A Plan to Overcome Angry Outbursts

It is important to keep in mind that this book is about:   PROTECTING YOUR MARRIAGE FROM HABITS THAT DESTROY ROMANTIC LOVE.”

This is a long but extremely important post. I hope it is helpful for anyone suffering from angry outbursts in their marriage relationship. ~LRC

People who have a tendency to use angry outbursts do not often recognize that they have a problem with anger. This is the case for Sam (in this review). It is identified that he definitely has a problem with angry outbursts as he can’t seem to control his temper. 

“Anger is deceitful: it lets you forget what really happened and offers you a distortion of the truth. Anger is also cunning; it tries to convince you that an angry outburst is caused by someone else’s behavior.”

Sam felt that his wife, Jill, ‘“made him angry.” He believed that If she had been more considerate, he would not have lost his temper. So it was her fault.

How do you go about stripping anger’s deceit and cunning from outbursts so that anger can be seen for what it is? It’s an ugly monster. How do you remove the screen that it hides behind?

This is Dr. Harley’s plan to overcome angry outbursts.

• Step 1: Acknowledge the fact that you, and you only, determine if you will have an angry outburst. No one “makes” you angry.

In this example, Dr. Harley asks, “How could I convince Sam that he could completely overcome angry outbursts without Jill, his wife, making any change in her behavior? I want to go one step further, how could I convince him that unless he took full responsibility for his angry outbursts, he could not learn to control them?”

 Since Dr. Harley had a history of angry outbursts himself, he felt he was a good counsellor for those with anger problems. When he was growing up he lived with parents who had serious anger issues and he suffered many beatings at the hands of his mother. Therefore, he often expressed his own frustration with anger and was in many physical fights with his peers as he was growing up.

Dr. Harley never lost his temper with his wife while he was dating her; he worked hard to keep his anger under control when he was with her. He knew she would not tolerate it.  As he was working on his car one day, he had an epiphany. As he was replacing the transmission in his car, it slipped out of his grasp and fell on top of him. He promptly lost his temper and tried to destroy just about everything in sight.  He blamed the transmission for falling on him! He also came to realize that when he was angry with a person, he was dangerous! He made a decision that very day that he would not lose his temper again. It took quite a bit of effort to avoid being angry. But eventually, he didn’t even have to think about it. When he found himself in a frustrating situation, he never really felt angry, and he never lost his temper. And that’s the way he feels today. How did he do it? 

He realized that only he was responsible for his angry outbursts, and that he could avoid them if he chose. 

That is why he always begins the plan of recovery from angry outbursts for his patients with an acknowledgement from them that ‘no one makes them angry-that they are completely responsible for their angry outbursts.’

On a related topic, Dr. Harley also believes that anger is not caused by poor self-esteem. The angriest people he has counselled had high esteem, not low self-esteem. They felt entitled to whatever they wanted and got angry with those who didn’t give it to them.

Dr. Harley has developed the following steps that will help to completely eliminate this Love Buster regardless of whom you’re with, how you were raised, or any problems you may have with self-esteem.

• Step 2. Identify instances of your angry outbursts and their effects.

Dr. Harley had to help Sam see his anger for what it really was- a monster. And the person in the best position to describe the effect of his anger was his wife Jill. He asked Jill to answer the following questions:

1. On a scale from 0 to 6, with zero indicating no unhappiness and six extreme unhappiness, what number most accurately reflects how much unhappiness you experience when your spouse attacks you with an angry outburst? 
2. How often does your spouse tend to attack you with an angry outburst?
3. When your spouse attacks you with an angry outburst, what does he or she typically do? List the ways you are attacked.
4. Which of the ways you are attacked cause you the greatest unhappiness?
5. When did your spouse first attack you with an angry outburst?
6. Have your spouse’s angry outbursts increased or decreased in intensity and/or frequency since they first began?
7. How do recent angry outbursts compare with those of the past?

Dr. Harley says, “I counselled many who, after reading their spouses answers to their questions, simply laugh. They are amazed that their spouse would write down what they believe are lies about their behavior. The deceit and cunning of their anger blinds them to the truth. In some cases they even lose their tempers as they are reading the answers. If your spouse completes this questionnaire and you are tempted to view it as fantasy, remember what I said about anger’s deceit and cunning. Your spouse is in a much better position to record what you do when you are angry, so accept his or her word for it at this stage of the program. You must see anger for what it is: a threat to the safety and security of your spouse – and your marriage.“

It became clear after reading Jill’s answers to the questions that Sam was indeed making her unhappy with his angry outbursts. As Sam looked at Jill’s answers, tears came to his eyes. He saw that Jill had rated her unhappiness a 6, extremely unhappy. He didn’t want her to be unhappy and certainly didn’t want to be the cause of her unhappiness.

