In case you missed it, read this post by markos.

Answer: My therapist is exploring the root of the problem. I have no idea what the plans are except I talk and talk and talk about what makes me angry and why.

That will get you nowhere fast.
NOTHING can MAKE you angry. As long as you have a therapist that dwells on that, you will get nowhere.
You need to get into an anger management program that teaches you how to relax in the face of frustration.

For heaven's sake - what is THAT supposed to achieve?

Why aren't you in proper anger management which will teach you, rather than just charge you to vent.

Talking about what makes you angry completely misses the point - YOU make you angry. You need coaching, not being swindled.

If your therapist was worth anything, she would have given you exercises to do from the first day. You would be focusing on stopping the problem of anger, from day one. The very fact that she gets you to talk about your feelings, rather than STOP the behaviour, shows that she does not know what he is doing.

Is your therapist an anger management specialist, or is she an individual counsellor who deals with any and all issues?

Please find a qualified anger management therapist who teaches relaxation techniques. Flapping your gums about what makes you angry isn't helpful.

I see you said this:

Does your therapist know about the latest incident, and that your wife has asked you to leave? What is her response and advice?

Did you ever tell her what you said to your wife about how sad it would be if your kids ended up with only one parent - the day you threatened to kill her? What was the therapist's response?

What was her response to your breaking back into the house?

So you're never going to be tired again?



The problem is you are still on the very far side of the spectrum. You may be conquering each habit one by one - but you are talking about very extreme habits. There are lots of (quite serious) mistakes still in your habit bag.

You are someone who is always bringing up the past. You think a speech about why you are right about something will achieve a good outcome. You think other people make you angry. Being tired after work is enough to make you angry.

You still have a lot of predictable mistakes still to make. Disrespect for example, is anger's little brother.

You can avoid subjecting your wife to these things by moving out while you conquer them and learn how to handle conflict.

For example, say your wife tells you she isn't going to clear up in the way you've asked her to. She's just saying no to that. How would you tackle that refusal?

Step #1 is acknowledging that you aren't entitled to your anger, period! Who cares why you get angry? As long as YOU think you have the right to, you are going to do it. Like with your being hot and exhausted excuse.

So it's clear now that you haven't listened to Dr Harley's clips on stopping AOs. Are you planning to do so? When?

Maybe he will listen this time??

Anger Management 101

WHAT I LEARNED IS:

1) No one makes me angry. I am in complete control of my anger.

2) I can identify the incidents that make me have angry outbursts, me is also frustruation. I can either blame my wife or other people and get angry or look for a solution.

3) I understand why the angry outbursts take place.
- Pre-affair, our sexual problems made me feel frustruated, and I chose to break things around, which was unhealthy and intimidated her more. Any decision that was not my way got me frustruated as a follow up of the previous frustruation reason, and I chose to be angry and I used more intimidation, since it got me what I wanted.
- Post reading chats of affair, after shock of the pain associated with being betrayed, I used the affair as secondary gain, it got her to do everything I wanted her to do. It became a destroying habit to get things done my way that got me angrier inside and resentment grew at an alarming rate. I felt she didn't deserve me trying to control my temper. I got offended when she disagreed with anything or did anything that was not my way, as I felt entitled to having her make it up at all costs and in any condition, and I chose to punish her in each incident instead of solving the particular problem.

4) Any time I feel frustruated, I need to relax. I have done this before. I chose to stop using it and continue the punishment.

5) I did not see it as punishment, but as a lesson. I am in no condition to punish anyone for their mistakes. I have experienced that doing so heats me up more and more until I no longer feel in control. When I become angry, I become insane, and I can't solve problems. I might do something that I might regret. That did not mitigate any of the pain of the affair, but rather kept it present and made it grow.

6) I have justified each AO with her past mistake or her present action that frustruated me. I won't justify more angry outbursts.

7) My job as her husband is to protect her instead of punish her. At which point did this switch? I can't remember, but I have to protect her from outside world as well as from me, and get my anger under control.

We have agreed on a temporary separation, while she visits her sister, who is about to have a baby. We will be in touch by skype.
I will continue reading and listening to Dr. Harley's radio shows related to anger management, angry outbursts and related topics. I will prove to her when she returns I will no longer have any more angry outbursts. I have given up the entitlement I gave myself for her mistake (HUGE MISTAKE). I can't say I forgive her, that is something too painful, but I don't want to think about it or use it to my gain to get my way. I want to be in love with her again, and want her to be in love with me too, and have a happy marriage next to her and be equal partners.

Glad to hear you've done some listening and some learning.

