Marriage Counselor: Containing Anger

By: Michael Russell
Anger can be extremely destructive in a relationship. It can have equally negative consequences whether it is acted out upon or repressed. A marriage counsellor must seek effective methods to deal with the issue of anger to assist couples in their quest to develop a loving, supportive and long-lasting relationship.

When anger is expressed, it can leave the person on the receiving end feeling traumatized even when there is no physical violence involved. An interesting phenomenon is that the person who demonstrated the rage also feels assaulted. This is due to the workings of the unconscious mind that perceives all actions as directed toward oneself. Therefore, when we inflict pain upon our partners, we also hurt ourselves. It then follows that anger has a definite negative effect on a relationship. Partners simply have a difficult time establishing intimacy because their safety feels threatened.

Repressed anger can have equally devastating effects as expressed anger. Often, repression can lead to an empty marriage, especially when one's anger is turned inward and manifests itself as depression. An example of this will serve to illustrate this point. Let's say that an individual has an older sibling that was very rebellious and hostile during their youth and as a result was constantly being severely punished. The individual associated expressing anger with being punished and therefore repressed anger and hid it from their parents and, later in life, from their spouse.

This same individual ended up playing the role of the "good child" during childhood who never raised a fuss about anything. This served a purpose in childhood, but later in life, this adaptation became very damaging in a marriage. The constant hiding of anger extended itself to the person feeling that they must also suppress their sexuality and other forms of excitement because this heightened activity and energy felt threatening.

The turning inward of anger into depression left the individuals' partner feeling unsatisfied and searching for fulfillment of desires outside of marriage. A marriage counsellor could do well here to help the repressed individual get in touch with their anger and pain and express it in a meaningful way in a supportive environment.

It is often difficult for people to deal with their hidden anger and pain. For most of us, we learned during childhood that anger is a bad thing and we were punished or criticized for it. We were left with the option to express it and face the consequences or to keep it inside where it wouldn't do us or anyone else any harm. However, when we chose to dampen our anger, we also chose to dampen our capacity to love because love and anger are two sides of the same coin. They are both related to our life energy or life force. When we feel love our life force flourishes; when we feel rage, we experience our life energy as being cut off or stunted.

Anger is therefore an essential expression of our life energy and when we repress this, we become depressed or live a pale, muted existence. However, we are liable to harm ourselves and others if we act on our anger. Containment is a process that allows us to release our anger without hurting our loved ones. A therapist can assist a person to let loose of anger in small, controlled amounts in a safe environment and help to turn it back to its original, positive life-giving form.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Marriage Councelor