How
to Control Your Anger in Conflict Situations
by
Beverly Rodgers MS, LMFT and Tom Rodgers MA, MHDL, LPC
All
married couples have conflict. These skirmishes can take on many forms. Some end
in a stalemate between spouses where one or both are stonewalling or withdrawing
while others can become heated and this anger causes them to say things that
they later regret. But what about
those fights that end in some type of verbal, emotional or even physical abuse?
This abuse can make it difficult for couples to recover. Trust is eroded and
intimacy is thwarted. It is hard to believe that abuse like this can occur in
families, yet research shows that 1 in 6 couples in America experience some type
of violence. Even very loving couples can fall prey to verbal and physical
abuse.
Zach and Kelly were one such couple. We met them at one of our Soul
Healers Couple’s Workshops. “I’m ashamed to tell you,” Kelly said with
her voice shaking, “but Zach and I can’t seem to resolve our problems
without resorting to some type of violence. We both know it is wrong but we just
can’t stop.” Zach added, “ We are so embarrassed that we have never told
anyone until now. One of the main reasons we came to this workshop was to find a
way to stop.”
Marital
violence is one of the toughest issues to deal with, but there is hope for these
couples and others like them. Research suggests that as many as 80% of volatile
couples suffered from some form of abuse as children. Zach and Kelly were no
exception. They both grew up in homes where violence was present. These
traumatized couples carry wounds from this abuse that we call soul wounds which cause them to over react in conflict situations.
This tendency to give a situation more anger or emotion than it deserves is
called reactivity. It causes couples
to respond in a fight or flight manner when memories of past trauma are
triggered. Self-protection becomes
their main objective. Because of this, they are highly reactive to real or
perceived danger. They also have trouble distinguishing between past trauma and
current marital issues. Frequently violence seems to be the only way they can
defend themselves.
In
our Soul Healers Workshops we give couples two basic techniques designed to
lower their violent reactions (reactivity), and help them listen and understand
each other. The first technique is called The
GIFT Exercise. It is built on the premise that anger is not really the main
culprit behind reactivity. It is
only a secondary emotion, usually felt in response to a more primary feeling,
which means that anger is more of the response, than the root of a particular
situation. Submerged under anger
are four basic feelings that help define or give purpose to our rage.
Chances are, if you are feeling anger, you can trace it to any of these
four emotions. They are as follows:
Guilt
Inferiority
Fear
Trauma or pain
We
have developed an acronym for these underlying emotions so that you can easily
trace them to their root cause. We
chose the word GIFT because it would be
a GIFT to you and your spouse to identify the root of your wrath. If you respond
to your mate in anger, it tends to create a defensive or angry response from
them in return. Healthy communication is thwarted, and conflict goes unresolved.
By tracing the root of your anger, you may be able to share it more
effectively with your mate.
We
challenge you to think about conflict and communicate it, not in terms of anger,
but in terms of the four basic emotions that are lurking underneath it. The
second communication technique is a spin-off of the first. This tool allows you to identify certain triggers in your
current relationship, understand the feelings these triggers evoke, and attach
those feelings to early childhood wounds. This helps you separate past issues
from current interactional patterns in your marriage. The technique gives you a
clear way of seeing how you can confuse childhood traumas with marital issues
which cause a great deal of reactivity. It is aptly called The Digging Deeper Exercise because it enables you to find the
deeper root of your conflicts.
In doing this exercise you need to answer the following questions.
1.
What is the behavior that my mate does that triggers my anger?
When my mate does this.........I feel this...........
2.
Identify the root of this anger using The GIFT Exercise.
3.
Ask yourself, when have I ever felt this feeling before?
Look
for a past occurrence, preferably in childhood.
4.
What do I do when I feel this
feeling? What is my behavior?
5.
What do I really NEED?
1.
What does my mate do that triggers my anger?
When
Zach criticizes me about how dirty the house is I feel put down and devalued.
2. Identify the root of my
anger using The GIFT Exercise.
I feel put down, and hurt, the roots being---Inferiority and Trauma.
3.
When have I felt this before?
As
a child, when my father would constantly criticize me and order me to do chores,
but would never help me do them.
4.
What is my response?
To
get angry, yell, and not do what was asked in rebellion.
5.
What did I really NEED?
To
be encouraged and complimented for what I do accomplish.
1.
What does my mate do that triggers my anger?
When
Kelly does not clean the house as I have asked, I feel that my needs don’t
matter.
2.
Identify the root of my anger using The GIFT Exercise.
I
feel unimportant, that I don’t matter. The roots being---Inferiority and
Trauma.
3.
When have I felt this before?
When
I would come home from school, often my father would be drunk on the sofa.
The house would be a wreck, and he would make me clean it. If I didn’t,
he would beat me.
4. What is my response?
As
a child, and now, I would hold in my
frustration, and eventually explode.
5.
What do I really Need?
To
feel like Kelly is on my team and that she cares about how I feel.
As
you can see from this exercise Zach and Kelly’s responses to anger worked
against each other. Both saw that they were responding to the frustration in
their marriage in much the same way they responded as children. Zach would take
it until he exploded, and then yell at Kelly.
She would yell back, and then just ignore his implied or verbal requests
for change. They both felt threatened, misunderstood, and disregarded. Their
deeper feelings were inferiority and pain.
As they began to work through this exercise, they could see that they
were triggering each other’s soul wounds. They were doing and saying the very
things that would hurt each other the most. It became obvious to them that their
responses to anger were actually fostering violence in their marriage.
By
using these two simple yet powerful tools several major things happened to this
couple in a short period of time. They learned to share calmly and rationally
without reactivity which perpetuated verbal and physical violence. Because there
was no reactivity, they could more easily hear what each other was saying. Both
Zach and Kelly understood for the first time why these issues impacted them so
deeply and what was behind their frustration. They learned a great deal about
each other’s soul wounds and the childhood traumas that their marital
conflicts triggered. Lastly, they determined what each other’s needs actually
were. Kelly saw that rather than her need being for Zach to stop criticizing
her, she actually needed him to compliment and affirm her. More than a clean
house, Zach realized that he wanted to feel that Kelly really cared about his
needs
As a result of their deep sharing, both Zach and Kelly saw empathy from each other for the first time in years. Kelly said it best when she reported, “We actually listened to each other with our hearts, not just our ears. It created a “healing feeling” in our relationship that made us want to meets each other’s needs. It helped us heal our souls.”