Dave Carter, author of "Torn Asunder" has a chapter in his book titled:

Anger in Affairs: Getting Good Out Of Getting Mad .... chapter 9.

In part, Carter says:

"In my experience, male spouses often react with rage at their mate's affair, whereas female spouses express more hurt mixed with anger. Male spouses often want to kill the infidel's partner - and even choose to believe at times that their spouse was just a victim, that she was seduced, that she didn't willingly participate in the affair."

~~~ skipping around in the chapter a little bit ~~~~ Carter says:

"There are positive benefits to being good and angry at the infidel who has betrayed your joint commitment to each other.

IT SHOWS YOU CARE

You only get mad at things that really matter to you. Thus anger shows that the spouse cares about the relationship and values it.

Anger not only shows that you value the relationship, but it also tells you something about the nature of it. The level of anger upon disclosure of the affair demonstrates the level of relational intensity, and to a great degree, the identity of the relationship. For example, cruel anger often demonstrates that it is a cruel relationship; quiet anger may show that there is little emotional intensity between two mates. It is important to the couples recovery that the anger be appropriately expressed.

IT HELPS WARD OFF DEPRESSION

Anger, strangely enough, helps keep the spouse out of the downward spiral of depression. Usually depression is the result of repressing or denying appropriate feelings of anger. In contrast, expressing anger helps keep the overwhelming, black feelings of deptession away. Initially, the anger dumps all the responsibility upon the infidel, and that's to be expected. But that will change as the spouse begins to see beyond the infidelity to look at the overall relationship.

IT PROVIDES ENERGY

When you are angry, you have lots of energy. Anger provides energy to do the necessary work of recovery. Normally we think of anger-related energy as negative and destructive - and it can be, if not expressed appropriately. But when we are honest with ourselves and our mate about the hurt that we feel, that energy can be channeled toward a constructive recovery.

IT HELPS CLEAR YOUR MIND

Anger helps people think more clearly than, say, depression. Depressed people report confusion, mixed feelings, and withdrawl into silence. Expressed anger allows a persom to verbalize what is going on in his cognitive processes and therefore allows him to strategize and reason more effectively.

In the anger phase following disclosure, the spouse needs a clear head. She is about to begin the confusing process of sorting out the tangled webs that she, the infidel, and the partner have woven.

IT HELPS YOU SURVIVE

Anger is a natural consequence of being injured or hurt. Justifiable anger is part of the survival mechanism that God has built within us.

~~~~~ more later~~~~~

Pep <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

wow this might even make up for the diamond ring I lost in one of my angry moments last July (2002) where I pulled all of his clothes out of the closet and his dresser and threw them on the floor.

I symbolically was throwing him out ... at one point I spun to reach something behind me and throw it into the pile and he thought I was going to deck him and ducked (can't say I didn't get a slight amount of pleasure when I saw him duck) ..

But in all the throwing stuff into the pile on of my loose rings (I had lost 50 lbs) flew off and I have yet to find it.

Knowing that my anger was beneficial to me however, now makes up for the loss somewhat.

Thank pepper
way2

<small>[ September 04, 2003, 01:21 AM: Message edited by: way2 ]</small>

In February 2002, I think I killed a whole bunch of sagebushes in Utah that I had renamed "Rat Meat." You see, I'd had a number of barley sodas that day, and I really had 2 pee.

Worked, 2.

-2long

<small>[ September 03, 2003, 11:16 PM: Message edited by: 2long ]</small>

I think I remember underlining a lot of the anger stuff WAY BACK when I read Torn Asunder last fall...I remember reminding myself that being angry was a good thing after reading it...thanks for the thought-provoking refresher Pep!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Anger not only shows that you value the relationship, but it also tells you something about the nature of it. The level of anger upon disclosure of the affair demonstrates the level of relational intensity, and to a great degree, the identity of the relationship. For example, cruel anger often demonstrates that it is a cruel relationship; </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hmmm....my H was strangely calm throughout a lot of it, so maybe the relationship intensity wasn't as strong as I thought? He also liked to refer to me with angry and nasty names like "whore" so maybe that indicates a cruel relationship? Something to wonder about I guess.

