A Temporary Sense of Self-Righteousness

Anger Problems: What They Say About You
Steven Stosny

Anger is the primary protective emotion, designed to protect us from harm or from loss of something of value. The most physical of all emotions, anger sends action signals to the muscles and organs of the body to prepare us for one purpose and one purpose only: to neutralize or defeat the perceived threat.

Two factors go into the formulation of anger: current vulnerability and magnitude of the perceived threat. Relatively little threat will cause anger when vulnerability is elevated, for example when physical resources are low - you're tired, hungry, sick, injured, depressed, anxious, stressed - or when self-doubt is high, making you more easily insulted.

Problem anger (that which leads you to act against your long-term best interests) is caused by high vulnerability. It is the most self-revealing of emotional states, pointing directly to a powerful cause of vulnerability: a sudden drop in core value.

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[I]f you blame your unfair behavior on someone else - a spouse or boss or the IRS - you will become angry or resentful and utterly powerless to restore genuine self-regard. That's right, while angry or resentful, it is nearly impossible for you to restore self-regard on your own, because now it requires that someone submit to what you want. The best you can hope for while angry or resentful is a temporary sense of self-righteousness.

When out of touch with your deepest values, you are more likely to act on ego - how you expect other people to regard you. Once again, your self-regard will depend not on what you do, but on the regard of others (who are likely to be preoccupied with their own self-regard.) In short, you will be become more vulnerable. Because it is controlled by others, ego requires manipulating the impressions of others to preserve and lots of resentment and anger to defend. Preserving and defending your ego will usually lead to violating your deepest values.

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Overcoming anger problems requires much more than managing the emotional feelings and physiological arousal of anger, as anger management classes strive to do. Eliminating anger problems depends on a choice of what kind of person you want to be - an angry, resentful person who struggles to manage negative feelings and arousal, or one who lives securely in your core value.

This morning, I was scanning internet articles, trying to find something that explained why Drew so often defaults to anger. He is doing so much so well - stepping up as a father and co-parent, answering hard questions honestly, trying to do things that feel unnatural but which I find helpful. But he also still sometimes defaults to anger when he feels threatened, to resentment when he feels a lack of agency, to self-righteous indignation over some relatively tiny slight when the shame of what he has done becomes too overwhelming.

This is a major red flag.

And so, despite my commands to not spend your time trying to untangle your cheater's skein, to instead focus on yourself, I spent an hour or so this morning reading about anger in the attempt to better understand Drew. (Do what I say, not what I do!)

This piece stood out - it seemed to capture a lot of what I see to be Drew's issues. He gets angry when he feels vulnerable, when the stakes are high (divorce). He has recently suffered a sudden drop in core value, making him particularly susceptible to "problem anger."

But rereading it, now, I'm struck by how much of it also applies to me, to my codependent tendency to blame him for my anger. If only he would . . . Not unrelated, I suspect, to the recent sudden drop in my core value, my recent sense of extreme vulnerability, my awareness of the high stakes of the decision constantly in the background.

Has he done things that make me justifiably angry? Obviously! Does he still do things that I find maddening? Yes, sometimes - but I also am particularly sensitive, and actions or comments or habits that didn't used to bother me now send me spiraling.

Plus, it is so nice to be angry - you get to indulge in extreme thinking, in that temporary sense of self-righteousness. He wasn't perfect, again? How dare he not be, after all he's already put me through?!

I'm going to keep my eye on his anger - I will need to see improvement in this area if we are going to stay together - but I'm also going to keep an eye on my own. I don't want to be an angry, resentful, reactive person, dependent on others for my own happiness; I want to build and live securely in my core value.