Maybe this doesn't belong in this forum, but this is the only part I post in... so anyway.

I am looking for advice and ideas on managing anger and conflict correctly.

I will start by saying that I am beginning to accept that I am not a very healthy person when it comes to an intimate relationship. In the past, I have not been very emotionally available, among other things. I am trying to deal with that. Using what Dr. Harley says in SAA, and other sources, the first step is to stop the hurt. Stop the withdrawals. Rule of Protection. If that is incorrect, please correct it… but I believe I have that right.

Note to my wife: If I say something incorrectly, please correct it. I will not be offended nor will I criticize you.

The problem? Frozen and I want to connect. My love language is touch. Her love languages are quality time. So… we inherently connect in different ways. I can be in a room with her in silence and that is good for me(not touch… but proximity works for me as well). She needs to talk. This causes conflict for us because I can walk in a room with her in it and get my ‘frozen fix’ and then walk back out, but she needs to stop and talk about something meaningful to get her ‘patriot fix’. Since this causes conflict, it causes impatience and anger. She starts to tell me how my ways hurt her. I start to feel like a failure. It goes down hill from there. Once the bad starts, it never gets better. We have to weather it. Frankly, that is painful to a very high degree. Additionally, because it feels like everything I do hurts her, I want to stay distanced, to a degree. Then, because I distance myself, she feels abandoned, which is a hot button based on her past. Then anger runs in. She’s angry because you just don’t cheat on someone you love and a lot of other issues. I’m angry because you just don’t purposefully be mean and nasty, verbally, to someone you love and other issues. It is the typical vicious cycle, for us.

I want to move forward and get past all this, which makes it sound like I want to forego healing. Not true. I want to heal. I want her to heal. She wants to make sure I face this problem and the underlying problems that made it possible, which makes it look to me like she will never let this go. Not true, also, I imagine. She has described to me that she is afraid that all I have to buttress myself against infidelity again is sheer will. Hence, I have started to look at my health, relationship wise. I agree that I am not perfectly healthy. I have behaviors that I need to address and find alternatives for. I am going to contact an IC for that, but I have kind of procrastinated the call because I have to go through the military to get the IC. And they might think I’m crazy!!!!! Anyway, it is a concern, but I am making that call today.

So, the fact is she and I are going to talk. She and I are going to have emotions. How can we have these emotions and talks and not attack and terrorize each other? How have others here dealt with anger creeping in during a conversation? How do you turn a lose/lose of she wants to talk so she can connect but it’s 11pm and I am tired(enter anger and resentment and ‘I don’t matter to you’) into a win/win? It seems the tried and true “walk away and come back to it later” won’t work because by walking away, I feed the abandonment feelings. That inflames anger and then the cycle is still fueled. I hope someone understand what I am asking here, because I really need some advice. I am tired of all the pain and anger in just the simple daily life. She and I are to the point that we communicate best over the internet… even if we are in the same house… sometimes.

I really want frozen in my life, so anything you have to offer would be greatly appreciated.

My two most favorite books on anger and dealing with it are

Anger: Wisdom to Cool the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh
You Don't Have to Take it Anymore by Steven Stosny

I could type till my fingers come off, but most of what I would type would be from those books.

In brief -- anger arises from other things. There is always a seed of it within you, and when you are upset by something and you're in a vulnerable position, your instinctive response is anger.

To get out of the vicious cycle, as you called it, you re-train your body, sort of the way you train it to type or ride a bicycle. You practice a lot so that when those moments that create anger arise, you create compassion instead. From there, you can move forward into a much better relationship.

Stosny is really good at teaching the step-by-step methods you can use. He calls it HEALS, and he recommends practice 12 times a day for 6 weeks. In all honesty, it took me longer than that and I still have to practice pretty much every day, but it is -so- worth it.

Here's a summary:
- For just a moment, really -feel- the anger.
- Think "HEALS!" (to remind yourself not to just sit there being angry)
- Take another few moments and really feel and then identify the emotion underlying the anger. (Disrespected, disregarded, unimportant, powerless, inadequate, unlovable)
- Remind yourself of your core values by
-- considering what you would do to rescue a child dying of thirst in the desert, even when you yourself are likely to die of thirst.
-- remembering the people you love
-- remembering your friends
-- remembering your community (yes, MB counts)
-- remembering the things in nature that are beautiful
-- remembering man-made things that are beautiful
-- remembering whatever you experience as a Higher Power (God, the Universe, etc.)
-- remembering compassionate things that you've done
-- remembering the most important aspects of who you are

- Think of a very small way that you can change the situation or your experience of it. NOT a big way. Just a small 5% change.
- Do that small 5% thing.