Jen

More Carter .... from chapter 9:

"Part of what fuels the tendency to obsess about the affair is the bewilderment that comes from betrayal. There is a tendency to ask more and more details, as if sufficient information will take the pain away. The spouse often asks unanserable questions, such as, Why? How could you do this to me? Why did you do it with him (her)? It can go on relentlessly, causing sleeplessness, physical symptoms, untold mental anguish, and in the extreme case, suicide.

Some amount of obsessing is natural, but when it persists and the spouse is unable to get it under control, it becomes dysfunctional. In that sense, it causes the spouse to get stuck and unable to move on to processing the other issues that will yield healthy recovery.

Obsession is cyclical rage that is self-perpetuating. It emerges in the following pattern:"

~~~~ Here Carter has a diagram which is essentially a circle with arrows all moving clockwise. The diagram is titled:

"THE OBSESSION CYCLE

Hurt surfaces ----> Asks same questions; needs new details ----> When the infidel fails to answer satisfactorily ----> Rages and or weeps then withdraws ----> Depression / obsession builds ----> Hurt surfaces ----> Asks same questions "(as it circles back into the cycle)

~~~~ back to the text~~~~

"Obsessing is a defense mechanism that allows you to not process your own hurt and contribution to the affair.

There will be no recovery without both parties accepting their appropriate share of their contribution to what happened. Otherwise, the one who refuses to accept responsibility is powerless to influence the outcome. The greater contribution each party assumes for the affair, the more control he / she has over the final outcome.

The tendency to ruminate on the affair should be a signal to the spouse that it is time to do more processing. As the unanswerable questions and uncontrollable emotions surface, they should be expressed constructively. Crying long and hard over the hurt alone, especially at the outset, is helpful. Talking it through with your mate is a must.

