Anger

by Gary D. Chapman

  As I questioned Rita further, she explained that Doug began to go to the gym after watching a video on fitness at his workplace and a coworker invited him to work out with him. She admitted, “I’m glad he’s taking care of himself. I’m sure he feels better. I probably should be working out myself, but I just don’t have time. I don’t think he has time either, but he’s making time. But it’s at our expense, as I see it.”

  It seemed apparent to me that Doug’s behavior did not fall into the category of immoral. What he was doing was not innately wrong. However, Rita had held on to her anger far too long. She needed to negotiate understanding. She needed to share with Doug what was going on inside of her—her thoughts, her feelings, her frustrations—not in a condemning manner but as information. And she needed to find out from Doug how he perceived these things; she needed to get information. But beyond that, this couple needed to come to a place of understanding, to find a way to meet all of their needs, and to help them reconnect with each other emotionally.

  I suggested that Rita request of Doug a time to talk and that she begin by saying something like the following: “I know that you love me and you are a good husband. What I want to share with you is not designed in any way to put you down. But I want our relationship to be open and genuine, and I feel that I must share with you some of the struggles that I’m having. Over the past few months, I’ve sometimes felt hurt, disappointed, and neglected. A lot of it focuses around you going to the gym three nights a week.

  “Please understand that I’m not against your efforts to stay in shape. I’m not even asking you to change that. I just want to share with you my struggles. My feelings focus on three specific areas. One, I feel that the kids are being neglected in terms of your helping them with their homework. I know that you still help them at night, but I have a concern that they’re not getting all the help they need. Secondly, I feel like it’s unfair that you get up from the dinner table and leave me to clean up on those three nights. And probably my biggest struggle is that I feel like I’m being neglected, that we don’t have time to talk like we used to talk. Sometimes, I even feel like you don’t want to talk with me, and I’m feeling a lot of distance between us. I felt it was unfair not to tell you about this because I need your help and your understanding.”

  My efforts were to help Rita share her struggles in a non-condemning manner, requesting understanding. That is my recommendation to anyone who, having recognized distorted anger and received information, needs to negotiate understanding. Sit down and express your need for understanding in a nonthreatening way.

  Then I encouraged Rita to listen to Doug’s response; not to try to counter what he said but rather to understand what he said. Then together they could seek to discover a way to meet her need for quality time with him, his need for physical fitness, the children’s need for help with the homework, and her need for a feeling of equity in household responsibilities.

  A month later Rita returned, and I was thrilled to hear that Doug had responded positively. In their conversation, he had assured her of his love; he agreed that together they would ask the children if they felt they were getting enough help with their homework, and if not, he was willing to make adjustments. He readily agreed to help her clean up the table before he went to the gym. He had not realized that this was a problem with her, and he agreed that they would make time for the two of them. In fact, for the past few weeks, they had been having lunch together two days a week, and he had arranged for a weekend away just for the two of them. If necessary, he was willing to cut back on his time at the gym, but Rita hesitated to encourage this after she saw Doug’s positive response to her concerns.

  Negotiating understanding is an important part of human relationships, whether the relationship be in the family, church, vocation, or any other area. All of us feel better about our relationships when we negotiate understanding. Even distorted anger indicates that something needs attention. Such anger seldom dissipates without open, loving communication between the parties involved.

  REQUESTING CHANGE

  In all human relationships, people will find certain behavioral characteristics irritating. Though the particular behaviors may differ, the resulting irritations often stir anger within us. For the most part, this anger is distorted in that the other person’s behavior is not morally wrong; he or she has not perpetrated an evil against us. If the relationship is a close relationship and the person is one with whom we spend a great deal of time, such as in family or vocation, it is sometimes helpful to seek to mitigate these irritations by requesting change. Please notice I say requesting, not demanding or manipulating. None of us responds well to those approaches.

  However, if we have a generally positive relationship, most of us tend to respond well to requests. For example, here’s an irritation that causes you anger in the workplace: Your colleague in the next cubicle tends to slurp her coffee while you are talking to a client in yours. You hear the sounds through the door and find it to be very offensive. After affirming her worth as a colleague, it is perfectly appropriate to request that she not drink coffee while you are seeing a client or that she learn to drink it silently. Chances are that a simple request will alleviate the source of your frustration and anger, especially if you make it clear that you are also open to her requests.

  The same principle applies in marriage and family relationships. Assuming a fairly good relationship, most husbands will respond to his wife’s request that he shave before going to the supermarket on a Saturday, especially if she makes her request after affirming her love for him and assuring him that her motive is that he look his best. Most wives will respond to the request to put their toiletries in a vanity drawer rather than littering the counter with them—if the husband makes his request after pointing out some positive traits about her and expressing his appreciation for all the other things that she does.

