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To understand why you act angrily, as opposed to feeling angry and then stopping, thinking, and addressing the problem in an effectively tactful way, it can be helpful to look both in the rearview mirror and down the road ahead.

The rear-view mirror why encourages you to look back on where you've been, to look at your early beliefs about anger from family of origin up-bringing, as well as at events immediately prior to an anger outburst. When the question why is answered by looking down the road ahead "why" means "toward what purpose." Both the rear view mirror and the road ahead understandings can shed light on why you may sometimes get grumpy, mad, or mean.

Looking in the Rearview Mirror
Your ideas about how to treat other people came initially from what you witnessed as a child in your family.

How did your father and mother interact with each other?
Our parents provide our first models for how men are supposed to act toward women, and women toward men. If your father shouted at your mother, or your mother deprecated your father, you are at risk for repeating their mistaken ways. Our parents' voices, including the tone in which they spoke with each other, are learned along with language in childhood. If your parents spoke angrily to one another, unless you make conscious decisions not to repeat these ways, this early learning can be handed down from generation to generation as husband-wife talk.

Actually, it's even worse than that. Think about the issues you tend to complain about in your spouse. Were these issues your parents used to fight about? Having heard arguments on these topics as children seems to super-sensitize us as adults to anything that looks even remotely like what our parents used to berate each other about. It's as if our parents gave us their unfinished business which is ours to conclude with a happier ending. We subconsciously tend to remember both the style of how our parents talked with one another and the content of their disagreements.

How did your father and mother treat you as a child?
Did your parents listen to you? When they set limits, did they speak respectfully to you, explaining to you when and why your behavior was inappropriate?

If your parents tended to speak to you abrasively, routinely hurting your feelings, lecturing you, and overdoing punishment, you may be at higher risk for excessive anger.

Parents who use excessive punishment on their children invite their children to grow up being mean to others, or victimized by others, both in childhood and in adult life. A punitive parent teaches children that when someone else is not doing what they want them to do, hurting the other can make their behavior conform to what you want, irrespective of the other's desires. In addition, parental anger and punishment increase the child's sense that the world is a dangerous place. In response children may learn to overvalue the need to appear powerful. The extreme result can be the sadistic and paranoid personality of a Hitler, who spent a lifetime perpetuating cruelty and destruction to others after a childhood of having had to endure humiliating criticism and severe beatings.

How did you treat your parents and your siblings?
Who was in charge in your home growing up, the children or the parents? If you grew up ordering your parents around, throwing anger tantrums when they did not do what you wanted, you are likely to be at risk for throwing tantrums as an adult to get your spouse to do your bidding. Were you kindly to your siblings, and were they considerate of you? If you used to be mean to them, or if they in any way abused you, you will want to pay particularly close attention to be certain that your relationship with your spouse does not repeat any of these early relationships.

Fortunately however, with today's proliferation of self-help relationship books, audios, and video tapes, and also the accessibility of marriage counseling, adults no longer need to be limited in their marriages to repeating what they learned as children. As I said earlier about strike back reactions, angry behavior is not inborn, like eye color. It is a matter of learning and of choice.

Warren appeared to be a kind and cultured gentleman, yet he frequently spoke with surprising nastiness to his wife. In therapy Warren explored what kinds of situations triggered the impulse to criticize or verbally kick her and where he had learned to act so cruelly.

Warren's father had frequently angrily admonished him. A joyful and sensitive child, Walter received a barrage of criticism for "not being a he-man," or for being "a wash-rag." These onslaughts succeeded to some extent in squelching Warren's enthusiastic playfulness. In turn, when Warren saw others doing something he felt they shouldn't or that he didn't want them to do, like his father, Warren lashed out. He remembers, for instance, as young as 6 or 7, seeing another child picking his nose. Warren immediately kicked him to get him to stop.

