Anger and Relationships

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.
The Big Book of AA, p. 66

For a long time after Giselle died (in the crash of United Airlines #93 on 9/11) I had been angry at God, and at a lot of other things. And then one day it occurred to me that it was anger that had killed her and everyone else who died on that day, and I started to imagine my way backwards in time to where that anger had come from, a crazy-making, evil, righteous anger. And then I started to notice , firsthand, that anger was almost always righteous and crazy-making. All you had to do was turn on the radio talk shows and you could hear that plainly enough, hear the pot being stirred and heated. All you had to do was yell at somebody in traffic, and you could see it in yourself. Anger began to seem wrong to me, almost always wrong, and I began to think it might be my problem, not God's.
A Little Love Story, p. 253


Anger is so destructive in relationships. John Gottman, a marital researcher at the University of Washington, found that one of the things that most distinguishes mutually satisfying marriages from mutually unhappy marriages is the ratio of positive to negative interactions.Surprisingly enough, unhappy marriages are not characterized by an overwhelming amount of anger, since the ratio of positive to negative in these marriages is about one to one.

But Gottman discovered over and over again when he carefully reviewed video tapes of satisfied couples frame by frame that in happy marriages the ratio was always about five positive interactions for every negative one. In other words, anger is so corrosive and destructive of relationships that a couple needs to engage in five positive interchanges for every negative one to overcome the damage done by their anger.

As the quotes from the Big Book and the novel, A Little Love Story, indicate, anger is poisonous and crazy-making. It always increases suffering both for the person who is angry and for the person who is on the receiving end of the anger. When we allow our anger to get out of control, we lose all ability to think clearly and act effectively. It definitely does not encourage our partner to listen carefully to what we are saying and try to help us figure out a solution to whatever we're upset about. As Gottman's research indicates, we will instead have to multiple positive efforts to repair the damage done by our anger.

Gottman also found that all of us get out of control with our anger when we are "emotionally flooded." At that point our pulse rate is much higher than normal, our blood pressure has increased substantially, and the hormones that precipitate our fight or flight response are coursing through our bloodstream. He emphasizes the importance of learning to recognize when we are becoming negatively aroused and taking a timeout before reaching the tipping point of becoming emotionally flooded.

One other piece of Gottman's research about anger in relationships is pertinent. He found a significant difference in the way men and women respond to conflict. On the whole, men are more likely to reach the emotional flooding point in the midst of conflict much faster than women are. He speculates that this is probably the reason that women are the ones who bring up relationship problems 90% of the time and the reason that men tend to be so unwilling to deal with them. So, it is the male in a relationship who is most likely to call for a timeout if an argument heats up, and it is important for his female partner to accept his need for some down time in order for him to self-soothe and calm himself.

On the other hand, women are more likely to reach that emotional flooding point if there is an issue they are upset about and it isn't being talked about. So when men respond to a woman's efforts to discuss a problem with some variation of "I don't want to talk about it," they are planting the seeds for more conflict and more anger. This also means that when a man says he needs a timeout to keep from flooding emotionally and responding with rage, he needs to make a commitment to his partner that he will return as soon as possible to talk about the issue after he has had a chance to get away and soothe his distress.

In order to recognize when it is time to call for a timeout, we have to learn how to become an active observer of ourselves. This brings us back to the concept of mindfulness and the usefulness of meditation in developing that capacity. As we grow in this capacity, we are able to make a choice about noticing our anger, setting it aside, or taking a timeout rather than allowing our anger to define a path we are compelled to follow. The more we can turn away from our anger, the less we will poison our relationships.

Self-Hate and Relationships

When I saw that Ed was coming in this morning, I had to remind myself to sit with him from a place of compassion and equanimity. A recovering Valium addict, he suffers from so much self-doubt and self-hate that I have to remind myself not to fall into agreement with his negative views about himself and his life. Unfortunately it looks like Ed's wife is not having much success in maintaining a positive view about Ed and about their marriage. He reported that she had a "meltdown" recently in which she stormed out of the house saying, "I hate living here!"

