Recovery Nation

"There are some people who are always angry and looking for a fight. Let it go and keep in mind the battle isn't with you, it's inside themselves."


This is my current struggle. I have a lot of hidden anger and become passive aggressive instead of dealing with it in a healthy way. It started early in my life, and it is probably going to be one of the things I struggle with for the rest of my days.

Because of my abandonment (see my other recent thread on the board) I developed a self-loathing perspective, which shaped my personality. Constantly pessimist, I have struggled all my life, constantly tearing people down so I won't be alone in my misery. What made me an effective member of the debate team in high school was merely one of the outlets of my self hate and anger. By the time I married I was already addicted to pornography and masturbation because of my fears and those addictions served my self-hate. With my wife I tried to tear her down because I was angry and wanted to have control. I was afraid she would reveal herself as not really loving me, so I never entirely gave her myself, always holding back real compassion. What I thought was proper, to promote self-sufficiency, was in reality a way to maintain control, avoid opening up to her, and being vulnerable. Would I have been an addict without this part of me doing these things? Absolutely. However, these aspects of my personality, I believe, steered me towards pornography and masturbation because they offered me control and a certain level of self destruction, which I craved.

I began to swallow my anger early on in my marriage. I was o afraid of my wife being able to see that side of me, and so afraid she would see my expression as an opportunity to share her feelings (as I now know to be normal), I stopped expressing my anger or being upset. Rather, I reverted with her as well. I adapted the survival skills I had used all my life, and became silent. I viewed her being upset at me or something I might have done to be such a huge threat to my well-being, I closed off every avenue I could for her to be able to open up to me. I ran to convert what remained of my healthy sexuality into my addiction to pornography and masturbation. I stopped complaining to her about things she did which made me upset, believing that maintaining some sense of calm, placid exterior was not only possible, it was correct.

Of course, my anger could not be contained. It started to leak out by way of passive aggressive behavior. I hid my resentment, kept it from surfacing directly, but punished my wife indirectly and made her the brunt of my frustrations. I hated myself even more, but with the level of self-hate had (and probably still have) there was plenty for her and my family. For years my wife struggled, and when my addictions came to the surface, were discovered, it all made sense. What followed, however, was quite devastating. For several years now, my wife has supported me through my recovery. Several events have delayed moving on to the issues of which I speak to now, but now it is time for me to help my wife heal and work on these issues of hidden anger.

Of course I am afraid. I am still scared of opening myself up for her. I am scared of being the support system she needs. I know my issues of anger are petty compared to hers and now I am afraid to bring them up---because it will open me up to her anger, but also because it will look silly in comparison. I am frightened of being vulnerable, getting out of my comfort zone, and, as stupid as it seems, opening up to my wife and being vulnerable. I am scared that my efforts won't be enough and she will leave me, which will confirm my fears of abandonment. If my wife leaves me after I bare my soul, in my head it won't just be the natural conclusion of my efforts not being good enough for what my wife deserves, it will be confirmation of all my fears and self-loathing.

* * *

Any thoughts are welcome, and this is the first of a few post where I am trying to get things straightened. I am finally seeking therapy, and I know that will help, but so do these conversations. For your participation and insights, I thank you.

hi Sandalwood,

just wanted to briefly share thoughts because do not have that much time.

for the record, I completely UNDERSTAND how this feel -- I definitely feel that I also have a lot of self hatred and loathing and just all of that passively goes to those that I care about the most -- by being passively rude even though I didn't intend to because I didn't feel I was worth it and lalala.

you have to move past this. you have to get in touch with your anger and you have let it go. it's so hard and difficult, but just try whatever works. for me, i tried this hypnosis lesson (http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com) and you can find all of these wonderful emotions to help you uncover your subconscious and release them. i did this one called "letting it go" and it has helped me forgive myself.

you have to forgive yourself, and to forgive yourself is to take a leap of faith to try to feel different from the anger. even though it's important to get in touch with your anger, you need to try to take a leap of faith of forgiving yourself. for me, this was me bringing back masturbation into my life starting last week :) :) :) and it feels SOOOO good.

it never felt this way before when i was addicted and used pornography to run away.

but i took the leap of faith to try what i swore months ago i would never try again -- to masturbate. and i've been working on it and it's....making me let go of my anger.

and that's the thing. you have to learn to move on from your past life and to realize that's all part of growing up and to really let go of your anger.


so begin by asking --- why am i so angry? where is this coming from? how am i showing this on to other people? what is keeping my anger buried deep into my subconscious? start connecting the dots of your anger and you will feel your empowerment as a confident individual.