Much of what he does is also stuff that I had found in other books or figured out on my own, which gave me a good sense that it would work. Then I tried it on me, on adults I've worked with, on HoFS, even on DD. It worked on all of them.

It's particularly fun to do it with DD. We talk about comforting her dolly rather than a child in the desert, but inevitably, by the time we're done, her fury has turned to the sunniest mood imaginable. I've recently heard her, in the middle of a hysterical tantrum, trying to work it through herself with one of her teddy bears. It was so darned cute that I had to pause and listen for a few seconds before I went to comfort her.

try reading up on WATZLAWICK's Interactional View of communication. It talks much about these same cycles and what is need to break the cycle. Very eye-opening stuff to the patterns we develope in a relationship. Ask your counselor if they are familiar with this theory, too. it states that we play home-made games with home-made (mostly unspoken) rules, and the goal is to maintian the status quo, which keeps us locked into unhealthy patterns - until someone is willing to step outside of the game and new rules are established.

Oh, and a couple of really good books on related subjects (compassion and forgiveness) are:

Ethics for the New Millenium and The Wisdom of Forgiveness, both by the Dalai Lama.

The first is a highly theoretical book. It's tough to read. The second is much more approachable and astonishing in its wisdom. Much of it focuses on the Dalai Lama's efforts to forgive the Chinese -- who overran his country and slaughtered many of his people. Truly remarkable.

I don't necessarily feel misrepresented because I understand that the things Patriot said are from his perspective and that's okay with me.

From my perspective, I don't see the primary issue as being the methods of dealing with anger as much as it is the reason for the anger being there in the first place, but I do agree that once the anger is there, appropriately managing it could avoid compounding the situation.

I don't feel safe to express any negative emotion to Patriot about anything - even if it has nothing to do with him.

If I do express negative emotion, even if it is done in non-blaming and non-attacking manner, he seems to have a difficult time with it. He seems to take responsibility for my feelings and become overwhelmed with a sense of failure and a desire to control it. When he cannot avoid or control my feelings, he becomes extremely angry and volatile.

Once that takes place, I begin to feel not accepted because I experienced a negative emotion. I also become fearful of his anger and fearful of being abandoned - emotionally because he is unable to be there for me during those times, and ultimately literaly abandoned because I cannot avoid experiencing negative emotions or disapproval from time to time.

I would like for it to be okay to express that I didn't like something, or that I felt sad or disappointed or lonely without it making him feel like a failure.

I would like comfort while I experience a negative emotion.
I would like comfort while I work on my own personal issues, and feel these growing pains. I would like reassurance if I feel afraid.

I do not expect him to endure personal attacks in order to do this.

It is okay for him to walk away during a discussion and not be accused of abandoning me.

But, if there is a time that it happens and I FEEL abandoned, I need time and understanding and to be allowed to feel that way while I work through that process for myself.

It is very difficult for me to work on my own personal issues if my feeling the way I feel in the first place only triggers his personal issues.

I have no idea how to overcome that and I understand that he is trying the very best that he is able.

This sounds to me like you are both in 100% Taker mode, and the problem can be described as "How can I get my partner to be happy with what *I* want?"

Do neither of you gain satisfaction and a "patriot fix" or a "frozen fix" by *giving* something to your partner as well as just looking for ways to satisfy your Taker?

How are both you at POJA?
Mulan

Hmm... I'm EN #1 quality time too.
I give great massages and love getting them too.
How's that for a touch/quality time combination? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I do think you 2 are doing a great thing - both of you - by beginning to understand what makes the other "tick".
Next step is not to take it personally anymore.. or try to that, step by step.. not easy but very worthwhile.

My counselor once advised us to let one of us talk for, say, 10'. The other person does not interrupt. Then you switch positions and the other talks, not being interrupted again by the other one.
The idea is that you can see the flow of thoughts and feelings of your partners - that he/she can feel safe to express them - and that you learn to see that it really is all about them, not about you.
We all come into M's with a "package" of emotions, waiting to be stirred by the right/wrong circumstances.
The whole package is what attracts us to the partner: parts of it might shock us..

Counseling with a counselor that feels good to both of you would certainly be worthwile.
It's so hard to look at things as objectively as a counselor can when you're right in the middle of them.

Hang in there guys..
This journey is worth every step of the road.