It is very difficult to be in an intimate relationship with someone who is full of self-hate. Sometimes it feels as though all the oxygen in the room has been burned up by their self-doubt and self-contempt. This is particularly true when all efforts to be loving and supportive are met with statements about what a loser oneself is and how impossible it is to change one's negative outlook.

I label as self-hate that inner voice that calls us names ("You stupid idiot! How could you be so stupid?"), reminds us of our flaws ("you're not very outgoing, smart, careful, etc., etc."), tells us what others are thinking about us ("they think you're a failure"), instills fear in us ("something bad will happen if you don't finish this in time"), and makes a case against us ("you're never going to be successful because you are too afraid to take risks".) That voice is extraordinarily powerful and tenacious, willing to say anything to maintain its position of control.

This inner critical voice has its origins in the first years of childhood when our sense of who we are is being formed and we are utterly dependent on the care and support of others. It begins when our caretakers and other people important to our survival tell us that we are not living up to their expectations in some way. They may say it directly, "You're a bad girl for saying no." Or we may take it personally and believe we are not meeting their expectations when the people upon whom we depend for our survival seem not to notice or appreciate us. Whatever the actual experiences are, they create a feeling of shame, a feeling that who we are is not OK. The "inner critic" is born and grows stronger each time we listen to the hateful words it directs at us.

There is one thing to know about this voice of self-hate that is most important: IT IS NOT YOU! The best thing to do with that voice is to learn to recognize it, observe it, and NOT identify with it. The more we believe it or argue with it, the more energy we give to its nastiness and ugliness. When we bring our attention back to our breath and simply watch the voice without trying to resist or letting ourselves feel bad, the voice begins to lose its power because it can only gain energy by our participation in its hateful game.

On the other hand, when you hear your partner speaking with that voice about him- or herself, it is helpful to raise some objections. Challenge its unloving treatment of your partner---"It's not OK for you to be so mean to someone I love so much." Tell that voice that you know from firsthand experience that your partner is not the person that voice says he or she is. Learn ways to help your partner disidentify with what that cruel, unloving voice is saying. Most importantly, remember that the voice of self-hate, yours or your partner's, loses its power in the presence of loving-kindness.

Having to be right during an argument with a partner is a sure sign that the voice of self-hate is lurking in the background. Insisting on being right is a way of trying to deflect the inner critic's voice, of avoiding the painful feelings of shame and self-doubt. But demanding that our partner acknowledge we are right and he/she is wrong never works--it only promotes a defensive response by our partner.

Fortunately for those of us in recovery, Step 10 addresses this issue directly when it tells us "when (not if) we (are) wrong, we promptly admit it." Letting go of needing to be right and of projecting our own bad feelings onto our partner is an effective way of de-escalating conflicts. Taking responsibility for our behavior also often has the virtue of leading our partner to think about their part in the issue and admit where they have been unskillful.

It is important, however, not to let Step 10 become a tool for the voice of self-hate to beat us up. Admitting we made a mistake, that we were unskillful in some way, does not mean we are stupid, defective, or bad. It means that we are human, and is a good reminder that we work toward "spiritual progress, not perfection."

Equanimity and Compassion in Relationships

We talked about Step 12 in my step-study home group this morning. Much of the meeting focused on sponsorship and how to be a good sponsor when the person we are sponsoring doesn't stay clean and sober or doesn't follow suggestions. Bonnie, who has several years of sobriety, talked about feeling some regret as a sponsor since none of the people who had asked her to sponsor them had continued working with her. Rita, who has many years of sobriety, talked about gently letting someone go recently who continued to relapse and was unwilling to work the steps--Rita said her life is simply too busy right now to find the time to work with someone who isn't very motivated to stay sober and work the program.

Both Bonnie and Rita emphasized that they tried to view the "failings" of these newcomers from a place of compassion and equanimity. They made an effort not to see themselves as right and the newcomers as wrong. They recognized that the newcomers were simply not ready for whatever reasons to accept and work with them as sponsors.

Dan, who has more than 20 years of recovery, then went on to talk about how he had used sponsorship in the first decade of his recovery as a way to "collect AA trophies." He came to realize that by doing so he was elevating himself to someone who had a "superior" recovery program. As a result he lost sight of the reality that he and the people he sponsored are equals. Now he no longer formally sponsors people, but makes an effort to be open and available to talk as an equal to anyone who seeks him out to talk about their drinking and efforts to quit.