It is common for couples to report that the tendency to obsess ebbs and flows through the recovery process. The spouse often reports intense obsession shortly after the revelation period. As time passes, however, your obsession periods should become less intense, have a shorter duration, and be further apart from each other."

~~~~~ More later~~~~

I think I should read this book...

I had two MAJOR blowouts - first was about 4 mos after DDay - we had come home from a party and we were making midnight snack....which ended up all over the kitchen...

Then was after New Year's Eve -about 8 mos after DDay - I LOST it big time and actually slapped my H!! (I was VERY inebriated).

I've also sat myself down more than once and had long blubbering cries about it all.

I'm not doing any of this anymore but in the initial stages of recovery...well, different story.

let me get this right...i actually have a good excuse for being a raging lunatic.....cool!!!

just kidding....keep going pepper....i really appreciate this and your other posts.

Back to carter:

"IF THE SPOUSE DOES NOT RESPOND WITH ANGER

Some spouses, even upon disclosure of the affair, continue their codependent, dial-tone relationship, instead of getting angry. They deny their emotions in the name of not rocking the boat or being a good Christian and end up freezing the recovery process, dooming it to failure.

Again, it takes two to tango: (1) both the spouse and the infidel create a marital environment where an affair takes place, and (2) it takes both parties to put the relationship back together following disclosure. If one party refuses to participate (in this case by not getting angry), the process is stymied.

Does it take two to tango if your spouse was addicted to pornography for 16 years and you didn't know it until after the divorce? I have wondered that now since i found out in June. I am mixed because I know that I used to get so mad and could be so impatient, yet 90% of the time I was mad and impatient is because of his apathetic attitude on life and on me and his forgetfulness. And now that i know his addiction, it makes sense that he was so out of it. So if I had known this I could have saved years of wondering why it is this man who claims to love me could be so scarily distant. Now don't get me wrong, I have changed in that I try to control my temper and I don't sweat the small stuff.....and I pray for my future husband if God wills and I pray for me to be a wife who feels PRIVILEGED to be a Godly wife and to take care of a man. Instead of just taking for granted what I have. But I just get such conflicted emotions because I feel that my whole relationship was a lie and I never really knew my ex.
hmmmmmmm. maybe this should have been on a different thread, but the 2 to tango thing got me started.

uh oh did I kill this thread?!

You owe me one, adgirl! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Whoa...I posted for awhile weeks ago then resorted to lurking only, taking breaks when it got too painful, but this thread really struck a nerve.

As you can see from my sig line I have been a very slow learner and I can see how deadly my repressed anger has been. I go to a church where forgiving is of course encouraged, so after D-day I forgave and went about my life with no one knowing of the hole in my heart. I had a smile on my face and a deep pit of despair opening up very slowly beneath my plastic facade.

I did get angry at first, but mostly just withdrew in hurt disbelief. It rocked my world, so many of you can identify with my weight loss, sleepless nights, my feet even started getting clammy and sweaty which was a new sensation. My H was sorry, but the more he said "I'm sorry" with no depth or insight added to what he had done (3 year EA/ PA with coworker) the more frustrated I got. No counseling. I read books but they were the wrong sort, encouraging the wife to 'grin and bear it and forgive'.

I wrongly added an on-line EA of my own to muddy the waters and after ending that was so starved emotionally that I finally told my H that we needed counseling and would have to make our relationship work or I would have to divorce to maintain emotional sanity. He was as always, quietly frustrated, unable to talk or process our pain. We have started counseling and that has helped.

Anyway, I don't mean to thread jack, just wanted to share with humble remorse my reaction yesterday. We were talking, I have printed several threads from MB for H to read, wanting so badly to be understood. He was sympathetic, but unable to talk about it, just said, "I am sorry I have driven you so crazy". That caused a major eruption. I was yelling and screaming, called him an [censored] hole and said that I hated him. As soon as the words came out I was so ashamed and astounded at the depth of my anger. He left for work. I am sure I hurt him and he just doesn't know how to make me feel better.

Just wanted to say from experience that Carter and Pep are right, suppressed anger is harmful, caused depression for me, stagnation for our recovery. Get it out immediately. After our D-day I don't think my H ever fully realized the depth of my pain, just wanted to stuff it all and move on. It doesn't go away. You all may have little respect for someone like me who failed to process our problems and deal with them in a more mature way. But I was struggling for survival. I was pregnant with our 3rd during his A and had a 4 year old and a 6 year old and managed to take care of them and the newborn and just didn't have the emotional energy to do more at the time.

Just venting here. Glad to see anger is normal and helpful. Properly expressed I can see it could have warded off a lot of pain.
ByGrace not always acting very gracefully

Couple of thoughts...

We can choose what to do with our anger.

1. We can choose to repress and supress it. Repression means turning anger on self, where it eats you alive.

2. We can choose to express it. Expressing anger does not mean that it is ok to scream, rage and attack someone else. I learned in Al-Anon that when I express my anger at another person, the person that I am angry at does NOT have to be involved in my expression. I can go out to the garage, and punch a punching bag and scream at the top of my lungs. I can write my heart out in my journal. I can write hateful angry letters to the person I am angry at - and throw them away when I am finished.