Waitaminit.. there's no "conflict" in your different ways of connecting. It should actually work really great, if you work together. If your language is really "touch", then you should be able to talk with her, while touching her. you should be feeling good about that, and that should help you listen to her.

Similarly.. i think she wants to be HEARD.

ironically, you claim that what you want is touch, even in silence.. but you're not doing enough of the whole silence thing :P

IF you would just sit next to her, touching, and 90% listen... it would probably help both of you.

I'm sure that there are better ways that she could put things about how "your ways hurt her". Maybe you could suggest better ways to phrase things, when they come up, and her words hurt you.

But for your part, try to remember that she is bringing these things up, becuase she wants to be with you. She wants to be with you, but the hurt from you is making it difficult for her to be with you. Her touch should show you that she does want to be with you. Let that reassure you, as you listen to difficult words from her.

I love touch. If it were me, I would want to be in my wife's arms, laying with my back against her, with her holding me, and stroking my hair, as she tried as gently as possible to tell me the things that bother her.
I would try to listen without speaking as much as possible, and console myself with her loving touch. and then... when she is done describing things, respond lovingly and appropriately, verbally.

Frozen, i hope this helps you too. I also hope that you will stick to ONE issue a day, if you use this method. More than that, and he will feel "hopeless" again.

Patriot and Frozen,

I find this thread fascinating. I don’t know if you two see the irony of this situation or the interesting juxtaposition of points of view. Permit me to quote you both back to back so that you can see what I think I see.

Here goes.

Patriot you said
Are you really emotionally unavailable? I wonder. Look at what Frozen said
Do either of you see the irony of this? It seems to me if Patriot were really emotionally “unavailable” what Frozen says happens would not happen. She could not reach him, much less make him so defensive. It seems to me that in a very odd way, Patriot is too emotionally available and oddly almost too connected to Frozen. Patriot you even take responsibility for feelings that have nothing to do with you.

Do you see why you have a problem with anger and volatility when you cannot control or avoid her feelings? It seems to me you “feeling” what she is saying rather than LISTENING to what she is saying. Then you DJ (assume it is about you) and that leads to resentment, which leads to anger.

Patriot it seems to me that you need to admit that you are in fact emotionally available to Frozen, but your deep sense of protection and wanting to solve her problems prevents you from just letting her express her feelings. Oddly, this makes me feel that you two have a real future, but it will require you both to understand the others “weaknesses” as well as their needs.

If any of this makes sense then I have a few thoughts about how to approach each other, but first Patriot why don’t you tell Frozen why you feel such a strong need to protect her and solve her problems for her?

My thinking is that oddly you are DJ’ing one another, but more interestingly yourselves.

I look forward to your thoughts.

God Bless,

JL

Patriot and Frozen,

My husband and I could have easily written your posts six months ago. Or six years ago. Or 16 years ago. We had the same vicious cycle in our marriage for almost its entire two decades length.

My husband disliked negative emotion of any kind displayed by anyone, but he could not tolerate them at all from me. For him, it goes back to a childhood ruled by a raging father.

My husband grew into adulthood believing that anger, sadness, disappointment, frustration and all their sister "dark side" feelings were inherently bad, wrong, dangerous and something to be avoided at all costs.

I viewed them as just a part of life. And I believe expressing emotions in a respectful way to be the proper thing to do. He believed the exact opposite -- that exressing a feeling was inviting or requiring someone else to do something about it.

Part of that difference is explained by cultural conditioning -- the difference between male and female communication styles. But in our case, and it sounds like in yours, the issue went beyond simple gender differences.

Anyway, he would end up getting incredibly defensive and usually striking out at me by implying or stating outright that I was inferior for having "negative" emotions. It was like my bad feelings were a personal affront or a personal condemantion of him -- even when he had nothing to do with creating them.

His disapproval of my feelings felt like manipulation to me. Like him trying to control what I felt or at least what I expressed. And I would respond to that with anger, and frankly often in disrespectful ways like sarcasm or name-calling. To me, his attempt to squash my feeling was taking gasoline and compressing it -- sooner or later that was going to cause an explosion.

We eventually overcame this through using a technique that Harville Hendrix (the Imago therapy guy) calls "the container". It's detailed in his book Getting the Love You Want, but the jist of it is teaching a defensive partner to "hear" their spouse's anger/sadness without taking ownership or responsibility for it.

I can't really explain how it works here adequately without making it sound goofy and new age. Get the book and read about it. Believe me, my husband is the least new age of men and it works beautifully for him.