I see all of these people as bringing compassion and equanimity to their work with others. They experience compassion for the suffering the newcomer is experiencing and they see how the newcomers are just like themselves in wanting to be happy and avoid suffering. They understand how the deepest longings and fears of the newcomer are the same longings and fears they still experience no matter how many years of recovery they have.

Compassion and equanimity are essential for the health of all intimate relationships. My own experience in my relationship with S and my work with couples has thoroughly convinced me that it is the nature of close relationships to open old wounds over and over again. And it is not just my wounds; it is my partner's wounds as well. Practicing compassion and equanimity when dealing with these wounds keeps them from festering to the point where they contaminate the entire relationship and destroy it.

I recently read a wonderful article about compassion and equanimity in a Buddhist magazine, Shambhala Sun. In it, the author writes the following:
Everyone, just like me, wishes to have happiness, and everyone, just like me, wishes to avoid suffering. Just like me, everyone wants to be loved, to be safe and healthy, to be comfortable and at ease. And just like me, no one wants to feel afraid or inadequate, no one wants to be sick, lonely, or depressed.
When we are angry and dissatisfied with our partners, remembering how this quote is true for them can help us let go of the belief that our pain and unhappiness is somehow more important than theirs.

Remembering the fundamental humanity we share with our partner allows us to let go of our judgments and self-righteous complaints about their attitude and behavior. Keeping in mind that we and our partners are equals makes it much easier to let go of resentments about what they have or have not done. Bringing a compassionate attitude toward not only their unskillful behavior, but our own unskillful behavior as well, helps restore the love that brought us together in the first place. And expanding that compassionate stance to everyone in the world, everyone, further opens up the spiritual awakening that Step 12 talks about.

Grievance and Letting Go

Gary and Patti have been married for more than 25 years. Gary is a recovering pothead and sex addict, active in 12-Step programs, and "sober" almost 3 years. Patti, who attended "family week" when Gary was in an in-patient program for his addictions 3 years ago, does not participate in any 12-Step programs because "those people are crazy and I'm not."

Gary and Patti came to see me to "help our marriage." Although Gary has "worked the steps," made several inventories and followed them up with several amends to her, Patti remains angry and distant in the marriage. She cannot forgive Gary for his years of infidelity and says she still doesn't trust that he won't "cheat on me again."

Gary alternates between sadly asking Patti to be "nice to me" and angrily defending himself, "I've done everything I'm supposed to (in recovery) and she still won't let me in." He says he is struggling not to develop and hold on to a resentment about Patti's continuing distrust and unwillingness to be close to him. He stays in the marriage because he still loves Patti and because he doesn't want to be part of a failed marriage.

This morning I worked mostly with Patti about her grievance with Gary. Gary's sexual acting out and emotional unavailability when he was stoned left Patti feeling mistreated and very unloved. Not surprisingly, she found it easy to blame Gary, making him the Bad Other, while seeing herself as the injured party who has good reason to hold on to her righteous grievance against him. But despite her anger and mistrust, she also does not want to end the marriage.

We began by exploring some of Patti's bodily experience of her anger and mistrust. She said she felt it in her gut as a tightness and dull pain. As she focused on these sensations, she talked about how she didn't feel safe letting herself be open and vulnerable with Gary. During the years when he was sexually acting out, she had confronted him several times about his behavior and he had promised he would be faithful. Although Gary was quite sincere at the time he made these promises, neither he nor Patti recognized the addictive nature of his affairs. Consequently, he kept his promises for only a year or two at most before he was acting out again. The pain in her gut has been a constant reminder not to let her guard down and trust that Gary really has changed.

When we began to talk about why she remains in the marriage if she doesn't believe she will ever be able to trust in Gary's fidelity, her bodily attention shifted to sensations in her chest (her heart chakra), and she began to cry. She said the tears were about her strong belief about being a responsible person and keeping her commitments. She would see herself as an irresponsible quitter if she decided to end the marriage. And so she is stuck in her angry grievance---she can't let herself trust Gary and be emotionally open with him nor can she leave him.

