back to books and tapes

What happens if instead of taking anger as a signal to stop and think you speak and act in anger?

Anger, which feels so energizing, gives you the feeling that in acting aggressively you are doing something effective to deal with a problem. Wrong. Acting angry seldom proves to be a constructive way to deal with problems. And it is highly costly.

For anger to be expressed safely without leading to fights, both partners need to talk as teammates using the guidelines from Part I. Speak without crossing into territory of talking about or for the other. Stick with non-toxic language. Tune in for what is useful, what might be true, in the difficult message your partner is trying to share with you. If you can stay within these guidelines, then your anger conveys the seriousness and urgency of your message.

The difficulty is that the more angry you feel, the harder it becomes to follow these principles, either as speaker or as the listener. Soon you are engaging in high risk dialogue. Especially as anger escalates, any crossovers and toxic messages can mark the end of helpful problem-solving.

"I'm furious. I feel like I can never get it right. I'm trying to help you sand your deck, and all you do is complain!" Tanner shouted.

Feeling criticized, Kate started defending herself. She liked pretty things. She wanted the deck to come out right. Before she had finished insisting that the problem was Tanner, not her, Tanner spun around. Was he throwing the big sander at her? As he spun around, the sander crashed to the ground at her left.

Anger for many people, like for Tanner and Kate, escalates quickly. Cool and then talk is almost always a safer strategy than to try to talk when you are heated.

Anger begets anger
Many emotionally expressive cultures considered angry words a good way to "blow off steam." While the drama of these cultures has its appeal, the reality about anger is that venting it actually fans its flames. Moreover, "blowing off steam" can easily instead set off explosions of rage, and heat just from steam can cause injuries to whomever comes too close. The more anger you express, the more anger you will feel, the longer you will remain angry afterwards, and the more angry your partner will in turn feel toward you.

In his book When Anger Hurts psychologist Matt McKay et al surveys research on the idea that "it's healthy to ventilate." His conclusion:"Experimental studies consistently point out that the popular remedy for anger, ventilation, is really worse than useless. In fact, the reverse seems to be true: expressing anger tends to make you even angrier and solidifies an angry attitude." Dealing with problems is helpful, but dealing with them in an angry way creates additional anger.

Anger leads to forcing, not fixing

Unfortunately, anger blinds you to others' concerns. As you get increasingly mad, your underlying thought is likely to be "I want what I want, and I don't care what you want!" If your partner doesn't agree, your anger tries to force him or her to do what you want.

As your steaming anger boils over, what you wanted initially, your original objective, may get lost. As you move from anger to rage, your objective changes. The new objective becomes to hurt, and in the extreme to destroy, the other. The heat of anger vaporizes your awareness that in marriage there are two of you, both of whom have legitimate concerns. Until you find solutions that feel comfortable to both of you, one of you will always have a reason to keep raising the same issues.

Anger wounds your spouse .
Angry words cause both physical and psychological damage. Their toxicity is not just metaphorical; it is all too real. The damage hurts you, your partner, and your marriage.

When you speak angrily or critically to your spouse, both of you undergo rapid physical transformations. Your blood pressure goes up, cholesterol goes up, immunities go down. It is no wonder that couples who fight manifest more physical ailments such as headaches, high blood pressure, ulcers, and heart attacks than couples who live together more harmoniously. Unhappily married people report poorer health than happily married people of the same race, sex, and age. Researchers now are discovering that, as much and perhaps even more than obesity, lack of exercises, or poor nutrition, marital conflict can be hazardous to your body's health.

When you act angrily, you may cause your spouse to suffer emotional disorders as well. Toxic words slung in anger can fester also in more subtle but painfully long-lasting ways. They __rrode self-esteem. They undermine mutual trust. They breed resentment, anxiety, sleep difficulties, and depression. Contrary to the popular wisdom, while sticks and stones break bones, words can destroy both the physical and the emotional health of the fighters.

The toxic impact of fighting can be remarkably long-lasting. Even within a largely cooperative relationship, one spiteful interchange can undermine weeks of positive time together. I have seen couples for whom one mean verbal fireball ignited tensions that lasted long after either of them could remember the source..

A word is dead When it is said, Some say. I say it just Begins to live That day. Emily Dickinson, "Life"

In fact, if you are becoming angry frequently, in either small or large outbursts occasionally, but getting very mad when you do persistently, harboring subtle angry feelings that never fully go away or when you do get mad you stay angry for quite a while, you are almost guaranteeing that your marriage will suffer.

You may say to yourself, "Well, I'm only mad sometimes. The rest of the time I'm nice." No matter. Cigarettes can lead to cancer even in smokers who exercise regularly and eat nutritiously. Your good moments do not undo the harm done by angry outbursts.