Warren felt that his harsh response to the child mimicked both his father's treatment of his own "misbehavior, " and the cultural beliefs of the society in which he grew up that condoned mistreatment of others who were deemed less powerful or different. Warren grew up in pre-War Germany amidst a mentality that legitimatized and even lauded mistreatment of Jews, Catholics, Gypsies, homosexuals, and any other groups that they deemed different and stereotyped negatively. It is important to note that societies that indulge in this kind of society-wide abuse virtually always have a family structure in which the patriarchal figure has excessive power, and in which cruel treatment of children is regarded as normal child-rearing.

Warren by nature was in fact a kindly soul. In his case, family up-bringing and the historical/cultural environment in which he had grown up taught him to smother tender feelings. Since his childhood he had been trying to look strong by verbally kicking himself and those around him. The realization that he no longer needed to play this role, and could actually get what more of what he wanted in life by quietly talking without bullying, came as a great relief.

Other Childhood Risk Factors
A number of other childhood factors may have put you at increased risk for adult tendencies to excessive anger. Were you either larger or smaller than other children your age? Sometimes either extreme of physical size leads children to develop patterns of using anger to bullying people. Large children can be at risk because they can so easily get their way by pushing other children around. Small boys can develop Napoleon-type small man syndrome, where they compensate for their lesser size by perpetually proving how tough they are.

Temperament also can be a factor. Some children are born mild-tempered, and others from an early age show belligerence. Similarly, some children show strong altruistic tendencies from a very young age; even as toddlers they will offer help to another child that seems distressed. Nature, however, is not a final decree. Quick to anger children just need more adult modeling and teaching to learn to replace shouting and shoving with courteous talking. For most children, emotional education is vital.

Likewise, children's ability to tolerate frustration varies broadly. Some young children resiliently move right on to another activity if they can't have something they want. Others insistently throw temper tantrums when they hear the word "no." Again, just as more athletic coaching is necessary for children with less natural athletic ability, emotional education is essential for those who do not come to resilience naturally,. Without this guidance children who insist too strongly on getting what they want without learning to consider also parents', teachers', or other children's concerns can become difficult adult partners.

Severe stresses in childhood can produce neurological changes that result in a more delicate emotional system in adult life. Painful childhood experiences such as the death of a parent, incest, or abuse can lead to increased adult vulnerability to anger and depression in response to life's normal ups and downs. Genetics can also result in quickness to anger; if you had a hot-tempered parent, you may have inherited a particularly short-fused emotional system.

These physiological factors now can be normalized by taking medication. Excessive anger diminishes remarkably with use of the same medication that alleviates tendency to depression. Many people with a biochemical tendency to either depression or anger experience a new emotional resilience that they find quite remarkable when they begin to take these medications.

Similarly, people may tend more readily to feel threatened, criticized, or victimized if these states did in fact characterize their formative experiences of the world.

Jennifer grew up in an alcoholic family with a father who verbally and physically abused her brothers and her. Traumatized by his frequent attacks, Jennifer as a wife kept reading sign of potential criticism and anger in her husband Jack's facial expressions. Reacting with the underlying belief that the best defense is a rapid offence, Jennifer would launch a salvo of witty but hurtful barbs. Her barbs often hit their mark, wounding Jack. He felt angry at the unjustified seemingly out of the blue criticisms. His angry complaints in turn appeared to justify Jennifer's belief that men are aggressive. Gradually exchanges of critical remarks became increasingly a part of their daily interactions, recreating a milder but still exceedingly unpleasant version of the home in which she had grown up.

Whether you continue anger habits learned in your childhood into your adult married life may depend on how aware you are of how detrimental angry behavior is to your spouse and to the atmosphere in your home. If pervasive irritability or abusive anger were regarded as normal in your family when you were growing up, you are at particular risk for adult anger problems. Frequent or hurtful anger is not normal in any family.

Shame is another factor that can trigger aggressive outbursts. Anger can serve to mask over the more vulnerable feeling of shame. Many individuals are prone to feeling ashamed, perhaps because of parental discipline techniques that punished by shaming and blaming. Sometimes also shame comes up when people make mistakes that with hindsight they regret but do not know how to rectify.