At this point, I told Patti a story my brother told me many years ago. He and his two teenage children went rafting one summer day. They failed to line up properly for one of the river's major rapids, and the raft flipped, throwing the children toward the shore where they were able to grab on to a fallen tree. But my brother was caught in a serious whirlpool at the bottom of the rapids, which was trying to pull him under. He swam as hard as he could; but just as he was about to get free, the whirlpool caught him and started pulling him under once again. He repeated the same process with the same result.

My brother began trying to swim out of the whirlpool for a third time. By this time, however, he was exhausted and his body was becoming hypothermic. When he tried to swim, he discovered he could not. At that point, he said, he gave up and realized he was going to drown. But when he stopped struggling and relaxed, the river kicked him free and he was able to make it to shore where his kids had been watching in horror.

I try to remember this story whenever I get locked in a struggle, either with someone else or with conflicting internal feelings and/or beliefs. In the recovery community, this process is called "Letting go and letting God." In the Buddhist community, this is described as being open and mindful to your experience, letting it happen, so that, in John Welwood's words, it will release its knots and unfold, leading to a deeper, more grounded experience of yourself.

As long as Patti stays focused on her grievance with Gary, she is unable to release the knots of hurt, disappointment, fear, and anger. If she can let the grievance go and experience whatever feelings come up, she will discover a deeper wisdom (her Higher Power, her Buddha nature, her Big Mind) that will guide in her decision about whether to let herself be fully present in the marriage or to allow the marriage to end. Whichever decision this deeper wisdom makes clear, Patti will then be able to trust that she is making the right decision.

A Celebration

S and I celebrated 21 years of marriage yesterday. Being in recovery has been essential to being married that long, and being married that long has been essential to being in recovery. They are inextricably connected and cannot be separated from each other.

I got into recovery because of S. She taught me about the disease of addiction. She taught me about the need for abstinence from all addictive substances. She has always supported my recovery.

Our involvement in recovery made it possible for us to get married. It has enabled us to stay married. Staying clean and sober, being actively involved in 12-Step programs, and talking to each other about the recovery process has been a vital to our marriage. Time and again working the steps and going to meetings has enabled us to work through the inevitable difficulties of living in an intimate relationship with each other.

Being married has been central to my ongoing sobriety. I have turned to S rather than alcohol and pot for support, comfort, and understanding over and over again when I have been upset.
The importance of staying together has always brought me up short when I find myself thinking that I sure would like to find out what those microbrews taste like or how much fun it would be to get stoned and go on some adventure. The joy and the delight of being so close to S have replaced the miserableness and the unhappiness of being so isolated when I was drinking and using.

So on this second day of our 22nd year together, I am deeply grateful to S and our relationship for my ongoing recovery and deeply grateful to AA, my home group, my sponsor, and all the people practicing recovery for my ongoing marriage.

Control and Relationships

Even though you try to put people under some control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in its wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the best way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

This has been one of my favorite quotes since I first read it more than 30 years ago. It continues to form one of my core beliefs about healthy relationships---the more we try to control our partner in a relationship, the more unhealthy that relationship becomes. But, as the quote indicates, letting go of trying to control a partner does not mean ignoring him or her--that is the worst policy and usually leads to the demise of the relationship.

Control is about trying to force or manipulate a partner to speak or act in a certain way. It is about demanding or expecting a partner to be different than the way he or she is. It is about blaming a partner for our unhappiness. It is about criticizing a partner for being wrong, being stupid, not paying attention, etc. It is about threatening a partner with dire consequences if he or she doesn't do what we demand. It is not about love. What is more, it doesn't work. Instead it leads to an unhealthy relationship, filled with resentment and a desire to retaliate in kind.

Alanon has another phrase for what makes a relationship healthy in recovery---detaching with love. Detachment does not mean ignoring a partner. It does not mean letting go of awareness and concern about what and how a partner is feeling. It does not mean being silent when there is some dissatisfaction about the relationship. It does not mean becoming so separate that both partners are traveling down parallel tracks that never meet and never connect.