We also did a variation of an exercise that someone mentioned earlier. In this exercise a spouse who feels unheard spends 15 minutes detailing to their spouse their thoughts/feelings about anything/everything. Both positive and negative thoughts and feelings. This is done in a stream of consciousness kind of monologue and your spouse must sit and listen without any response at all. The next day, the roles are reversed. You are supposed to do this for two weeks. It was amazing to us how much we could hear when we were actually prevented from reacting/responding. When all you can do is listen, that is all you end up doing. And when you listen, you begin to understand.

What we found is that the first couple days of doing this is pretty painful. It was tough for him because I had a lot of resentments and pain and anger to share with him. It was tough for me because he didn't open up much at all at first except by saying that he felt attacked. But by the end of the first week, that dynamic had started to change.

Because I felt I had been heard, I didn't need to keep repeating the vitriol. And because I was less vitriolic, and because he was feeling stronger for having withstood my deepest pain and anger, he started to open up.

By the end of the second week, I had almost nothing to say that was negative. And neither did he. And yet we felt closer and more connected than we ever had.

The tension level is our house is probably 5 percent of what it used to be. Although we both still fall into our old traps of anger/defensiveness on occasion, we can usually recognize and correct it pretty quickly.

Tru

U both realize that each gender has a different way of communicating right? This includes the language of love. Oh yea....and [email]s@x.[/email] <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Read His Needs/Her Needs..... u did already? Read it again.....together again this time. Really read it, the practice what you have read.

Find that happy medium of communication. Some his way and some her way. Do it for each other and to each other.

JMHO and cuz it works. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

L.

Patriot

I'm interested in hearing your point of view here, as it pretty much echoes my H's 'problem'.

With us the equations are...

Happy TA = successful, loveable H

Unhappy TA = unsuccessful, disapproved-of H

But H knows he has not made TA unhappy, so feels angry and resentful that TA is sad.

So if I exist in a Stepford-type state of mild cheerfulness, we are a happy partnership. If I am sad, worried or scared...and show this to H...he is instantly distanced and hostile.

It's a boundary problem, H is taking responsibility for areas which are not his to take responsibility for. At the same time, he's not taking responsibility for things which are within his domain of responsibility.

Not his responsibility: fixing my problem, making me happy (my happiness is my responsibility), not making me unhappy through carelessness or selfishness.

His responsibility: hearing my problem, responding to legitimate requests for support or changes of behaviour.

But the difficulty starts with his resistance to hearing my problem (because he can't fix it), and gets worse through his unwillingness to respond to my requests because of autonomy issues.

At present, I go into the spare room to cry because if I show him I'm hurting he becomes hostile and spiteful, and then loathes himself for doing so.

I think my part in this is to consistently have the courage to tell him I'm hurting, and ask him just to hold me, and give him time to learn it's possible to live with the fear of someone else's pain.

We're not quite there yet.

TA

Yes yes yes!

Men need something to fix, something to do.
The more things you can ask him to do to help you, the better, most likely.

I'm guessing that ideally, if you start with "i'd really appreciate if you would do X for me, because that helps me with Y", rather than "I feel so bad because of Y; could you maybe do X?" it would be easier on him.

IF the reasons you are feeling sad/unhappy are because of him(and stuff he does/says to you,or does not do); the only way they will get better, is if you TELL HIM about it, and what he can do to help make it better.
IF you dont see a way to make it better, then ask an MC for suggestions, if your H cant deal with brainstorming solutions with you.

If the problems are not with him... then maybe you would be best off finding a safe same sex heterosexual friend to talk them out with.

I know that you probably want your husband to be your best friend and confidant. Sounds like he isnt capable of that at this point in your lives though.
Rather than forcing that out of him, maybe you just need to focus on getting all your other EN's met by him, if that is something you could be happy with.

If your H loves you, he'll want to fix your problems. If you come to him with things that cannot be fixed, then in his mind right now, you are showing him to be a failure as a husband and a man.
His extreme reaction to this, sounds like an overload from repeated things like this. I suggest that you try to completely back off from this typeof thing, and let him recover. Then maybe in a few months(like 4+), after he has had time to heal, consider joint MC about it. Due to his past issues, he wont be able to heal completely; but he will at least be able to recover from feeling inadequate with you. He needs his marital confidence built up again.
Meantime, find that safe friend, I'd suggest.

bump

Thank you for all the responses. I appreciate them.