Hiya Sandalwood,

Are you my husband? Haha:) You sound exactly and I mean exactly like him. I wish he would post on here so he knew he was not alone.

What I keep hearing from him is "that he gets stuck in his own head". I am trying to figure out what he means when he says that. He explains it as not knowing what to say. The thing is it seems like he does not know what to do in situations that to me are just a part of human nature ie: comfort someone who is crying, tell someone you love you love them and mean it, if you want to have sex with your wife you tell her. I find it so weird that such simple things that I find are common sense are so hard for him. He is definitely passive agressive and I even see other signs of personality disorders in there too. He has no empathy it seems either.

What do you think about this stuck in his own head, how would you interperet that?

Lost:)

Lost My Best Friend:

What you're describing sounds to me like dissociation (other people here could probably pay attention to this too).

I used to have a lot of trouble when talking to my partner about issues that made me feel guilty or shameful. Actually, it's a pattern that goes way back. And it's intimately related to anger and fear of intimacy. Dissociation is a coping technique often developed in childhood as a means of dealing with situations that are out of the child's ability to control or deal with. If the emotions in the household were too intense (drunk, abusive father, perhaps), the child "retreats" inside his own head to what is essentially a safe place, out of reach of the trauma that is going on. Skip ahead to my adulthood. My partner is trying to talk to me about how I've hurt her, or even just have discussions with me about my addiction, which I find extremely difficult because of the guilt and shame involved, so I (unconsciously) revert to the old dissociation pattern. I feel like I've gone away, that things are going on that need my attention, but the words aren't there, and I just don't know what to do. There is a lot of fear stopping me from breaking through and connecting to my partner. She, of course, reads this as disinterest and avoidance, which makes her angry. The situation becomes more intense, and eventually reaches a point where the dissociation can't do its job anymore, and I lash out.
In extreme cases, dissociation can lead to multiple personalities, as the child withdraws, leaving another part of the personality there to deal with the situation. If this happens often enough, that other part of personality develops and takes on a life of its own.

Sandalwood (and others):

The main thing that comes to mind here is that anger serves the same purpose as dissociation or lying; it's there to put up a wall, to protect your vulnerable self from getting emotionally close to anyone else. If you let somebody get close, and they abandoned or rejected you, (which is what we're most afraid of, right?) then the pain of that would be so much worse. Or so our flawed thinking would have us believe. The flipside of that, is that when we keep out loved ones at a distance through anger or dissociation or lying, we cut ourselves off from really being able to feel their love and acceptance; If we're told that we're loved, but that person's experience of us is inaccurate because we lie, then we can't really access that love, can we? By keeping others at a distance, we protect ourselves from being hurt, but also from being loved.
The weird thing is, if we learn to let them in, we're likely to find that it's not as scary as we thought. I've been making a lot of progress in this area with my partner, and I've found that letting myself be vulnerable has reinforced that I am loved and that she's not going to reject/abandon me. Of course, it's important to find that knowledge within, but it certainly helps the relationship.

-Alter Ego-

_________________
This too shall pass.

The Way Out is Through.

I can't stay long. I am just popping in here to let everyone know I read your responses and I am appreciative of them. I will be coming back later (probably tomorrow) to respond more deeply, and to let you all know how my fist therapy session went.

Tank you all.

Hi,
This sounds like my H as well. Whenever I try to talk to him he just can become so angry or passive/aggressive. This is so frustrating for me when all I want to do is be open and caring to him. He can be so sweet in everyday life but when it comes down to his own issues he either shuts down or starts raging. I love him so much and can't understand the anger when all I want to do is help. I don't understand what I've done to make him so angry. When he behaves this way it makes me feel like it's all me, that if I would just leave him alone, but now I know this isn't true. He is just so angry still and I don't know how to get past it. Please if anyone can help give me some insight.me77

_________________
Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.
People will hate you, rate you, shake you, and break you. But how strong you stand is what makes you – Unknown.

