Why is it SO difficult to manage anger? Just when I think I'm doing a great job controlling the anger flare-ups with the kids, I go and blow up at the husband.
It's like a volcano that needs to erupt somehow, or a water pipe that has to burst. You close up one hole and another opens up.
This tells me that I have not succeeded in truly calming myself, but have just suppressed my emotions. And this lid on the boiling pot of anger is as ineffectual in controlling the flow of anger as a finger plugging a hole in a sea wall (yes, Hans Brinkner, I'm looking at you)
So that begs the question, why is this volcano there in the first place? Why is it so easy to feed it?
Some things that increase anger:
a) Hunger
b) Multi-tasking while hungry
c) Reading a novel obsessively.
d) Not taking the time to have a general plan
My recent flare-ups have been caused by all four, but especially by (c) and (d). I've been reading "The Hidden Blade" and its sequel "My Beautiful Enemy" by Sherry Thomas and found them so fantastic that I have been reading them nearly continuously for more than a week now. So there's very little space in my mind for anything more serious. Which irritates the man no end and in turn, makes me really upset.
On-going attempts to control anger involve:
a) A few minutes of meditation. I really need to make more time for this.
b) A few minutes of planning every day.
c) Writing. It's amazing how much writing about this process is helping me. So I need to continue logging my thoughts and progress (or regress) and learning from them.
2 comments:
Hmm..I've been having bouts of extreme anger too, also directed at my spouse. Your earlier post was helpful - being proactive rather than a martyr. I'm trying to learn and also look at my faults - my main problem is I keep looking outward at other causes rather than at myself and I justify that my saying I'm already doing so much, why can't he step up and do some of the stuff?
Tej Bahadur! Good to have you back!
Would it help if I said that many Indian girls married to Indian men go through this phase of fury at their husbands for not even thinking about helping out in the house or out of it?
I certainly did!
Over time though, I've accepted it, learned about how to deal with it and moved on. My husband is good at many things, just not housework. There are so many bigger issues to fight about (!), this becomes fairly minor.
I also found that the times I was fighting with my husband over housework were the times that I felt out of control with other aspects of my life (MIL was 'acting up' and I hadn't yet figured out how to manager her, lab work was being stressful and unsatisfactory, undue pressure from others, etc). Realizing this was a big break- I could leave the griping about husband and focus on other things that I COULD change.
Of course, this is not to say that we never have these kind of fights now- we do. But we live to learn, after all.
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