Work Through Anger From Past Events

‘Russ has never been a docile person, but recently he’s developed an explosive temper,” says Pam, 41, a secretary who married her husband three years ago. “He was driving my car during rush hour the other day, when a driver ahead of us changed lanes without signaling. Russ began ranting and careening all over the expressway, trying to catch up with the guy so he could shake his fist at him.”

Pam was terrified by this irrational, dangerous behavior and didn’t know how to calm him down.

These days “he seems to be yearning for a brawl all the time, especially when his father calls - they argue for hours.” With her, he blows up before she can even finish a sentence. “My strategy has always been to pull back, which makes Russ even madder.”

Pam’s mother died when she was 11, and her overbearing father and four older brothers relegated her to a Cinderella-like role of endless housework. “Dad hated cry babies, so I saved my tears for when I was alone,” she recalls.

Pam put herself through junior college by working odd jobs, but she’d resigned herself to never marrying - until she met Russ. “He was like a breath of fresh air in my life,” Pam recalls. Russ worked hard and played hard. He taught her to ski and took her hiking. “He seemed so solid and dependable,” Pam sighs.

But last year “Russ quit his job and hasn’t worked since. When he’s not zipping around on his flashy new motorcycle, he’s lying in a hammock in the back yard. He never lifts a finger to help me - and he’s always irritable,” Pam says.

Pam suspects Russ is having some sort of midlife crisis. “But if he can’t control his temper long enough for us to have a civil conversation, how can I help him?”

“I know I’m angry all the time - and I can’t seem to calm down,” admits Russ, 39. “I looked at my life and realized how fed up I was. I’d held the same job for 15 years, without a sense of having achieved anything. I decided I needed time to sit in the sun and waste time.”

However, such idleness flies in the face of the lessons Russ was raised on. “I’d been working since I was 12 - I had a paper route, then after-school and weekend jobs. ” Meeting Pam was the best thing that ever happened to Russ. “I don’t want to lose her, and I know my outbursts scare her,” he admits. The problem is, his behavior scares him, too.

Taking the heat out of your anger

“We’ve all had experiences from our past - with parents, siblings, friends, co-workers - that shape how we think, feel and react now,” notes Susan Heitler, author of “The Power of Two”. Many people are aware of this but, like Russ, don’t understand how these experiences can affect relationships.

Counseling helped Russ connect his anger with his father’s push for perfectionism and control; it helped Pam realize she had never fully grieved for the loss of her mother or learned to deal effectively with the the bullying behavior of her father and brothers.

As Pam discussed these issues, she felt stronger and more assertive and her demeanor changed. However, Russ was still stuck in the rut of exploding angrily whenever something upset him or didn’t go his way.

The following strategy, from Heitler, can help keep anger from escalating:

First, shift your focus from the person you are mad at to yourself, so that you can better understand what is happening.

Then ask yourself three key questions: What do I want? How can I get what I want without having to get my partner to change? Aside from my partner’s actions, how did the problem happen?

Russ used this technique the next time his father called and criticized him for wasting his life. Instead of slamming the phone down he asked himself: What do I want? Realizing that he wanted to break his father’s hold on him once and for all, he came to counseling the next week and discussed, with Pam, ways he might deal with his father in the future.

Russ has learned to take deep breaths while his dad is speaking, then, to say calmly, “I hear you Dad, but I don’t agree” - and to quickly change the topic or end the conversation. These days, Russ is feeling calmer and more confident about himself. “I’m definitely seeing a mellower man,” Pam reports. “That anger was standing in the way of so many things. He’s affectionate and gentle, and more motivated now.”