One of my early teachers said that he believed the essential feature of a healthy relationship was letting go of expectations while remaining connected. Detaching with love is another way of describing that. We give our partners a large, spacious emotional meadow where they can thrive and we watch them with affection and care. We accept them as they are, not as we think they ought to be or as we would wish them to be.

The word "watch" is tricky here. Alanon rightly emphasizes that playing detective, watching an alcoholic-addict partner's every move to see whether or not they are drinking/using or trying to head off any unwanted behavior, is not helpful to us or our partners. Alanon encourages members to place their focus on learning how to take care of themselves, since that has often gotten lost during the years of being partners with an actively using alcoholic or addict. Alanon also teaches us that focusing all our attention on our partner in an effort to fix him or her usually helps our partner avoid taking responsibility for actions and their consequences.

Sometimes watching a partner in the way I am describing leads to the conclusion that the partnership is not a healthy one and is unlikely to become healthy because of the partner's attitudes and behavior. When efforts to bring this observation to the partner's attention are continually met with denial, defensiveness, anger and blame, detaching with love in this kind of situation usually means letting go of the relationship. But this letting go is not a last-ditch attempt to control or force a partner to become what we want him/her to be---it is recognition that the time has come to detach completely from the relationship and to move on with our own life. We may continue to watch our partner, especially if there are children involved, but it will be from afar.

Step Eleven's emphasis on prayer and meditation is excellent advice for learning to watch a partner without ignoring or trying to control him/her. We learn to watch our thoughts and impulses to make our partners behave the way we think they should, and we find the space not to act on those thoughts. We learn to become more aware of the suffering our partners create for themselves and others without adding to their suffering or ours.

12-Step programs describe this process as one of letting go and letting God. Buddhism describes it as being mindful and practicing equanimity. Both of them recognize that trying to control our partner only makes matters worse.

The Illusion of "I" and the Reality of "We"

I was astonished by the endless, often contradictory thoughts which appeared when I first began meditating (they are still endless and often contradictory after many years of meditating, but that no longer astonishes me.) I soon began to wonder who "I" was. Was I the person making all kinds of internal comments and evaluations about everyone and everything around me? Was I the addict who loved getting high and going for a walk in the woods? Was I the the angry guy who felt resentful when others didn't drive the way I thought they should? Or was I the man sitting quietly on a cushion with nothing much going on in his mind?

From moment to moment, who I was shifted from thought to thought, never graspable and never observable. I was not my body; it could be hurting one day and feeling no pain the next. I was not my feelings; who I was when sad was not who I was when happy. I was not my thoughts; they appeared out of nowhere and then quickly disappeared only to be replaced by other thoughts that had nothing to do with the first ones. The more I tried to discover who or what "I" is, the more elusive it became.

The Buddhists say "I" is a delusion. Seeing the world through the eyes of "I", "me", and "mine" is the major source of our suffering. 12-Step programs say that "ego deflation" is essential to the path of recovery. It is the key to letting go of harmful behaviors and accepting the world as it is rather than demanding it be the way we want it to be. Even philosophers of computer technology talk about "I" being an illusion. Douglas Hofstadter says in his new book, I am a Strange Loop, The "I"--yours, mine, everyone's--is a tremendously effective illusion...

Relationships are not about "I". They are not about "me and you". They are about "we".
The first word in the 12 Steps is "we". "I" and "you" do not appear in any of the steps. Nor do "me", "mine", or "your" appear in those steps. That is because, as one of the many 12-Step slogans puts it, "We can do what I can't."

Every relationship has 3 elements: him, her, and the relationship itself (sometimes it might be him, him, and the relationship or her, her, and the relationship.) When I am working with a couple, my relationship is with the relationship rather than either partner. I have learned both in my marriage and in my work that the relationship and its needs are every bit as important as the needs of each partner. In fact, it is often as important to consider the relationship's needs first if it is to survive and prosper.

