My Anger Is A Ruin In My Life

by Mrs. LL
(Tamilnadu , India)

I am a 30 year old female, married with a son who is 6 years old. I've been suffering with the problem of anger for the past 7 years. I'm basically a loving person. But I'm a person who can never tolerate frustrations in my life any more, feel even to end my life. My husband is a loving person but at several occasions he was not able to support the family financially due to his heavy loans and other commitments. In such instances I'm burdened to support my family which stresses me out too much and I generally burst out.

I had a lot of dreams about my life with him since ours was a love marriage. During the initial few months of married life itself he lost his job then later worked abroad, but for some problems he returned back and again the same constraints in the family. I was throughout working and supporting the family. But very soon he got a good job and most of the financial strains started decreasing. But the loans he had taken to sustain the family in those difficult times are still eating us. Loans were taken since my income was not sufficient to sustain the family. So frequently we had fights and even physical abuses between us.

Life started to become worse. He started to frequently lie to me to avoid conflicts which eventually came to light. So our conflicts worsened. I started to be irritated always and started suspecting him and he eventually started smoking to relieve his stress. I was more disturbed by his addiction . Now we are doing a little better, paying our loans, and financially better. But currently there is intense conflict where we are not getting along with each other. I want him to get rid if his addiction but he blames me for all his behaviour and says I'm the cause for all conflicts and mainly because of my anger.

I really don"t know what to do. I'm totally frustrated with my life. Every action of his irritates me and I feel ignored and neglected. I still have true love towards him and I don"t want this relationship to break. I'm always in an irritated mood, fault-finding and stressed out with all the responsibilities of life. During the course of these events I think we have become totally separated in our heart of hearts, and cannot be normal with each other. Please help me to control my anger and be more tolerant to events in my life. I've seen lot of downfalls and frustrations only. I really cannot get along this way. Please...help me out of this. I want the joy back in our life together.



Response from Dr. DeFoore

Hello Mrs. LL. Thank you for asking for help on this site, so that others may benefit as well. Your desire to save your marriage is a very good one, and I will do my best to help you. You are apparently a good person who wants to make things better. The anger you are experiencing does not reflect who you really are, so you are looking for a way to act more in accord with your true nature. Your true nature is joyful and loving, even though you may have lost touch with that temporarily.

Focus your efforts to change on yourself. That is where your freedom and responsibility lie.

Let go of his smoking. No one ever quit smoking or any other addictive habit because of someone else. He will either quit, or he won't. It wasn't your fault that he started, and you can't make him quit. That is his responsibility, totally. I know it's hard, because you have to live with the results of his actions. But if you try to get him to stop, you will only make things worse.

Also, make every effort to give up criticizing him. It will only add to the problems, and it activates your anger. It does not get him to improve.

Here are some other things you can do that will help you to de-activate your anger, and activate the loving being that is who you really are. If you do each of these things regularly and consistently, you will feel better and your marriage will begin to change:

1) Write from your anger on a daily basis. Get all of those thoughts and feelings out on paper. This is for no one's eyes but yours. You can destroy it after you've written it. You just need to give your anger a "place to be" so that it does not take over your thoughts and actions.

2) Write about all of the times you've been hurt, abandoned, neglected and abused in your past. This is where your anger comes from. Simply writing about these memories will help.

3) After writing about your anger, write about what you're grateful for from your past, what you appreciate about your present, and what you're optimistic about in your future. This positive journaling will activate the good person you truly are. Keep doing this positive journaling every day, no matter what, and you will get great results. You said things are better now--be grateful for that, and it will grow.

4) Next, write about what you appreciate about your husband. List everything, no matter how small. This will activate your love. Tell him what you appreciate about him as a person, express your gratitude to him for the work he does and anything at all that he does that is positive or helpful to you or to anyone. When you focus on the good in someone, it is more likely that the good in them will grow.

5) If you have deep seated unresolved issues, you may need further help. Take a look at what this site offers here.

Whatever you do, do not give up on yourself. Ever. You can do whatever you set your mind to. Believe in yourself. You can be the kind of person you want to be.

Feel free to write for more support on this site.

My best to you,

Dr. DeFoore

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