Anger hurts innocent bystanders, especially children Fighting spouses can easily forget how strongly their squabbles affects those around them. Fighting creates unpleasantness. Do you like to visit in homes where the spouses bicker? Parents' battles cause on-going tension that sets everyone on edge.

The vast majority of children with emotional and behavioral problems have parents, married or divorced, who fight. Just as smoking predicts cancer, but not all smokers actually get cancer, children of parents who fight do sometimes escape unscathed. Most children with emotional difficulties however do come from families with either silent cold wars or upsetting angry altercations. Depression, anxiety, school problems, eating disorders, underachieving, and delinquent behavior are some of the myriad ways children react to a tensions at home.

Moreover, by fighting parents teach their children that fighting is what you do to solve problems. In homes in which parents fight, siblings tend to fight more with each other. The end product can be a home that becomes a chaotic battlefield.

Anger blocks insight.

Anger blocks your ability to understand the source of your anger. Unfortunately the more angry you become, the more likely that you will look to blame instead of understand.

Tanner's anger kept exploding in blame at his wife..

Tanner felt frantic and furious. "We have too much programmed in for this summer!" he shouted, raging at his wife Kate. "There's no way I'll be able to get my work done! You invited too many people! And you planned too many trips! You should have been more realistic!"

Our eyes are pointed outward. When we are calm we can succeed in turning our eyes inward, and can use this inner eye for insight, for seeing our own behavior. The angrier we feel, the stronger our impulse to look outward, to look for someone out there to fault for our distress.

Tanner, in his fury, exemplified the way in which anger blocks making headway on the actual problem.

Instead of seeing his part in how his summer plans had gotten out of hand, or, better yet, focusing on what kinds of adjustments he could make to improve the situation, Tanner's focus was riveted onto his wife. The more he tried to pin blame on her, negatively interpreting what she had done, the more enraged he felt.

In the process of criticizing and blaming, Tanner develops a distorted view of his wife, and simultaneously misses chances to create a more joyful life.

Anger gives you dark glasses
Anger is the reverse of love. Love enables us to see our partner's attributes all in the most positive light.

The swarthy girl is tawny, the scrawny is a gazelle, the dumb is modest, she that is half dead with consumption is slender, and she that is bloated, with enormous dugs, is Ceres herself. Lucretius, De rerum natura IV.i.

By contrast, anger besmirches your ability to experience love. Anger gives you dark glasses, so that you see everything about your spouse in a negative light. Tanner continued raging, working himself up into ever-increasing fury, "You pretend to ask me if the plans are okay, but really you didn't take me into consideration at all in making your decisions. All you care about is the things you want to do. How am I supposed to earn a living if you are booking all my time with your activities! You just exploit my good nature! You take advantage of my willingness to be nice to your family! You're just trying to make me furious so I'll look like the bad guy in the household! You're so conniving, manipulating, controlling!"

As your anger escalates, your interpretations of your spouse's actions will become increasingly negative. For instance, you may usually regard your spouse as busy. If you become angry, you may label the same busy productivity as self-absorbed . As you become even angrier, busy may proceed from self-absorbed into inconsiderate workaholic.

Anger actually causes you, while you are in the anger state, to lose the ability to experience love because you will not be able to see what is attractive about your spouse. The angrier you become, the less you will be able to see or recall aspects of your spouse that you cherish.

Should the harsh words that you spit out in the heat of anger, be believed? When you are angry there will generally be a grain of truth in every negative view you see, but this grain of truth will be enlarged out of proportion. Since the angrier you become, the more negative you become, your angry beliefs are likely to be inaccurate interpretations of the actual facts.. While Kate had taken on responsibility for making the family's summer plans, Tanner's view that she was "conniving, manipulating and controlling" was an inaccurate and excessively negative interpretation of her attempt to carry through on her responsibility.

Kate had in fact consulted Tanner about each of the plans for the summer. Then, as was their custom, she went ahead with making trip reservations and inviting family and friends from out of state to visit. She was open to making whatever changes might help Tanner to feel more on top of his work. But the more he yelled at her, the less generous she felt. Feeling wrongly accused, Kate felt less and less willing to accommodate to Tanner's realization that they had over booked their summer schedule. His accusations were becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Angry views of your spouse need to be reappraised after you have calmed down. Sometimes your anger proves justified. If your spouse has gambled away a chunk of savings, for instance, your anger can mobilize you to make changes to insure the loss never happens again. On the other hand, most of the time, thinking later about an angry incident later you will find a milder interpretation that isl be more accurate, more conducive to solving the actual problem, and less detrimental to your affection for each other than the negative beliefs about your spouse that came to your mind when you were furious.

