Conflicted Couples: Go Be Angry if You Want
“Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the devil that kind of foothold in your life.” (Ephesians 4:26-27, The Message)
Do you know what? There is no need to mess with your partner. Bark, bitch and belittle if you think that works – but you don’t need to. In the flash of a trigger moment, in the blister of anger, it is a choice whether to go for a run or run over your partner.
I am confident that most anyone can interrupt their “fight or flight” reaction to what triggers them. Let me explain a bit. Anger is a second stage emotional response to the internal experience of hurt and fear. Anger doesn’t normally exist by itself – something has startled you or hurt you. Then you get mad and you stop thinking. Mix your rapidly accelerating anger with a flash memory of harm and you have a conflict concoction common to chronically conflicted couples. Here is the formula:
Hurt + Fear + History = Anger [→ Chronic Conflict]
The hurt or anticipated hurt is the trigger. Fear is the emotional lubricant, a kind of psychological WD-40. Add in a history of harm (in this or other intimate relationship) and the result is anger, explosive or malingering, vented or suppressed.
Note the bracket and arrow in the formula above – this is where it all changes. This emotional concoction is now pushing for a body response, a behaviour. This is usually thought of as fight or flight where the fear either accelerates the conflict or, possibly, accelerates the retreat. (We are not talking about the problems of a conflict-avoidant marriage in this blog.) If fighting is the everyday response to these troubling emotions, then it has become a pattern. It’s called revenge and it is fueled by anger. Sort of like the devil having a foothold in your life, and sort of like not interrupting yourself.
Next time some thoughts on interrupting yourself.