Married for 10 years, Mary and Joe rarely argued, yet were slowly drifting apart from each other, each feeling emotionally distanced from the other. Underneath their emotional distance was anger, but it was “hidden” and lived as resentment, passive-aggression toward the other, and emotional detachment. In therapy, it was learned that a fairly common patterns of estrangement had developed between Mary and Joe who at one time were deeply in love with each other.
The pattern started with Mary not doing what Joe considered to be her share of the household chores. She worked only part-time while Joe rose at 4AM every day, worked until 2PM and then came home and did all the housework, the yardwork, and then often started dinner. She spent much of her time with her family of origin and her friends. Joe slowly developed resentment toward Mary for having to “do it all.” He complained to her, but she didn’t see what the problem was. Her attitude toward household chores and standards of cleanliness were much more relaxed than his:
“So will the world stop turning if we do the laundry this weekend instead of today?” was a common Mary retort while looking at mountains of dirty clothes. Joe, meanwhile, was smoldering inside because of what he saw as her “laziness” and irresponsibility.
After awhile, he stopped complaining and simply stuffed his negative feelings toward Mary, while continuing to do almost all of the household chores. But, he found himself losing sexual interest in her, which greatly wounded Mary who placed a high value on being sexually attractive to her husband. Of course, sexual deprivation led to further emotional distance and estrangement between them.
The Solution?
Agreement on Division of Labor
Often the problem is the other way around: many married woman justifiably complain that they too work yet are expected to do their “second job” once they get home at night.
Either way, a major breakthrough can be achieved by a couple sitting down with a pencil and paper, listing all the household chores, drawing a vertical line down the center of the paper, and deciding who is going to do what and when it will be done.And then doing it!!
Sound like a simple solution? As we teach in our local anger management classes, our online anger program, and our local clinical clients (in marriage therapy with us), many times simple practical changes in how a couple does things often snowballs into other, more substantial changes in the relationship. Of course, there were more problems than just division of labor between Mary and Joe, but once Mary started doing more of the home tasks, Joe’s resentment lessened and his sexual interest in Mary picked up. This, of course, motivated Mary to try even harder to do more of her share of household chores.
Do they now have a perfect marriage? Of course not, but they are happier, have less conflict, and are feeling closer to each other.
Having taught hundreds of anger management classes and seminars since 2004, I have been impressed with the high number of people who confess that much conflict and rage often follows discussing marital issues while one or both partners is drinking. Not that drinking in itself is necessarily bad. And trying to resolve conflicts is a good thing. It is the combination that often become explosive. Let’s see why that is.
To overly simplify, your brain has a protective mechanism called the “blood brain barrier” which selects which molecules can enter the brain from the bloodstream. Guess what? Alcohol molecules can easily get through this barrier. This means that the brain is the first organ to be affected by alcohol intake. As you probably have noticed, alcohol immediately changes your mood, your thought processes, your impulse control, and your judgment. That little voice in your head that normally says “don’t do it,” now says “Do it..it’s OK.”
Or, it says say something like: “I’m going to say it because he or she deserves it.” Or, ” I don’ t care how they feel, I’m going to get this off my chest.”
This attitude often leads to escalating arguing and anger which can quickly get out of hand, especially if one or both of you is particularly stressed that day. Perhaps you even feel justified in getting so angry at the “outrageous” behavior of your partner, feeling like a victim instead of the aggressor.
Alcohol-induced Righteous Indignation seems so right at the time. It often isn’t until the next day that you say to yourself: “self: what was I thinking?”
By then, the damage often is done and is difficult to undue. How do you “unring” a bell? Sometimes there are even legal consequences involving law enforcement. More often, the damage is emotional as the couple struggles to restore communication, heal hurt feelings, and re-build trust.
The advice I always give my local clients as well as my anger management students is to make a firm agreement not to drink while discussing serious or important marital issues, if this has been problematic in the past for you.
Often reducing marital conflict involves “doing something different” from what you normally do. So, for example, if you notice that you’ve gotten into a conflict the last 5 times you discussed parenting issues over Gin and Tonics, separate those two events and see if it helps!
But, what do you do if you see the sense of this, but your partner refuses to cooperate in such an agreement? Well, that depends on the circumstances, but you can still stick to your end of the bargain, avoid as much conflict as possible, and when he or she is sober and rational, firmly and assertively communicate how that made you feel, what you will expect in the future, and what the consequences may be if it continues to happen.
Dr Fiore/ The Anger Coach continues to produce educational materials to help individuals, couples, and families deal with anger, conflict, and stress. Just click on the resource listed below to access the material. Feel free to pass on the material to anyone who you think might benefit from it.
