Dealing with Anger <<– Listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. Today we’re going to be touching on the topic of dealing with anger.
Dealing with anger is an important issue to have a game plan for when dealing with affair recovery. Because as you’re going through a recovery you’re going to find yourself dealing with anger. Not only your own, but also your spouse’s and perhaps your family’s, could also be the family of the lover. In all likelihood you’re going to be dealing with somebody’s anger, and you need to have some idea as to how to deal with it.
I see this as an important issue. In my mind it’s a critical issue mainly because anger is one of those things that can spin out of control, people can get hurt, people can die. In some ways it is a life and death issue.
Although I use the term life and death, let me go ahead and lay that out for you. How serious is it? Well, in 1995 when they did a study there’s a wide range of figures, but the generally accepted figure is that 26% of the women who were murdered, or were slain, were killed by either their husbands or boyfriends.
When you’re dealing with affairs, you could be looking at a 26% chance that things are going to get out of control. That’s at the high end. Now, from these same statistics another statistician looked at a little closer and he found 4.52% of the women were killed by their husbands or boyfriends, as opposed to 2.31% of the men murdered by their wives or girlfriends.
Whether you’re dealing with a 26% chance or something as low as a 2.31% chance, those are not chances that I would want to take. If I went to the airport and they told me when I boarded an airplane that there’s a 5% chance that you’re going to crash, that’s not the kind of percentage I would want to get on the airplane.
When I come home and I flip my light switch I expect the electricity to come on. I don’t want it to come on 75 or 80% of the time and think that everything is fine and dandy.
If there’s any chance of being hurt, or the possibility of death, I consider it something to take serious. And there is that possibility because you’re not totally in control. And when people are angry, especially people who you have no control over, not only your spouse but also the lover, the lover’s family, maybe even work mates, even another jealous lover out there, that’s a dangerous situation.
I also needed to let you know realistically, percentage-wise from the crime statistics, how serious it is.
If you do have an angry spouse then there’s also the possibility that you could be damaged physically. They may hit you, hurt you, choke you, rough you up somehow. This is not an issue that is limited to men or limited to women. Although the statistics would indicate more wives are abused by their husband, there are also husbands that are abused by wives. This is something that does cut across all genders.
In terms of dealing with the anger that underlies all that violence you need to have a game plan. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today.
In terms of dealing with these, first, your safety first. If there’s a risk of violence associated with anger you need to put yourself in a safe place. That would include physical, emotional, or mental safety. You have to make safety a priority.
If your husband or your wife is the type that are going to hunt you down and they have weapons, you want to make sure that you’re in a safe place. When it comes time for y’all to talk you want to make sure that you talk in a safe place and not one where there’s a high risk of violence. You want to reduce that.
Safety first. I know there’s going to be that tendency, but I want to know the truth about what really happened, I want to pin him to the wall about what really happened. At this point, if your safety is at risk by pushing for that, you may need to make getting to the truth of things a secondary matter until you’re safe.
Second point. You need to leave the conversation or situation before the anger reaches critical mass. When you see your spouse starting to get angry that’s the time to leave. You don’t wait until they get to the point where they’re past the point of no return. You’ve lived with them long enough you know what they’re like when they’re angry. You know what the warning signs are. When you start to see those things and you see the anger build up, that’s a time to get out before things get said or things happen, or people get hurt.
It’s not by accident that they use the expression they were seeing red. He was seeing red, she was seeing red. Because many times when people become that enraged they really don’t see what’s going on, they’re just react react react. There’s no slowing down of their mind, they are just doing things. And you have to realize that.
Then the third point is to consider the consequences. Another way I usually put this is fast-forward the movie. When you consider consequences, much like fast-forwarding the movie, you jump ahead to where the end of the movie’s going to take you. Not where it’s going to be in about four or five minutes.
Many times when people get into these confrontation situations they think about oh gee, it’s going to feel great to just let em have it, or just lay it all on the line, or just get that sense of relief from finally getting things all out in the open. And that’s what they make their choice on rather than looking at the long-term consequences.
Is what I’m doing or what I’m saying actually going to help the relationship? Is it going to put my marriage in a good place? Yes, it may feel good to tell em off about their lover or to tell them off about some other aspect of their life. But is that going to bring you healing in terms of your marriage? Is it going to put y’all’s relationship into a good place? If it’s not, you may need to rethink that.
But these are some points to go ahead and start giving you a handle as to what you can do to start dealing with the anger. Because you’re going to find yourself having to deal with someone’s anger, and you need a game plan rather than jump into the middle of the pool and not know what you’re going to do afterwards.
I know in some of y’all’s cases y’all were thrown into this pool of affair recovery and you’ve got to find your way out. Dealing with anger is going to be an important way to start finding your way out. These are things that each of you can put into place now and I encourage you to do so.
Until next time, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. Thank you.