  The bottom line is that in most relationships, assuming we feel loved and respected by the other person, most of us are willing to make changes if they are couched in the form of a request rather than a demand. Such requests and subsequent changes can alleviate many of the irritating behaviors that stimulate anger.

  In my opinion, processing distorted anger is much easier than processing definitive anger. Finding constructive rather than destructive methods of processing both is our objective.

  QUICK TAKES

  HANDLING “BAD” ANGER

  1. Share information. Tell the other person about your concern and ask to talk about it. Be sure to focus on the situation that sparked your emotion, rather than on the person.

  2. Gather information. What are the facts?

  3. Negotiate understanding. Express your struggles; then listen to the other person’s response. Be honest.

  4. Request change. As long as you neither demand nor manipulate for a change, this can have a positive outcome.

  Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words.

  DR. JOYCE BROTHERS

  EXPLOSIONS AND IMPLOSIONS

  THE FLAME SHOT upward, fueled by a break in a city gas line. The line had ruptured when a private contractor, clearing land, clipped a gas pipe. At first just the pressurized gas poured out, hissing loudly. But within thirty minutes, a random spark had ignited the natural gas, which flamed skyward.

  Within minutes the fiery plume was almost five stories high, and only a few yards away from Chicago public housing that lodged senior citizens. Fortunately, police and others evacuated the residents from the building. But when the gas company finally stopped the fuel feeding the line, scores of people had been displaced, their housing gutted or scorched.

  Two months later, another explosion would displace Chicago residents. This time, though, the explosion was planned. A series of dynamite charges rigged by a demolition company popped in succession, and, one by one, four adjoining buildings at a different public housing project fell, crumbling to the ground and raising huge clouds of dust.

  But thi
s “explosion” was actually an implosion, with building materials falling inward; the destruction had been planned for months, as part of an ongoing project to replace crime-infested, rundown housing with new, low-rise developments. In fact, former residents and other spectators watched a safe distance away, some applauding.

  Which do you think was the more destructive event? Was it the gas-line explosion that charred the side of a building and left people without homes? Many would say yes. But in truth, both the gas explosion and the building implosion had equally destructive consequences. The imploding of the housing project destroyed more buildings and left many residents feeling a sense of loss for the home they had known for years. Likewise, implosive anger can be as damaging as explosive expressions of anger.

  We have looked at constructive ways of responding to anger in the last three chapters, but let’s be honest: Many of us have never learned to handle anger positively. We see that our responses to anger in the past have always made things worse. We find it hard even to believe that anger itself is not evil. We see the angry behavior of children, teenagers, and adults flashed before the world each day online and on TV, the crime and war and suffering that anger leaves in its path of destruction.

  How then can we recognize—and control—harmful expressions of anger?

  “I LOVE YOU TOO MUCH TO STAY AND LET YOU HURT ME”: EXPLOSIVE ABUSE

  Margaret was a screamer. When someone provoked her anger, whether child, husband, or employer, the person heard about it! Margaret prided herself on “speaking her mind.” “At least people know where they stand with me,” she often said. In truth, Margaret’s anger was out of control. Beginning as a teenager, she had fallen into a pattern of verbally abusive behavior that had continued for twenty-five years.

  Margaret justified her tirades until the day her daughter left her the following note. “Dear Mom, I won’t be home tonight. I can’t take your screaming anymore. I don’t know what will happen to me, but at least I won’t have to hear all the nasty things you say to me when I don’t do everything you want.” She signed the note, Lizzie.

  Margaret didn’t scream when she read Lizzie’s note. She called her pastor in tears. First she said only, “Lizzie has left; I don’t know where she’s gone. I’m so worried about her.” Then she said the most hopeful thing she had said in years. “I drove her away. I know I drove her away. My screaming and yelling drove her away.” Sobbing into the phone, she admitted for the first time that her angry tongue-lashings toward Lizzie were wrong. The pastor wisely guided Margaret to a Christian counselor, where she began the process of admitting, understanding, and changing her negative responses to anger.

  Lizzie was located within forty-eight hours and later joined her mother in counseling. Today Lizzie, now a grown woman, has a good relationship with her mother. Margaret says that the day she got her daughter’s note was the worst and best day of her life.

  On the other hand, Paul’s abuse tended toward the nonverbal. Whenever he was angry with someone, he would throw things, break things, and make rude gestures in traffic. Paul had gone so far as to hurl soft-drink bottles in family arguments.

  Natalie had seen some of these characteristics in Paul before she married him, but he had never vented his anger toward her. But within six months after their wedding, he pushed her against the wall. She knew that his behavior was something she could not condone. She wrote him the following letter and mailed it to his office. “Dear Paul, Last night you did something I never thought you would do. In anger, you pushed me against the wall. I had seen you express anger while we were dating, but I never thought you would express it toward me. Now I know that I was wrong. I love you very much, and I don’t believe that you really want to hurt me. But I cannot take that chance. I am writing you because I want you to know that if you ever touch me again in an angry way, I will leave and stay gone until I am assured by a counselor that it is safe to live with you. I love you. Nat.”