‘What he had seen as an honest expression of his frustration she interpreted as an ambush, a painful attack. His method of communicating his feelings had turned him into her worst enemy. Sam’s vicious attacks on Jill’s character and judgement were weaved into his angry outbursts. He would tell her how selfish she was, how he was doing everything for her and she was doing nothing for him. He would also berate her abilities, charging that her only value was in her figure, not in her head. His rantings simply weren’t true.”

“After Sam finished reading Jill’s answers to the questions, he agreed to stop losing his temper. He made no excuses and, for once, agreed with her interpretation of the problem. We were ready to go onto the next step.”

• Step 3. Understand why your angry outbursts take place.

Sam was asked to answer a few questions to help pinpoint why he lost his temper.

1. What are the most important reasons that you use angry outbursts to punish your spouse?
2. When you use angry outbursts to punish your spouse, what do you typically do?
3. When you use angry outbursts to punish your spouse, what hurts your spouse the most?
4. How do you use angry outbursts to punish your spouse, do you usually feel better about the situation then before you used them? Why or why not?
5. Do you feel that punishment evens the score, and that without it your spouse wins and you lose? Explain.
6. Do you ever try to control or avoid using angry outbursts to punish your spouse? If so, why do you do it? How do you do it?
7. If you were to decide never to use an angry outburst to punish your spouse again, would you be able to stop? Why or why not?
8. Are you willing to stop using angry outburst to punish your spouse? Why or why not?

“Did you notice that each of these questions speaks about punishing your spouse? This assumes that angry outbursts are intended to be a punishment. As it turns out, one of the ways people deceive themselves about anger is to interpret it as something other than punishment. The purpose of angry outbursts is to inflict pain and suffering on the target. Any other interpretation is part of anger’s deception. When the deception is removed and you see it for what it is-punishment-it’s much easier to ask the question why?”

As Sam began to uncover the reasons for his angry outbursts he realized that after he and Jill were married, he had a growing feeling that she was more important to him than he was to her. He was very generous with her, but he did not see the same generosity returned by her. He made sacrifices for her regularly, but she did not make the same sacrifices for him. As well, her career seemed to be the most important thing in her life. His feelings were hurt whenever she made her work a higher priority than his interests. So whenever he lost his temper, he usually attacked her career, which he felt was coming between them.  But he also attacked Jill. Based on the answers to the questions he had to complete, he realized that he was using anger to even the score, to make her feel some of the pain he felt. He admitted that after an outburst he felt a little better. He had seen the error of his ways and he decided to change but was that enough?

• Step 4. Try to avoid the conditions that make angry outbursts difficult to control.

Sam was given the following questions to answer for his next session. They concerned the angry outbursts they had been discussing in the assignment he had just completed. 

1. In the instances of angry outbursts that you identified earlier, describe the conditions that seem to make angry outbursts difficult to control. Include your physical condition (amount of sleep, physical health, etc., setting, people present, behavior of those people, your mental state, and any other relevant information.
2. What changes in any of those conditions or efforts to avoid those conditions might help you avoid angry outbursts in the future?
3. What changes identified in question two can be made with your spouses enthusiastic agreement?
4. Describe your plan, which can be made with your spouses enthusiastic agreement, to change or avoid the conditions. Include a deadline that also meets with his or her enthusiastic agreement.

Remembering to follow the ‘Policy of Joint Agreement’ will help avoid two very serious mistakes that often make angry outbursts more difficult to control. 

The first mistake is to assume that caring people make sacrifices for each other. That means if you’re doing something for your spouse that you regard as a sacrifice, you’re not following the Policy of Joint Agreement. Caring couples consider how they both feel simultaneously, and neither spouse expects or wants the other to suffer for them. It’s only the uncaring side of us that expects our spouse to make sacrifices on our behalf.

Dr. Harley goes on to say that the problem goes beyond making sacrifices. It’s also a misunderstanding regarding agreements. The person prone to angry outbursts often feels there’s an unspoken understanding-if I do this for you, you’ll do this for me. But when that agreement isn’t made clear and isn’t understood by the other spouse, disappointment is sure to follow. So it’s very important to avoid making sacrifices for one another unless it’s by enthusiastic agreement and it is clearly understood by both spouses.

[He is not saying we should not do acts of kindness or ever make sacrifices for one another, in fact that is a key ingredient to a satisfying marriage. Its the expectation of sacrifice without an enthusiastic agreement that causes the problem. LRC]

Sam learned that his angry outbursts often came at the end of an argument that should never have taken place. It would begin with a demand -telling Jill what to do. When she was unwilling to comply with the demand, he would say something disrespectful, and if that didn’t work, Out came his arsenal of weapons.

“So an angry outburst can be a reaction to your spouse’s failure to meet your demand or your reaction to your spouse’s demand of you.”

By overcoming selfish demands and disrespectful judgments, you can eliminate conditions that make it more difficult to avoid an angry outburst.

• Step 5. Train yourself to control your temper when you cannot avoid frustrating situations.