Hello,

I have recently sent my husband some web articles on passive agression and narcissism. What crazy is that he thought I was doing it to make him feel bad. Really? Would I seriously take the time to look for these things, read them, analyze them, save them and send them to him if that was the case? Would I really waste that much of my time that I don't have a lot of? I told him that that just was not true that I was trying to help him. So he read them and agrees that he sounds passive aggressive with some narcissistic traits. Well there is an indicator right there that something is not right. I send him things to read and relate to trying to help, he thinks automatically that I am doing it out of spite but when he reads them he agrees with them? If I wasted to be mean I would just call him an asshole, way easier and way quicker. This just proves again how he thinks. He does not trust me, he thinks I don't love him and he thinks I am out to get him yet I have been with him since I was 17, married him, had two kids with him and have sat and waited and tried to work through this shit for 20 years, wtf? He knows I am not someone that goes with the flow, I am a strong independent girl and I stand up for what I think is right and am not a mean and nasty person in anyway at all, I try to help people all the time and he knows that. It is amazing to me how me even trying to help gets twisted and distorted to me trying to knock him down and vendictive. I am not that person and never have been. If I don't like someone I take them out of my life, I remove myself from theirs simple as that. If it was me looking in I would see a wife so hurt and so deperate to help her husband and marriage not some crazy woman out to get her man and attack him. So weird how he views things. He also said after he read those articles and found some of it resonated with him that yesterday he was going to make a plan on how to get help and deal with everything. Guess what no plan was made, not surprised always talk and no action always.

Any thoughts?

Lost

I only have a couple of minutes but wanted to chime in.

I have found Byron Katie's list of questions ("the work") helpful in challenging thought patterns. http://thework.com/thework.php
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4. What would you be without the thought?

I think we all tend to feel like our thoughts are always true and just accept them as so. It's been awhile since I used her questions and turnarounds but when I have used her process, it tends to consistently bring some balance back to my thinking and reminds me to "not believe everything I think." :0)

Re: disassociation. I went through this as a teenager after many years of severe physical and sexual abuse by my step-father and others. It started for me when I experienced myself as watching my step-father sexualize me rather than experiencing it. It was as if I was watching a movie rather. As a teenager I took on 'roles' and made a game of figuring out what the other person wanted me to be in the situation.

It was a process to heal all these parts of myself and hard to sum up in a few sentences what that was. But a couple of key things for me were to realize first, it was me (not "just my body" - one of the things I would say to myself) that was hurt and had to really bleed through the pain and grieve with supportive people. The truth too is the core of me was not destroyed, really couldn't be destroyed. Also, all the roles I took on were not who I was....they were roles I was playing. *I* am much more than any role or any part I have played. We each are much bigger, deeper than any role we have taken on through out the years, even if that role has merged with our personality and *feels* like it's just who we are. My challenge is to remember that my husband as well is not just the role he has played in my life, but much, much more.

Okay, got to get off and help my husband pack for our trip.

_________________

"What day is it,?" asked Pooh.
"It's today," squeaked Piglet.
"My favorite day," said Pooh.

Lost,
So sorry to hear you are still struggling with him. But as little as it is it does sound like you're starting to break thru. He at least admitted to a flaw and not everything being your fault. So keep up the good work. I've had to try numerous different communication styles to find one that works. And it still has to be revised here and there. So I guess as long as you're willing to try just keep looking for different ways to communicate. You'll eventually get thru to him. me77

_________________
Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.
People will hate you, rate you, shake you, and break you. But how strong you stand is what makes you – Unknown.

Hi me,

I don't know if I am getting through to him at all because he says things that I want to hear just to avoid confrontation or accountability on his part. It is a way for him to deflect shit away from himself. Who knows I will have to see, I am hoping it is sinking in.

Thanks:)

I want to start this off by letting everyone know my therapy session went great. I was able to share and look at the big picture in a non threatening way. I was able to see how certain emotions regarding my passive aggressive behavior link up to form a chain of thoughts which become progressively worse and more harmful. Also important, was my ability to talk about my frustration and anger with someone who is not emotionally involved or invested in my marriage. I can't tell you how much that helped.

* * *

So, after reading a few of the posts here, I want to say a few things which might help. These thoughts did not necessarily come from one therapy session. These are things I have known for quiet a while, experiencing them firsthand.

1) To lostmybestfriend, your husband really does believe you took the time to make him angry. It's not rational, but that's how he thinks. He is so afraid of you criticizing him, and he is so used to his passive aggressive behavior, he reads your actions through his filters. Why would you take the time to find all of that stuff, indeed. Because he would never do that for you or anyone else, he cannot conceive of anyone doing it for any other reason than why he might do it. His hidden anger has made him question every one's motives, and the result is he thinks you are doing those things to subvert him and make him betray himself. He literally does think you are doing it to hurt him.