Mulan, I am not writing your idea off, but I don’t think I am trying to make her happy with what ‘I’ want. It is more along the lines of she is unhappy about something and I take ownership of it. Now… if it is my fault, probably a good thing I own it and try to mend the situation and stop the destructive behavior. If it isn’t my fault, then there really is nothing for me to mend, so to say. The problem is, I know I can’t fix some of her reasons for being upset because they are not caused by me.. but if I take ownership of them like I did cause them, then I have taken ownership of a problem I did not begin… and therefore can not end. An unsolvable problem, from my input. When that happens, I still feel like a failure because I couldn’t fix the issue, and in my mind because I know I didn’t do the crime, I lash out for having to do the time. Does that make sense? It is wrong to take ownership of a problem that I did not cause. Also, it is wrong to lash out at her for having feelings anyway. So, those are two things I will work on.

Brownhair, thanks for the idea on a method of communication that might facilitate a fix for this issue. Actually, yesterday we had a discussion about a feeling she was having, and I thought we were able to discuss it pretty well. I did not understand exactly what she was feeling in the beginning(and in the past, I lacked patience to keep trying to get it) and I was able to keep asking questions and try to mirror what she was saying until I got it right. It is something I need to continue practicing. Again, thank you for another idea on it.

Techie, I think you are right in that our two love languages should mix well. That is a good thing working for us I think. What messes things up is my taking ownership of her feelings as described above. And yes, she does want to be heard. Listening would be a great thing to practice on for me.

Just learning, I am going to need to think on your ideas… but I understand them for the most part. I will come back to it.

To the rest, I will respond again to the remainder and probably add to this, but I have to get back to work right now. Thank you all again for your input.

TA,
What you describe with your H is close to the same with us, however, if she plays Stepford Wife, I hate that too, because she sucks at fake.

So, it comes down to me applying, actually, some of the things you mention. Not my responsibility - her feelings and reactions. My responsibility - try to provide for her needs and comfort her.

Getting a man to detach from owning resposibility in your feelings will be difficult. Men are such 'providers' most of the time.. and if you are unhappy... they are failures.

Just takes focusing on the problem, I suppose.

Thanks for responding.

Patriot mentions something about difficulty expressing himself. Frozen mentions feeling abandoned. I come from that communication theory and patterns of behavior. I think it helps to change some aspect of the pattern to shake things up.

My H and I have had some of these same issues in our 30 year relationship. I think I learned too well not to rely on my H for some of my needs and I just buried some of them. I am certain that he did the same thing.

some of the changes since beginning recovery from H's EA: H has agreed he should (as Dr. Harley recommends) tell me about what happened during the course of each day. He has never done this. If he had done this, it would have been 'in his face daily' that he was communicating with OW and not telling me about it. He claims and I believe him that he had no awareness of how many times he was communicating with OW. Again, if we had had the ritual of him telling me about his day, he would have at least had a better awareness of the fact that he was deceiving me about something.

Also, it is probably healthy to share a little bit about interactions of the day to get other needs like admiration met. I have been able to give him feedback and compliment him on situations re work that he shares with me.

Next--frozen's feeling of abandonment. I get this feeling all the time since discovery of the EA. I used to get it often when H and I were younger but over the last few years, I had frequently buried this feeling.

Now, I have been able to talk to H about these feelings and under what types of circumstances I feel abandoned. He is now able to hear me since his big "a-ha" (which was realizing he was deep into an EA when he thought he wasn't) So now he is looking out for putting me first above friends, extended family, and others. This has been sometimes hard for him because he likes to please others. I think sometimes he has not put me first and has put others before me because he has considered me to be part of him. (hope I explained this clearly)

The above paragraph is vague, I know. Here are some of the concrete ways that my H is showing me that I am not abandoned and that he is thinking about me and my needs:

Opens car door for me
Pulls out chair for me
opens door of building for me and allows me to enter
carries in heavy packages/parcels and tells our boys to help
leaves a clean towel out for me when I am in the shower
writes nice notes to me and leaves them where he knows I will find them
calls me on phone to say hello

These simple ways of caring for me--especially the car door opening thing--provide him with a built-in way to show he cares for me and is thinking about me. He actually feels very good about doing it and looks forward to it. It is a way that he can feel that he is doing something for me and therefore if not a "failure" numerous times a day.

I think these rituals that we have absented from our modern day lives are important and that they served a function. I don't think that modern day life has replaced other rituals and there is a gap. I know I used to try to explain this to H years ago but I didn't do a good job of it--unable to articulate it fully. We are children of the sixties and that time of freeing ourselves from those rituals.

I have been aware of my feelings of abandonment since his EA and I have been able to tell him I am feeling that way. We call it "being thrown overboard". That way, he can have an opportunity to pull me back on board.
Lake