What Can I Control?

Anger was a big problem in my marriage--my anger, his anger, and our different and incompatible ways of dealing (or not dealing) with it. And guess what: even though the marriage is over, I still trip over this problem. Sometimes the wrinkle in the rug is my anger; sometimes it's someone else's. Here is a quote I found a while back. I keep returning to it to let the same lesson settle in. It's from Harriet Goldhor Lerner's The Dance of Anger. "Most of us want the impossible. We want to control not only our own decisions and choices but also the other person's reactions to them. We not only want to make a change; we want the other person to like the change that we make. We want to move ahead to a higher level of assertiveness and clarity and then receive praise and reinforcement from those very people who have chosen us for our own familiar ways" (Lerner, page 35 italics in original).

This quote intersects perfectly with what I hope I'm learning about control. That is, the only thing I can hope to control is my own behavior, my own attitude. I can't even always do that. Or maybe I could, if I were very careful and very clear. I certainly can't control what other people think or feel or do or write or gossip about any more than I can control the weather. If I tried I will probably exhaust myself and frustrate myself. And come to think of it, controlling my behavior and attitude is a big enough job for the rest of my life.

On one hand, I could get frustrated that I can't control what someone says or does or feels. Instead, I'm choosing to feel relief that I can stop trying.

Dancing with Anger

I'm reading a book my therapist recommended when I told her that one of the biggest disconnects in my marriage with J was our differing experiences of familial anger. I grew up in a chaotic household where anger seeped out of the holes punched in the cheap drywall and hung around our heads like the clouds of cigarette smoke we breathed in with it. Too dramatic? The writing, maybe, but trust me; it is a faithful rendering. In childhood, I never questioned the reasons for the anger, and I'm just now figuring them out. My father's anger was more apparent, because of the drama. The holes in the wall were mostly his. We had a constant parade of cheap coffee tables in the living room, not because of any kind of decorating disorder, but because the new one we just got would be new for a short time before my father put his fist through it. When we were small, we'd pick dandelions from the yard for my mother, and stuff them into these spherical candle holders made of glass. Glass candle holders? I know, but these were solid, like pool balls or giant marbles. You could throw them across the room, and they would never even chip. Anyway, I can see them, clear with aqua blue swirls inside the glass, our dandelions stuffed into the hole for the candle. The flowers would immediately begin to close and turn brownly limp, and we'd set these on the press-board coffee table next to the new fist-crater. I remember being annoyed that I couldn't put the flowers in the center anymore.

My mother's anger was less dramatic--just a silence colored with dissatisfaction at all the broken promises she thought someone had made to her about what her life would be like. She held anger in her teeth.

J, on the other hand, grew up in a house where anger was taboo. He told me once, he never saw his parents yell at each other--only kiss. Having come to know his family, I can believe it. They are nice people, and so are my people, but none of them has the first idea about anger.

But back to the book. It is The Dance of Anger, by Harriet Goldhor Lerner, PhD. I've just started it, but already gleaned some nuggets of wisdom to help focus my sifting through my childhood for guidance. J and I each thought the way we had learned to deal with anger was normal. I think I even remember summing up my philosophy in discussions with J: "It's better to let your anger out, or it will fester inside and cause problems." But good old Harriet calls me out on this count. On page 4 she says, "There is, however, another side of the coin: If feeling angry signals a problem, venting anger does not solve it. Venting anger may serve to maintain, or even rigidify, the old rules and patterns in a relationship, thus ensuring that change does not occur. When emotional intensity is high, many of us engage in nonproductive efforts to change the other person, and in so doing, fail to exercise our powers to clarify and change our own selves."

I grew up thinking that as long as I was right (and from my perspective, was I ever wrong?) my anger was righteous. I didn't get angry often, but when I did, it was explosive, even in public. This was, of course, terrifying for J. Just as his passive-aggressive silences were terrifying for me.

I'm grateful, I guess, to be figuring this all out now, but also so very sad that I didn't learn it in time to save my marriage. I just have to plow forward in faith that it will somehow help me or my family or somebody now.