The negativity that goes with anger comes into play on a national as well as a personal level. This anger-brings-dark-glasses phenomenon accounts for why, in times of war, images of the enemy become so negative as to be even dehumanized. Derogatory epithets perhaps justify continued use of force, which would be harder to allow ourselves to use against others whose humanity we recognize. During the Cold War, for instance, people who lived in countries with Communist governments were referred to as "Commies," and in World War II Japanese people were referred to by Americans as "Japs." To kill and maim human beings like ourselves would be far more difficult than to bomb people whom we have subsumed under negative labels. Similarly, negatively labeling your spouse, "conniving, manipulating and controlling," you may justify the impulse to hurt the person you most love.

Anger increases projection
The more angry you become, the more likely that your view of the situation will become distorted by what psychologists call projection. Projection is quite embarrassing, once you realize what you are doing, and can be quite hurtful to a spouse who does not understand the phenomenon.

Projection involves treating the person you are talking with like a movie screen. What is within you, the projector, you read as on them. If you yourself have a habit of blaming, for instance, you might say to your spouse, "The problem is that you think everything is my fault!" By projecting you are advertising your short-comings, especially if your spouse understands what projection is and how it works.

Tanner accused his wife of not having been realistic in their summer planning. In agreeing to the plans, in spite of work agendas that he knew of but was not verbalizing to his wife, he himself had not been realistic.

To check if you have been using projection, try this experiment. Listen back to the accusations you have thought or said to your spouse. Ask yourself, "How did what I was thinking about him/her actually apply to me?"

Projection blocks your ability to understand both your partner and yourself. Insight is far more effective in helping you to get what you want in life. Projection also creates animosity between you. No one likes to feel wrongly accused.

Anger ends in guilt and shame
In the moment, anger temporarily blinds us from seeing what we are doing; afterwards, once the fury has subdued, you are likely to see clearly the damage that your anger has wreaked Seeing the pain you have inflicted on the one you love you may feel suddenly remorseful, ashamed, and guilty.

After ranting at Kate in increasingly intense episodes over a period of weeks, Tanner suddenly felt terrible. He had brought his wife multiple times to frantic tears, to the point that she had begged for mercy, crying out in genuine desperation "What can I do?" Once when he felt calmer, he knew that his raging behavior had been way out of bounds. His guilt felt crushing. Now, instead of feeling furious, he felt demoralized and ashamed.

Anger corrodes love
Unfortunately, words propelled by even a brief surge of anger can have long-lasting corrosive impact on your partner's feelings toward you. One lashing comment like "You're so controlling!" can demolish your partner's loving interest in what goes on in your life.

Moreover, angry people look ugly. When you are angry, your spouse is unlikely feel loving toward your snarling face. When you are angry, you are not lovable.

There is not in nature To be loved, be lovable. A thing that makes a man so deform'd, so beastly, Ovid, The Art of Love As intemperate anger. Webster's Duchess of Malphi

Kate began to ask herself, "Why am I staying in this marriage? Are the good times worth this pain? Tanner gets so frightening when he is angry, I don't want anything to do with him. And when he is normal, I find it harder to enjoy him because images of his contorted raging face come to my mind."

Anger invites divorce .
Multiple research studies now have shown that marriages with unpleasant fighting are at significantly higher risk for divorce. The test of a marriage's goodness may be its positive times, but the best predictor of whether it will endure is the frequency of its bad moments. In this era of easy divorce, marriage no longer is guaranteed to last 'until death do us part.'

Anger Invites Violence
Verbal fighting risks escalation into physical fighting. Pushing, shoving, throwing things, hitting, choking, beating, and eventually even killing each represent step-by-step escalations from verbal violence. Best to terminate hurtful interactions at the first rung of this ladder, with your first hint of angry feelings.

In addition, it is important to know that violent behavior tends to become worse over time. The man or woman who injures a spouse in any way even once is at risk not only for doing it again, but for gradually increasing the extent of the violence. If you have ever become physical with your spouse, or if your father used to become physical with your mother, (or y our mother with your father) you are at risk.

You may be tempted to say, "If only my wife wouldn't...., I wouldn't get mad" If you hear yourself saying something like this, beware. Blaming your spouse for your rages indicates a serious anger problem. Only you are responsible for what you do when you feel angry. Difficulty accepting this personal responsibility is a sign that you may need professional help. The hardest and fastest rule in this book is that nothing your spouse does merits becoming physically violent in marriage.

In sum, the costs of dealing with problem situations from a position of anger are high indeed. The power of two in anger becomes the power to cause harm, to yourself, your spouse, your children, and your marriage. The good news, however, is that you can create positive solutions to even your most long-standing disagreements. Switching from anger to mutually respectful problem-solving dialogue can give you new levels of respect and affection for each other, not to mention better personal physical health, emotional well-being, self-esteem, and the ability to live life joyfully together.

"Back to Chapter V: Anger as a Stop Sign"

Return to top of page

back to books and tapes