The Anger Coach provides many free articles on a variety of topics including relationship anger, family matters, anger on the road, workplace anger and coping with other people such as the bully and the passive-aggressive person. Simply click on the link of interest to you and you will be taken to the article.
ANGER COACH ONLINE Donates $20,000 in Anger Management Courses for Penn Youth
Dr. Tony Fiore of www.angercoach.com is the one of the world’s preeminent anger control teachers. Two years ago Dr. Fiore and I collaborated on the development of 2 courses for teaching martial artists about anger management –and how to teach it to young people.
Both courses are available to take on-line at http://www.angercoachonline.com/dojo.aspx. Each course takes 10 hours to complete and comes with a graduation certificate.
Dr. Fiore has just donated both courses to each active participant/student in our next Penn Hawaii YF session (beginning Jan. 30, 2010), which adds up to more than $20,000 in tuition.
THANK YOU Dr. Fiore!
Any Penn Youth participant who completes the first course, passing both the on-line test and a verbal quiz from Coach Tom Callos, will earn $100 from the foundation (Regular attendance and completion of our 2 month training course will be a requirement for payment).
IN ADDITION, we are planning an on-line donation program where we solicit contributions from the 115,000+ members of www.BJPENN.COM for Penn Youth who complete the SECOND Anger Management Course (which teaches the participant how to teach other people the basics of anger management).
We will divide all donation up equally between all of our young participants who successfully take and pass the program (both courses). Our long-term goal is to have a team of young “Anger Management Educators” tour schools across Hawaii teaching other young people the ABC’s of anger control.
Century Anger Management, the Education and Training company of The Anger Coach and AJNovick Group, has been granted recertification for two years from The California Foundation for Advancement of Addiction Professionals (CFAAP). CFAAP is the Education Board for the California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors. (CAADAC).
This certification means that people who complete our certification process in anger management, using our eight-tools model, will receive continuing education credit through one of the largest associations for the training of substance abuse counselors in California. This qualifies them to teach The Eight Tools of Anger Control to their recovering clients.
Century Anger Management is a national leader of anger management training in the United States, having trained and certified hundreds of providers in America and in six other countries. Training consists of 40 hours in two parts. Part 1 requires eight hours of either “live-Training” or a home-study equivalent DVD. Part 2 consists of 32 hours online training. The next upcoming “live training” will be on Friday March 5 in Orange County, California. Call 714-745-1393 for details and registration, or register online
Often, we get phone calls from parents who are angry at their children, usually because they happen to have what I euphemistically call a “strong-willed child. ” These children are often defiant, controlling, rebellious, and non-compliant with normal parental demands or requests. Sometimes this extends to their behavior in school, but in other cases they seem to be fine at school and only problematic at home. Things can become so bad that the child can be labeled an “explosive child” involving verbal and behavior aggression and even violence. In its extreme, these children may be given numerous psychiatric diagnoses such as Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), intermittent explosive disorder, Tourette;s Disorder, Depression bipolar disorder, Asperger’s disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Parents of strong-willed children often feel guilty and inept. But, while parenting certainly hasd a lot to do with the milder problems within the normal range, truly explosive children are a lot more complex than previously thought and may be the result of numerous factors. An excellent book to help parents with these children is “The Explosive Child” by Dr. Ross. W. Greene. Click here to learn about his “Collaborative Problem Solving Approach.”
Screaming Accomplishes Little
For cases in the more normal range, we teach in our anger management classes and Online programs how to better cope with strong-willed or difficult children by learning the eight tools of anger control – and then applying these tools to themselves too!
It was labor day when 8 year old Brandon’s mother heard a commotion from her child’s room. Seems that his 14 year old visiting cousin said something that upset Brandon which caused Brandon to strike the other boy. His mother Michelle hysterically called her therapist wondering what to do and how to handle the anger in her young son which seemed to be escalating as he became older.
Her therapist wisely explained that children become angry in a variety of situations. Common causes of childhood anger include: frustration, needing attention, feeling powerless, being misunderstood, not feeling good about themselves, feeling helpless, being belittled or made fun of, not having physical needs taken care of, having a parent take over instead of asking if the child wants help, being disappointed, having difficulty saying what they need, or being punished.
The problem of excessive childhood anger is growing. Yet many parents—like Michelle—feel they don’t have the tools to teach their children how to deal with normal angry feelings in an appropriate manner, without hitting or yelling at others, or losing control. Therefore, some parents ineffectively deal with their child’s anger by demanding that he or she stop being angry. Worse, some parents actually yell at or hit their child in attempts to “teach” their child not to be angry. That is like putting them alone in the woods unarmed with a raging black bear to teach them not to be fearful!