  The evening after Paul received the letter he apologized to Natalie and assured her that it would never happen again. Six months later, however, in a fit of anger, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. Natalie didn’t say a word, but the next day when he came home, Paul found the following note: “I love you too much to stay and let you hurt me and destroy your self-esteem. I know you cannot be happy about what happened last night. I will not return until your counselor assures me that you have learned to handle your anger in a more responsible manner. Love, Natalie.”

  Her decisive response motivated Paul to call his pastor and then a counselor. He knew that he was in danger of losing his wife. He also knew that he had to learn to control his anger. After three months of individual counseling and three months of marital counseling, Natalie and Paul were reunited. Years later, they are still together. Paul succeeded, with help, in breaking his pattern of abuse.

  THE DESTROYER OF RELATIONSHIPS

  Both Margaret and Paul fell into abusive patterns of expressing anger. Such behaviors form over a period of years and typically do not change unless someone important to the individual pressures the person to get help. It is the threat of losing a significant relationship that often motivates the abuser to get help. Help is readily available, and destructive, abusive patterns can be changed. But such patterns will not simply go away with time. Family members and friends must learn to hold the explosive person accountable for his or her destructive response to anger.

  Explosive, angry behavior is never constructive. It not only hurts the person at whom it is directed, it destroys the self-esteem of the person who is out of control. No one can feel good about themselves when they think about what they have done. In the heat of such angry explosions, people say and do things they later regret. Undisciplined anger that expresses itself in verbal and physical explosions will ultimately destroy relationships. The person on the receiving end loses respect for the person who is out of control and will eventually just avoid them.

  Some years ago it was popular in certain psychological circles to believe that releasing anger by aggressive behavior could be a positive way of processing anger if the aggression was not toward a person. Thus, angry people were encouraged to beat pillows, punching bags, and dolls or to take their aggression out on a golf ball. However, almost all research now indicates that the venting of angry feelings with such aggressive behaviors does not drain a person’s anger but actually makes the person more likely to be explosive in the future.1 Explosion, whether verbal or physical, is not an acceptable way of handling one’s anger.

  THE BOMBS OF IMPLOSION

  In destroying any building through implosion, the demolition crew places the destructive power within the building rather than outside, keeping all the rubble and glass inside. This is a graphic picture of what happens to the person who chooses to hold anger inside. One’s life literally crumbles around internalized anger. Whereas explosive anger is readily observed by the person’s screaming, swearing, condemning, criticizing, and other words or acts of rage, implosive anger is not as easily recognized by others because it is, by definition, held inside.

  Some Christians who would deplore explosive expressions of anger fail to reckon with the reality that implosive anger is fully as destructive in the long run. Whereas explosive anger begins with rage and may quickly turn to violence, implosive anger begins with silence and withdrawal but in time leads to resentment, bitterness, and eventually hatred. Implosive anger is typically characterized by three elements: denial, withdrawal, and brooding. Let’s look at each of these.

  Those who handle their anger “implosively” often begin by denying that they are angry at all. This response to anger is especially tempting to Christians who have been taught that anger itself is sinful. Thus, one often hears individuals say one of the following:

  • “I’m not angry, but I am very frustrated.”

  • “I’m not angry; I’m just upset.”

  • “I’m not angry, but I am disappointed.”

  • “I’m not
angry; I just don’t like it when people do me wrong.”

  In almost all these cases, however, their condition is the same: The people are experiencing anger.

  Beverly illustrates this clearly. Sitting in my office on an October morning, she said to me, “I know that Christians are not supposed to get angry, and I don’t think I am, but I’m so upset at what has happened that I don’t know what to do. My brother talked my parents into selling their house and giving him the money to start a business. He moved them into a small apartment, promised to pay their monthly rent as long as they lived, and said that if they ever needed to go to a retirement center, by then he would be able to afford it. He did all of this without discussing the matter with me. I know my brother. His business ideas are always wild. Within two years, he will lose all the money, and my parents will be on welfare.

  “When I found out what had happened, I called him and he matter-of-factly told me about the whole process. He said he knew that I would not be upset because we both had talked earlier that they needed to be in a smaller place. I told him that I understood and I was sure it would work out. But the more I think about it, the more upset I get.”

  Beverly is obviously experiencing intense anger. Because she believes anger to be “unchristian,” she doesn’t want to call it anger, so she uses the word upset. However, the real denial was in her conversation with her brother. She gave him the impression that his actions were acceptable, whereas in reality she found them to be unacceptable. He doesn’t know that she is angry; but, in fact, she is seething inside with anger. If she doesn’t change her approach, the bombs of implosion will become deeply rooted inside of her and in due time her life will collapse. (See the likely results of implosive anger in next section.)