If your spouse seems uncooperative, or if he or she refuses to stop making demands, being disrespectful, or having an angry outburst, or if he or she continues to do the things that irritate you most, you can control your temper even under those conditions. The best way to do that is to relax. To someone with a history of angry outbursts, that solution sounds really stupid at first. How can you relax when you are faced with a spouse who keeps badgering you, ridiculing you, and has their own problems with anger?

Relaxation in the face of terribly irritating conditions reverses the physiological cause of an angry outburst – adrenaline. When you are faced with a threat, adrenaline is secreted, and it builds up in your blood, affecting the way your brain operates. It switches your neural pathways so that irrational thoughts are triggered, and you are motivated to behave with vengeance. If you don’t calm down when you’re faced with adversity, you cannot think rationally when you need your intelligence the most.

To practice relaxing under adversity, imagine something your spouse does that frustrates you, and then relaxing after you think about it. [And how?]

The way to relax, Dr. Harley says is to practice voluntarily relaxing  all of your muscles, starting at the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. As you learn to voluntarily relax these muscles when feeling tense, you will be able to reduce the time it takes to calm down.

Anger management training takes time, because it’s not just the adrenaline you are learning to reduce, it’s also the neural pathways that you are changing. By responding to adversity with relaxation, you are training your brain to think rationally when faced with frustrating situations, instead of responding to them with anger.

Angry outbursts in marriage should be avoided at all costs, because they represent an extreme form of abuse. And mistakes made by the other spouse should never be viewed as an excuse. This means that when you feel irritated, instead of venting your anger, you walk away. If you can’t walk away, you learn how to relax. In some cases, you may need to separate from your spouse to avoid being abused yourself. But under no circumstances should you ever allow yourself to become the abuser.

Step 6.  Measure your progress.

In order to measure the progress, Dr. Harley gave Sam’s wife a form with these instructions: 

“Please list all instances of your spouse’s angry outbursts and acts that you consider punishment for something you did. These include verbal and physical acts of anger and threatened acts of anger toward you, cursing you, and making disrespectful or belittling comments about you. Include the day, date, time, and circumstances, along with a description of each angry outburst.”

Jill was asked to keep a record of how well Sam kept his commitment to control his temper. Measuring progress is the most critical step in this plan to overcome angry outbursts, and the victim is usually the best one to do the measuring. Jill, more than anyone else, would know when Sam slipped up.(Remember that an angry person often forgets what they did and what was said when they are angry)

Sam was told that he would have to accept as truth whatever Jill wrote down. He was not to argue with her about her interpretation of his behavior, but just try to avoid doing it in the future. Sure enough, Sam was surprised at some of the things that were written down. It helped Sam begin to  understand exactly how Jill interpreted his ‘expression of feelings’. To her it was punishment.

Dr. Harley says that a raising of the voice is often interpreted as an angry outburst. When this happens, he encourages the couple to avoid arguing about definitions, and simply stop raising his or her voice. Your spouse may be very sensitive to your anger and may be greatly affected by even the slightest hint of your becoming angry. He also reminds us not to quibble about whether or not there was an angry outburst. The point is, that whatever it is your spouse considers to be an angry outburst is causing your spouse to suffer, and it’s a habit that you can eliminate.

In Sam’s case, he came to understand some of his feelings of anger toward Jill. He said, “ I know what makes me feel angry. It is thinking that she’ll doesn’t really care about me and all she cares about is herself. But if I relax, I stop thinking those thoughts, and I tell myself that we will be able to work out our problems.”

Within a few weeks, Sam and Jill were engaged in serious negotiations about the way her work affected him, and she made some very important changes to accommodate his feelings, particularly about the way she talked to him about her boss. She also made a point of avoiding any contact with her boss that was not purely business- related.

Because of Sam’s anger, Jill had drawn away from Sam but now that he had proved he could protect her from his anger, she was drawn back to him, something he had wanted all along. At this point they would really need to work on making deposits in their love banks for one another.

“People with a predisposition to anger are predisposed to bad marriages and, ultimately, divorce. But if you can recognize anger for what it really is, a Love Buster, and learn how to protect your spouse from it, you not only save your marriage, but you also save yourself from a life of endless searching for someone who will put up with it.”

Although anger is a normal human reaction, it is also a destructive reaction, and you must protect your spouse from it if your spouse is to be happy and secure living with you.

Dr. Harley has seen many marriages turn completely around because spouses decided not to tolerate their own anger, disrespect, and demands. When that happens, it gives them the opportunity to negotiate effectively. He goes on to say that it’s very important to remember that your love and passion for each other are more important than whether or not you resolve your conflict.

 “Remember this very important principle: how you treat each other will determine how you feel about each other.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Information for this post is from the book “Love Busters by Willard F. Harley, Jr.

For more help, go to: http://www.marriagebuilders.com