Alternatively, good parenting requires teaching children the practical skills needed for anger control. Although feeling angry is a part of life that no one can avoid because it is “hardwired” in our brains as a protective and survival mechanism, we can teach our children positive ways to cope with these normal angry feelings. Learning the tools of anger management empowers children, makes them more effective and pleasant human beings, and improves the world by decreasing hatred, violence and conflict.
Following are six tips for parents to help their children manage anger, based on our model of anger management called the “eight tools of anger control”
Tip #1- TEACH HOW TO RESPOND INSTEAD OF REACT
Parents can teach their children the difference between feeling angry and acting on anger. Michelle explained to Brandon that feeling mad is neither good nor bad, but hitting someone out of anger is not OK. She then explained that we have choices as to how to deal with angry feelings. Encouraging your child to take time-out until they cool down, to keep a journal, draw, or talk out their emotions are positive outlets for feelings of anger.
Providing a means by which to channel feelings into positive actions is another tool to help your child deal with his or her angry feelings. Examples might include taking a relaxing walk, writing letters and cards, doing something nice for another person, or donating time to a worthwhile community project geared toward helping others.
In the short run, life at home will be easier when children learn how to work through anger. In the long run, children will continue developing ways to cope with anger as they become teenagers and adults, and will pass these skills along to their own children.
Tip #2- BE AWARE OF HOW YOUR CHILDREN ARE SEEING YOU
Start by setting a good example. Children learn from observing your behavior. Be aware of the messages you are sending your child in terms of how you behave toward them, how you behave toward other people, and how they see you handling your own anger and stress.
Unfortunately, some misguided parents create hatred in their children by modeling prejudice, intolerance, disrespect or violence toward other people that may be different from them or have different word views. Teaching “empathy” (the ability to see the world from the perspective of another), openness, tolerance and understanding are extremely valuable anger-management tools to teach yourself and your children.
Tip #3-TELL CHILDREN PERSONAL STORIES OF TRIUMPH
Your children need to hear stories of how you may have overcome hardship, adversity, or other life challenges. Research shows that hearing your stories of empowerment over rough times or situations can make your children feel more attached to you, and give them more hope for themselves to be able to overcome their life difficulties. Having more optimism and developing more positive attitudes can often reduce anger in children and adults alike.
Tip #4- BE CONSISTENT IN PARENTING
At any age, anger is often generated between the gap between what is expected and what actually occurs in reality. With children, it is especially important to outline exactly what the consequences are (positive and negative) for their behavior—and then stick to it! Consistency makes children feel more secure, less anxious, and less likely to react angrily if they don’t get “their own way.” Parental consistency between parents or other adults in your child’s life is also very important to create stability and a sense of predictability.
Tip #5- REDUCE FAMILY STRESS
Coping with family stressors is an important tool of anger management, as angry outbursts are much more likely to occur as personal and family stress levels rise. There are many ways to buffer family stressors such as maintaining regular rituals for eating together, sharing the day with each other, finding time to play together, and emotionally supporting each other.
Parents can also help their children learn to calm themselves or self-sooth when angry. It is often helpful to calm their anger by using the five senses: touching, smelling, tasting, hearing, and seeing. Squeezing play dough, splashing in water, running around outside, listening to music, painting a picture, tensing and relaxing muscles, taking slow deep breaths, or eating a healthy snack are all good responses to angry feelings.
Children who respond well to touch can be taught how to massage their own neck or arms as a self-calming technique. These same children also may find a great deal of comfort in stroking or caring for a pet. To reduce stress, try telling your child the following:
* let’s draw a picture about how you feel
* a warm bath sometimes helps wash away angry feelings
* when you feel hungry and irritable, tell me and I’ll find a snack for you
* sit down and take slow deep breaths until you have calmed down.
Tip #6 – TEACH YOUR CHILD HOW TO SOLVE PROBLEMS
Parent can teach their older preschool, school-age and teenage children to problem solve as a “prevention” tool for getting angry. Michelle, for instance, taught Brandon to “stop and think” the next time he was angry—before losing control and striking other children. She also taught him how to listen to his cousin with both his eyes and ears, before getting upset so that he could “name” the problem and discuss what was upsetting him.
Turns out that Brandon’s cousin had made a disparaging remark about Brandon’s father who happened to be incarcerated. Once the issue was named, Michelle taught Brandon to think of different ways to solve the problem. They agreed on Brandon telling his cousin how much it hurt his feelings to hear “bad” things about his father. As a final step, they agreed to discuss how well their planned worked in a few days.
Most children will need adult help in thinking through this process and coming up with creative problem-solving techniques, but the skills learned will serve your child well throughout his lifetime and might greatly reduce stress in you rhome.
