get to the bottom of things,  but it will give you so much power over your life once you start to get the hang of it.

Jack

Why wear protective shoes or remove the cabinet? Why not be more mindful and pay more attention? Why not keep a light on or look for other options? Sometimes, there is pain in life no matter how you try to protect yourself or what precautions you take. That is part of life. It doesn't make sense to me to expect life to be pain free or easy or anything like that. For every thing you remove to keep you from being angry, there is going to be something else that could potentially make you angry. It doesn't make sense to me to go around manipulating and changing the environment in hopes that you will be less angry. Sure, that might help but it isn't always realistic.

Sure, a person may have a need to live without pain but that is a completely unrealistic expectation. Stuff happens. It isn't always possible to wear protective shoes or get rid of problematic things.

I don't think I am making myself very clear. For me, overanalyzing things and getting to the bottom of it is going to agitate me and make me even more angry than I already am. I know my tendencies to ruminate. Why can't I simply acknowledge my anger, deal with it, and move on. Why do I need to sit and psychoanalyze myself to find out the exact source of my anger? I am not an angry person. Even when I get angry, it isn't something that lasts very long. Sure, I occasionally remember something from childhood and it makes me mad. I usually get over it by thinking, "It was in the past. I can't change that no matter what happens. What I can do is make sure that I do not do those same things."

I am sure that I am contradicting myself. Whatever anger I was feeling when I started this thread has disappeared. I don't know how or when it disappeared but it did. The act of acknowledging it and sitting with it seemed to do the trick. Will I get angry again? I can almost guarantee that I will. People have moments of anger all of the time.

So don't go to the bottom of it, go under it, to whatever's really going on underneath.  Anger is secondary.


So you can process that feeling until it's resolved.  Otherwise we just get stuck in the anger, it can show up in inappropriate places, it's stressful and it will age us.

It seems that we're talking about different kinds of anger here.  I am talking about deep and long term anger that keeps resurfacing over and over again.  I had the impression that that was what you were mentioning when you started this thread.

Sure, we all get upset and hurt by everyday issues in life, and those are hard to avoid if you don't want to spend your life in a bunker.  But that was not the the topic I was focusing on.

In his context, the toe stubbing example (for me) was not about the hurt and self-blame you feel when stubbing yourself once, but about the frustration and anger that grows after hurting yourself for the 10th time. Looks like I have misunderstood you there.


You cannot analyse a situation when being angry.  First you need to get back to a calm state, like you say, and only then are you able to investigate further.  On that part I definitely agree with you.

But it becomes problematic if the analysis is left out.  The anger is not resolved, you've only covered it up.  With the next similar event, that same anger will come out of hiding again, with the frustration of the current event added to it.  In that sense, anger can only grow, until it is resolved.

To prove this point : can you tell us now with certainty that you are not angry anymore at your husband ?

And there are huge benefits to doing the analysis; the biggest one being that you get to know your needs, and in that way yourself.  Making it easier to know what to avoid and what to go for in the future.

And let's not forget that it will enable you to  resolve that slumbering internal  anger; and with that, removing an obstacle for happiness.

I understand you are currently overwhelmed;  so it is not the right time to start analysing. Once you've been able to slow down again, feel free to check it out.

Jack

In all honesty, I am not sure how to answer that because I am not sure if I am angry at him or if I am more angry at myself. He is who he is and I cannot change that just as my family of origin is who it is. Nothing that I say or do will ever change any of that. Being angry at them is a waste of time. It is like being angry at a cat for being a cat. If I cannot handle dealing with all of the things that come with having a cat, then maybe I shouldn't have a cat. Just like with my husband and others. If I am going to get angry at them for being who they are, then I need to reconsider how they fit into my life, if at all. So, the only place left is for me to be angry with myself because I am the only one that I can change. I am the only one that has any kind of control over who I am and how I react in any given situation.


I don't think I am quite to a place where I can pinpoint or analyze anything. I have spent a whole lot of years analyzing things to death trying to figure out the magic formula to make my marriage better.

To be honest most time I am angry is because I am angry at  "the situation" that I may be in at any one time. There is not always someone to blame, nor is there need to place blame. The need to place blame is often just an attempt to to sooth frustration. Understanding it is simply "the situation" which can be no more than a coincidence of unfavorable factors, helps.

Either way getting past it is a lot easier once you are capable of understanding the root cause of the frustration that is driving the anger.

Something I've noticed about myself is that when presented with the same idea over time, I've seen my response to it change as I grew in understanding. For instance, I listen to Affirmations and Guided Imagery as a way to deal with trauma etc., and there's this one line I really stumbled over at first: "i will accept my sadness, release my anger, and forgive myself."

When I first heard the "forgive myself" one I thought WHAT DO I HAVE TO FORGIVE MYSELF FOR? THEY DID IT TO ME! but as I've learned more about how I let myself down I started saying Ah! I need to forgive myself for not keeping myself safe from it where I could. Clearly I couldn't do a lot as a small child to protect myself from my parents, but in my marriage I really let myself down.

So I wonder, what if you were to simply write down in your journal the situations that drive your anger, and then revisit that list in a month? I bet you'll see where your understanding changes over time.

AND THERE'S A MAGIC FORMULA FOR MARRIAGE? Dang girl! Don't we all wish! I kept trying to find one but I failed. I was the only one willing to participate fully, and it sounds like that's where you are too.

I can relate to that. I think I have more anger towards myself than I do my spouse or anybody else. I have been reading some of my old blog posts and it makes me feel like such a friggin' fraud. I wrote stuff about micromessages, not trying to fix other people, take a long hard look at myself, detachment, and whole bunch of other stuff that is frequently discussed here. Most of it was in the context of parenting but a lot of it was about relationships in general. That was stuff from 2011 so it isn't that old. In so many of the posts, I talked about my husband in such positive terms. I even talked about my FOO in a very favorable light. Reading that stuff made me have a sick feeling in my stomach. Not sure why. I guess it is because I feel like a complete and utter fraud.


I have a couple of different journals. I have blogs, print notebooks, poetry, and all kinds of stuff that I have written over the years. I don't really see myself making much progress in anything. I just feel like a fraud. I feel really broken and it makes me angry that I don't know how to fix myself.


Yep, that is where I am at too. Some days are better than others. I will think that he is going to step up to the plate only to have something set him/us back. If I look back at most of our relationship, I feel like I have always been the one in the driver's seat. That gets exhausting.

That's one option, another is you were in denial then, which is just a coping mechanism, and you've grown enough since then to see it now.  Better to celebrate these things than flog ourselves.

 *mod*

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It's something that all of us need to think deeply about.

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Formflier