A session a few months ago provides a good example of how sometimes one or both partners must consider the well-being of their relationship when making an individual decision. Adam and Marie have been married a little more than a year. It is a second marriage for both of them, they each have children from prior marriages, and both are fairly new to recovery

Adam's ex-partner, who is not in recovery, does not fully accept Marie as his new primary partner. Recently, this ex-partner asked a favor from Adam that seemed innocuous to him, and he readily granted the favor. But Marie saw the ex-partner's request as a ploy to maintain favored status with Adam and was quite hurt and angry that he had granted the favor.

In almost every second marriage, there comes a moment when one or both partners need to demonstrate to an earlier partner (and sometimes to the children as well) that their primary loyalty is to the new relationship. At first, Adam couldn't see why Marie was making such a big deal about the favor. But as we worked our way through the session, he came to realize that this so-called minor favor had enormous implications for his relationship with Marie. Adam saw that it was time to draw an unmistakable boundary making it clear to everyone that his primary allegiance is to the "we" that was created when he married Marie.

When N and I married many years ago, I read a paragraph from a wonderful little book entitled Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. That paragraph is even more pertinent today after 20+ years of marriage, so I will close this post with that quote--
Now I would like to talk about our zazen (meditation) posture. When we cross our legs like this, even though we have a right leg and a left leg, they have become one. The position expresses the oneness of duality: not two, and not one. This is the most important teaching: not two, and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. We usually think that if something is not one, it is more than one; if it is not singular, it is plural. But in actual experience, our life is not only plural, but also singular. Each one of us is both dependent and independent.
Substitute the word "relationship" for "life" in the next to last sentence, and this paragraph describes the reality of a healthy relationship.

Pain, the Conditioned Mind, and Awareness

D and K came to me for help with their relationship. D has been the identified alcoholic in the marriage. K has been the identified co-alcoholic. They have both identified themselves as a couple in recovery--each of them has been active in 12-Step programs for many years.

As so often happens, marriage counseling has brought a major unidentified issue to the fore. In this case, that unidentified issue is K's alcoholic drinking. After weeks of denying that reality, K agreed several days ago to go to treatment after K was fired for being drunk at work.

D is emotionally out of control, saying "How can I stay married to an alcoholic?" This seemingly outrageous statement (what about the reality that K is also married to an alcoholic?) makes sense in light of D's childhood. D's mother was an alcoholic who abandoned D and her other children. D is terrified that K's alcoholism means K will abandon D and their children.

Despite years of sobriety and recovery, D has no serenity at the moment. The activation of intense emotional pain stemming from D's childhood abandonment is overriding D's ability to think and act rationally. D wants to get a lawyer and file for divorce immediately, believing that will remove the pain.

D is totally caught up in what Buddhist's call the conditioned mind. The conditioned mind begins to form in childhood as a child develops beliefs about him/herself and the world. These beliefs combine with feelings and behaviors to create various subpersonalities, which allow the child to adapt and survive. When a situation arises that feels similar to the childhood experience which created a particular subpersonality, that subpersonality takes over, hijacks the ego, and demands immediate attention.

Both Buddhism and 12-Step programs suggest a practical tool for keeping this process from wreaking havoc in our lives. That tool is meditation. Meditation teaches us how to meet pain with awareness. Rather than trying to avoid the pain by distracting ourselves or trying to find something which will remove the pain, we meet the pain in meditation by paying close attention to it. We learn to observe it; and in doing so, learn about an accepting, conscious, compassionate part of ourselves. The Buddhists call this part Buddha nature, and 12-Step programs refer to it as our Higher Power.

As Jon Kabat-Sinn, founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program has written, if you move into pure awareness in the midst of pain, even for the tiniest moment, your relationship with your pain is going to shift right in that very moment. It is impossible for it not to change because the gesture of holding it, even if not sustained for long, even for a second or two, already reveals its larger dimensionality. And that shift in your relationship with the experience gives you more degrees of freedom in your attitude and in your actions in a given situation, whatever it is...even if you don't know what to do.

So right now I am encouraging D to spend a lot of time using Step Eleven's guidelines to help
D return to center. D doesn't have to make any decisions about the future of the marriage at this time. D doesn't have to try to figure out where the relationship is going. What D does need to do is to find an emotionally calm place and give K the space to come to terms with being an alcoholic and achieving sobriety. More will be revealed.