Will you find a good anger management program that will teach you to relax instead of vent?
Will you get a GSR meter to help you in relaxation training?
Will you agree to never bring up her past affair again?

What you have written about anger and angry outburts is very to the point.
Forgiveness is a difficult thing to grasp. You know they say that
"the best revenge is living well". That is what you want to accomplish. Not bringing up the affair is a first step. What is more important is to not delve into it in your mind. As you have found out in the past this brings you nothing but bad moods and makes you unhappy.

The mind is a funny thing. If you think about a certain subject for more than 2 minutes, your mind will bring about the feelings that go with it. May it be your first schoolday or the day your grandfather died. The same with bad thoughts about affairs.
If you take care to think about something else within 2 minutes, it will not affect you that much. This also works with happy memories that will lift your mood.

This 2-minute rule has helped me tremendously in managing traumatic memories from the past and may be helpful to you. One of the things that have made you so unhappy, is brooding over nasty things from the past. Instead think about the good times and how to bring them back.

A wife who is in love with her husband knows nobody who compares to him, because her feelings revolve around him. Once you start rebuilding your marriage, those feelings come back and any other man wil be a vague nothing, especially if you never bring such a subject up.

That is why it is so important to keep the love alive in your marriage by extraordinary care and spending fun and affectionate time together. What you have done in the past was the opposite and would tempt any woman to fantasize about a knight in shining armour. You can turn your marriage around bit by bit and overcome your problems. This will take some work, but like building a house, you will have to remove the rubbish from the premise and make a good foundation.

I won't bring the affair up. I hadn't brought it up since we agreed on it, except only twice last month, and I don't plan to bring it up anymore, because I don't want to think about it. I don't mean to dwell in the past but there is just something I don't understand. I was never a romantic person. That is not who I am. That is not how I ever was. All of the sudden I am suppose to be romantic:

She has affection and admiration as her two top emotional needs, then intimate conversation then recreational companionship.

i don't know if we are actually compatible.

All my jokes are insults, all my conversation is disrespectful judgment now, but I have talked this way since we were boyfriends and she was happy before, now is suddenly always insulted. I don't really mean to say asnything to insult her. I feel she is trying to shape me to who she wants me to be yet I don't see her having to make many changes, while she never listens, never pays attention, is way messy, has zero feminine touches in our house, and keeps forgetting things. Then, I feel as though she feels embarrased of me being her husband. She does not concentrate in anything but her research.

I have woken up in a different perspective today. I don't know if I can keep this up. I like her company, yet we aren't compatible. I admit, AO and bringing up the affair do have to dissappear, but I don't feel like being romantic. I have never been like that with any girlfriend, I am not an affectionate person and I like my space. As an oly child, I have grown up alone, and my wife is like a cat.

I can handle and work on AO and temper. I can do all necessary measures to prpve that. i am hearing the rest of the radio shows on the topic. bit, I simply don't feel like sending romantic notes, when not even when I was completely insanely in love with her did I do that. Now, I am feeling as her being away, she can go off with any man and leave me, or get in touch with her ex again. I searched for him and found he is back on facebook, so she can easily find him too. I have the same stabbing feeling in my heart as d-day. He is the Don Juan type man of big words. He used so many phrases on my wife before, and she is so stupid and gullible she can actually fall for words, already did once, and that is what worries me.

Then your marriage has no hope, and she should stay separated from you.

[qoute]I won't bring the affair up. I hadn't brought it up since we agreed on it, except only twice last month,[/quote]
Then it is not true that you haven't brought it up.

Disrespectful judgments such as this will have to stop. She is no more stupid or gullible than you are. She has made poor choices. So have you.

I'm glad to see you've read and digested Dr Harley's work on disrespectful judgements, ProChoice!

If an insult is not a DJ, I don't know what is. Way to win your wife back!

Does the fact that she is stupid and gullible and falls for words explain why she went back to you after you sweet-talked her last week? Did you find a way to be good with words when you needed to be?

Have you read anywhere in Dr Harley's work that it's acceptable to call your wife "stupid"?

The Marriage Builders plan is a plan to restore feelings in marriage.

We can do things even when we don't feel like doing them. My kids often don't feel like doing what I ask them to do, but they can do it anyway.

If you will follow the steps that Dr. Harley suggests, even if you don't feel like it, your marriage will eventually recover, and you will feel wonderful!

We will be glad to talk with your wife about taking extraordinary precautions to ensure that she never has an affair again, like not having private communication with men.

Ok

But my point is, i am working very hard on anger management. While working on that some other guy can cross her life because ahe is alone. She is three hours away!!!! And I don't think we can survive one week, less one entire month. This forum and the reading also takes up a lot of my time.