Too often I have chosen to repress my anger and virtuously patted myself on the head for "forgiving". Repressed anger is not forgiveness, it is denial.

Forgiveness is only possible once the anger is processed and let go--not supressed and denied.

Way2, I'm still stuck on your rings after reading all this great info here. Dig through each piece of clothing very carefully. Do not vacuum that room. LOL
If you lost them in the house, they have to still be there.
I, on the other hand, hit a lamp so hard I took over 10K value off my ring!
Oh well, it wasn't worth it anyway since the value was not in the stone, but the vows and meaing behind them that had already been destroyed in my mind.
ANGER? This is very good reading here, Pepper. Thanks for posting it.
How about the Anger of the WH against the BW though? I could see if wife was the infidel, but it's reversed?
I found the part about anger warding off the depression very interesting as I'd already suffered severe depression prior over another A that was kept secret from me from 18 yrs prior.When it all came out, I went way deep and suicidal.
So I determined rather than allow anything or anyone to put me back in hell, I would become Rambo to avoid that!
And thankfully, I've avoided the serious depression, and only having bouts that last very short time and I can pull away from it.
One thing I've learned most of all from that period in my life and counseling, is that no person on this earth is worth that. If they can cause that much damage to their spouse, they don't deserve the consideration i'd give a dead snake.
My H knew why I went through it and lasted 5 yrs, saw me lose weight, try suicide, heart attack, and 8 months after the heart went and contacted an old HS sweetheart,starting up another A!
Perhaps all I went through prepared me for that time that came. They say you can always find something good from the ashes.
My good was the strength to see this person for who he is and make up my mind he isn't worth my health, or the type of love I once had for him.
I used to truly believe if something happened to him, I'd not live long as I loved so much.
Now I know and so does he, that I would not only go on, but ensure I found happiness with another marriage.
He wants that woman back. She isn't coming back. Anger has been my rock to get me to this point and I'm very proud of it!
It has taken feeling it all to reach this point of not being taken for granted ever again.
Unfortunately, though he wants the docile, loving, pampering wife back, he thinks nothing was lost. Says he gave nothing away and that it's all still mine. Nothing was lost!
The only way I can think he will ever know truth is when he stands before God, and if justice is done, he will feel everything I once had in my heart, what he did to it and what was left afterward.
Only then will he know what he had and what he lost.
Sadly, it will be too late to amend that here.
LouLou

My point is this ....

anger = bad ...... NOT TRUE

anger = good ..... not true either

emotions just "are" ..... without ethical meaning

There was a previous thread that got me thinking about this ....

In one of my Al-Anon meetings (a while back) we discussed "just feeling the feelings" .... without ethical judgements

Carter said "Getting good out of getting mad" ..... which to me is not saying that the anger in and of itself is "good" but what you do with it that can have a "good" outcome.

Carter talks about how so often a Christian who is a betrayed spouses feel guilty FOR GETTING REALLY MAD upon discovery of ADULTERY!!!!

Whoa!

Pep

BrambleRose said:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Expressing anger does not mean that it is ok to scream, rage and attack someone else. I learned in Al-Anon that when I express my anger at another person, the person that I am angry at does NOT have to be involved in my expression. I can go out to the garage, and punch a punching bag and scream at the top of my lungs. I can write my heart out in my journal. I can write hateful angry letters to the person I am angry at - and throw them away when I am finished.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I got this part right. I can't tell you how many times I've screamed terrible things in my car on the Interstate to the OW and H about how much they hurt me. It helped me at the time and neither of them would have cared to listen then.

Of course I'm sure I looked like a raving lunatic to other drivers, but that wouldn't be a first either!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

No, Adgirl! It was me <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> I killed this thread! I'm sorry Pep!

And it was s-o-o-o-o good...I'm bumping it up cause it's important to someone tonight! I promise not to post...I'll just read. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

Well I killed it first. Maybe someone could read my post and give me some insight or if not, then I will be quiet too while we get other opinions <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Well this was a great thread for me because this is just were I am. I've always been somewhat passive and not wanting to make waves. I've learned alot about myself in the last year and feel like a totally new person. With this newness I've suddenly gotten mad. My counselor has been telling me to express my anger and not hold it in as I've been doing for years hence 70 lbs lol. But then I read SAA and it says to only give your spouse good instances and no LB so I was confused as to anger. I think you've clarified it. The other night I just couldn't hold it in. I'm def not a screamer or yeller but calmly told my WS how mad I am at him that I realize my part in it but to fall in love with my best friend was so cruel. Of course he has no feelings for me so my "outburst" didn't even effect him except he said this is something you need to discuss with our counselor. But at least I got it out. And I've been wondering how I get over my anger at my "best" girlfriend since I never hope to see her again and of course she feels like she has done no wrong. And after reading this I think I'll write her a long letter and probably never send it but just get it out. Thanks.
And your ring story reminds me that this same "best" friend is the one who 20 years ago went to pick out my wedding ring with my soon to be husband. She was also maid of honor at our wedding and her husband was best man. gosh so many memories that are painful.