My wife and I spent time on New Year’s Day to attend the new movie “Avatar” which is an incredible creative production. I was particularly impressed with James Camerson’s portrayal of the destructive forces of lack of empathy (by some humans) on the mythical moon Pandora. Empathy, of course, is one of the eight tools of anger control that we teach in all our anger management classes and programs, as it is a key concept for anger control. Empathy is the ability to see and feel things from the viewpoint of the other which then changes how you respond to them or deal with them. In Avatar, some of us humans are portrayed as aggressors/bullies/militants who want something very valuable on Pandora with no regard for the indigenous peoples or how our greed will affect their lives. As we have written in numerous other blogs, this complete lack of empathy is at the root of much human misery, conflict, and wars. The underlying thinking of the non-empathetic person is: “you have something I want, so I’ll just take it and I don’t care how you feel about it.” The aggressors in Avatar didn’t even see the local people as humans (well, they weren’t exactly humans, but they had human feelings and human relationships), but as
“blue monkeys.” (Seeing them that way makes it easier to abuse/ravage them!).
Wouldn’t it be a much better world if more people did care more? Having more empathy often improves relationships on all levels, starting with marriages, families, neighbors, and communities. Now, I must add that it is also possible to have too much empathy and be taken advantage of. But, most of us don’t have that problem and, in fact, could benefit ourselves, our relationships and the world by increasing our empathy skills.
This is a great time of the year to start practicing empathy. Try it and see if it doesn’t change how you feel about yourself and also see if it doesn’t change how people are with you. Happy New Year to you all.
A recent incident that I observed brought home to me one reason why it is so difficult for the world to achieve peace. Almost everybody says they want peace, but yet become combative when they begin to see themselves as a “victim” rather than an aggressor. This is because when you see yourself as a victim, it is relatively easy to take the next step to justify aggression.
Take a recent incident the day after Thanksgiving I observed during a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in a small town. It was about 6PM and we were heading toward the town square to observe the lighting ceremony which signified the start of the holiday season. We were walking across the street in what we thought was a crosswalk. A lady in an SUV was frantically trying to find a parking place before the ceremony. She ignored us in the crosswalk as she rolled through; my friend became so angry he kicked the SUV as it passed. As we continued walking, the lady pulled her SUV over and confronted my friend and the following “conversation” took place:
Lady: “You a__h___. There was no crosswalk there.”
Friend:“F___Y__.”
Lady:“You wouldn’t know how, you a___h___.”
Then, each went his own way in a huff. Mind you, this was during a celebration of peace, goodwill, and neighborly love.
Both people in this exchange saw themselves as the victim of the other because each has a viewpoint of what caused the problem and escalated the angry and irrational exchange between two two otherwise rational, mature adults.
If this can happen so quickly in this situation, it is no mystery why couples conflict, family members learn to hate each other, and nations go to war with each other. In all these situations, nobody sees themselves as in the wrong. As we teach in our anger management classes, most conflicts occur because of a clash of what is perceived as two “rights”- not a right and a wrong!
We encourage people to start taking responsibility for their own anger and how they handle it. My friend would have completely avoided the whole incident if he had not kicked the SUV in the first place but had had empathy for a woman who was desperately trying to find a parking spot for her family before it got dark. The woman could have avoided it had she apologized to my friend for perhaps going through a crosswalk when she shouldn’t have and apologized for perhaps scaring him.
Both could have just ignored the whole thing and let it pass. There were many options for each on how to handle it, yet both unfortunately chose the aggressive option and thusly escalated each other. With so many children watching the interaction, one wonders what negative lessons they were learning in how to handle conflicts!
Hopefully, in the year 2010 more people will focus on how to be peacemakers instead of warriors, conflict resolution experts instead of bullys, and forgiving human beings insted of revenge and retribution seekers.
Century Anger Management, the professional training company of The Anger Coach and AJNovickGroup , announces its first “live training” in 2010. The training will be held in Orange County, CA (location to be announced) on Friday, March 5, 2010 from 9AM – 5PM and will satisfy the first 8 hours of our 40-hour certification program (The remaining 32 hours are done online). Century Anger Management is a national leader in anger management certification training with hundreds of providers across the United States and in 6 other countries. It is approved by many organizations as listed on our website, including the Florida Certification Board, The Texas Certification Board of Addiction Professionals, and the Illinois Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Professional Certification Association.
Become an anger management professional and contribute toward the world being a better place! Call 714-745-1393 for more information or register online
The Anger Coach provides many free articles on a variety of topics including relationship anger, family matters, anger on the road, workplace anger and coping with other people such as the bully and the passive-aggressive person. Simply click on the link of interest to you and you will be taken to the article.