2) This I did learn in my session yesterday: Every time your husband hears a complaint, he takes it as criticism. Now I am talking specifically to the passive aggressive person, not necessarily the addict in general. He skips a few steps on the reaction chart because that is a survival skill for him, and instead of hearing, say, "I really don't like it when you hog the blankets at night," he hears, "Why do you hog the blankets at night you insensitive jerk?" He needs to re-learn the difference between a complaint and a criticism.

3) me77: I think the reason your husband shuts down is because in part what I said in my second point, but also because he can't stand the idea of opening up to you. If he lets someone in, and things don't work out, he doesn't know how to tie up all of the bad which would come with that. However, your anger and his guilt from shutting down is something he can deal with easily. You want him to open up because that is what healthy couples do. He is, in part, afraid of being that because acting in a healthy manner means leaving his comfort zone. It means he has to try and be competent. Competence leads to growth, which leads to healing, which leads to compassion in the long run, and if he invests that compassion he is vulnerable, and he doesn't/can't take that risk.

Thank you all for stopping by. What you have talked about has helped me make several connections with my counseling session and the goals I need to keep and make in the near future.

Coach Sandalwood,
So if you're right then what am I supposed to do? How can I make him feel secure in talking to me and opening up? What am I to do? I am at my wits end here. I need this for us to have a healthy marriage. If anyone else has any insight as well I sure would appreciate it.me77

_________________
Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.
People will hate you, rate you, shake you, and break you. But how strong you stand is what makes you – Unknown.

hi me77,

change ultimately begins with the husband. but if you want him to become more secure with his feelings, have you ever considered him bringing to a therapist? for me, it was a very safe place to try to share uncomfortable feelings with another person. it took a long time and a lot of work but it was all worth it. that was just one technique along the way that has helped

me77:

I would start with having your husband read about passive aggressive and hidden anger. I would try to find texts, books, and articles which explains the difference between complaint and criticism. Let him know you are not criticizing him, just talking about things which scare, frighten, or bother you. Acknowledge his need to stay in his comfort zone, but demonstrate his comfort zone is a place where everything is frozen in time, so to speak, and where nothing can progress. Start with something small, seemingly unrelated.

Here's an example: My wife and I took the kids out the other day. It was hot, and I did not hydrate like I should have. All yesterday my hips were sore and I had headaches. I had to take a nap in the middle of the day, which really wiped me out. My wife said, "We just didn't take care of ourselves yesterday." Now, on the surface she was talking about us being out in the hot sun all day, being on the go from very early to late in the evening, and not mentally preparing (because we had no schedule, we just went out and about). Now, she was being serious about ll of those things, but because I had been thinking about recovery and my issues, I saw a deeper meaning. My wife, whether or not she had intended, gave me some insight. I have to take care of myself---my sense of self worth, because it has long lasting effects.

I am not saying to manipulate your husband's narrative, but I am saying you might have more success if you find ways for your husband to discover key ideas on his own. You know, lead him to water, so to speak. This is not manipulation, mind you. This is you seeing opportunities to use to your advantage. The more openings for understanding you create or channel, the better chance your husband will see on his own what is rational and what is irrational.

Coach Sandalwood,
Thank you very much I appreciate your insight on both of my posts. They were both very helpful and I will try to reach him in this way as well as calm my own behavior down. I guess I already knew all of that deep inside I just am having a hard time letting go. I suppose you could say his addiction has given me my addiction of monitoring him. I know it's not right and I even told him so just the other day, I told him to feel free to read my thread and journal and he said well I have read some of your thread but I won't read your journal.When I asked why not he said because those are your private thoughts and I said well it's no big deal I invade your privacy all the time. I felt stupid just as the words came out of my mouth but it is true. I have been invading his privacy ever since D-Day. I could tell you I did this because of other sites I found before RN that provided me with the software to do this but that is just an excuse. Because I know that this is not right. But then again I blame his addiction for this behavior because before D-Day I would of never done anything like this. Sorry to ramble I guess I am just convincing myself of what I already know to be true. Thank you again for your insight.me77

_________________
Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.
People will hate you, rate you, shake you, and break you. But how strong you stand is what makes you – Unknown.