Exhausted77

I have been doing quite well in my recovery and seem to be making great, but small, strides. One day at a time right?
Lately I have found myself furious, absolutely furious with my RAH! We have had minimal contact lately as he has moved out, and our contact has not been harsh. He has admitted he has hurt me and would like to try and work on our relationship.
I am bouncing between hope and sadness as I remember his past broken promises toward a new start. I am learning to not have any expectations and am willing to work on a friendship first, if not for us, but for our children.
Most days I am happy and can rationalize our situation and talk myself through the sad times, and have learned to accept the happy times without building the situation into more, as I would have done in the past.
Right now I am ANGRY! I am so very angry with all I have had to deal with, the hurtful words, the broken trusts, betrayals, not only to me, but our children. I want to scream and yell and destroy something, just anything to get my rage out. I know it wouldn't help, I have screamed into pillows and have not felt any better, not one bit.
I find that some of the coping techniques that I have normally found useful such as going for walks, music, spending quality time with my children or pets, does not seem to help with my anger as well as I would like.
I feel myself, my children and my husband are suffering because I cannot seem to move past the anger/resentment stage.
Please, I need help. I am not normally an angry person and I feel like I am taking a huge fallback in my recovery. This anger/resentment stage is taking over my life! I am miserable, which makes me feel angry too. I just feel stuck.
What were some of the things that others have done to help get through this? I know this is a normal step, my counsellors and friends have all told me this is normal, but it feels like an obsession, not anything natural or normal.
My children have even pointed out that "Mom is angry all the time lately".
Please, please, any suggestions would be appreciated.

dandylion

Exhausted77---you sound like a person who has "stuffed" or denied their true angry feelings for a very long time. Do you think this is true? Do you feel that there is a lack of equity in your relationship?

sincerely, dandylion

stella27

Can you get a notebook and write down all your resentments? That helped me a LOT. You can even write it in the form of letters to the one who did you wrong and screwed everything up. You can hold onto the journal. Not send the letters.

I was getting the anger and resentment out of ME but I wasn't directing my rage at anyone else.

It also created a record of all the $hit I had dealt with because I have a bad habit of letting things go too easily and not staying as angry as I should have.

Exhausted77

Yes, I know for a fact that I have repressed 17 years of anger. I was always the "happy" person that would go out of my way to make anyone, even a stranger smile. Many times at the expense of my own happiness. I have been in therapy over a year, and I thought I'd been making great strides and making some positive changes. I can now say NO to someone!! I haven't been able to do that in a long time.
I am an emotional thinker (and actor), always have been. Very seldomly have I used my brain in making decisions and have always followed my heart. This has made for some poor choices on my part.
I have been journaling for over a year. I have written undelivered letters to many people in my life, not just my alcoholic. Like I said, I have taken my recovery to great lengths, including why I got involved with an alcoholic in the first place.
Funny thing is, none of my anger is directed at anyone in my life other than my AH and myself. More to him than me.
I have made many, many lists of the garbage that has been thrown my way, over many many years.
I have tried everything that everyone has recommended. I just thought that some one on here might have something that counsellors or family wouldn't normally know about, as they are not the ones in our situation. Any suggestions would be great. I'm stuck.

LifeRecovery

Exhausted77

I don't want to downplay how hard this is.

Some of this for me just took time. The more I beat myself up the longer it took. 17 years of stuff takes awhile to work through. I had not allowed myself to feel angry a long time, and when i first did allow myself to feel it felt like forever.

Then I had to put it in perspective of how long I did not feel it. Then it made a little more sense.

Learning about the stages of grief helped me to normalize that I was feeling it....however long it took. I still get some of it in waves.

I brought it up as a topic in Al-Anon meetings which also helped.

I had to keep getting reassurance from my counselor that angry was not a place I wanted to get stuck, but was an emotion....one I had not let myself feel previously.

Finally learning that anger was not "bad" but a sign that I had let a boundary be crossed helped me significantly.

dandylion

Exhausted, how much of your anger have you shared with your husband. If you are angry with him, don't you think it would be fair to communicate this to him?

sincerely, dandylion

Exhausted77

I have shared with my spouse some of my anger. I have yelled at him through angry tears "How could you put other human beings through these awful things?!" And I have sat quietly and told him "When you did _____ I felt _______".
He tells me that he feels he deserves my anger, and that it is in the past. He cannot change it. He feels bad, and can only control how the future will be. I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THIS. I too am not perfect and have made mistakes that have caused unwilling harm to people I love.
I know with my brain that anger is an emotion, that is healthy. I just can't tell my heart to stop feeling it, to the point it is affecting my health and the lives of those around me. I know I need to change the way I think about my anger, that I cannot let it consume me, but I am failing miserably.

marie1960

For me, anger was part of the healing process.

First I was angry at him, angry for the lies, chaos, and of course his unwillingness to choose me and not the booze.

Before I knew it, I was angry at myself for accepting his unacceptable behavior for so long. I felt like a complete failure.

I stayed angry for quite a while, until one day i realized that I could not change the past. I could not rewrite our story, not one thing could I change, this is just how it had to play out. With some time and distance I decided to leave the past in the past, live my today, and look forward to the future.

I think you are just responding the way anyone would who lived in an addicted home. Wishing you peace and sending healing thoughts.

CeciliaV

Exhausted...17 years of pent up frustration sure does sound exhausting! I feel you, I really do. I've been dealing with the spiral of alcoholism with my AH for 2-3 years now, but looking back, it was always there in some form of addiction or another, and I too have been with him 17 years and have that many years of frustration and anger and resentment to deal with - about he addiction and other things as well. I think dandylion nailed it on the head with the "lack of equity" statement. And I don't think I truly realized how much I am resentful until very recently. I also have obsessive tendencies, so I understand how it feels all-consuming at times.

The feelings are understandable. We've been through so much. We've taken care of others, put our own feelings aside for so so long. And for me at least, once I've allowed myself to acknowledge those feelings, it seems they are all swirling around in a violent eddy. All I can do is try to not get sucked down into it.

As for how to navigate that eddy of emotions? I'm trying to take better care of myself and find my voice. I'm trying to communicate to my AH (now in rehab) that I'm doing the best I can. That I am working through it at my own pace. I'm trying to vent out my frustrations in "safe" places (here, Smart Recovery meeting, etc.) so I can get some of them out of my system.

Please go easy on yourself. You've been through so much already and you don't need to beat yourself up because you're not healing fast enough, and you are certainly not failing miserably. Keep taking good care of yourself - the therapy & journaling & walks & whatnot are good things to do for you. The only other suggestion/question I would have is whether you have considered counseling sessions with your RAH? It may be beneficial to have a "moderator" present for you to healthily communicate your feelings.

Sending you strength, hope, and hugs.

Santa

Exhausted, I read your blog post. You've decided to work on a relationship with a person who treats you badly, says it is your fault he treats you badly (your fault he drinks), and the anger is consuming you.

My anger at my ex consumed me for a long time (we were married 20 years). Two years after our separation and subsequent divorce, I am a lot less angry. I can still GET angry when I think about what he did (especially the scars he left on our kids), but I am not angry every waking moment, like I was.

I know the feeling of having invested so many years already, I've got to keep going. I got to the point where my plan was to outlive him. Maybe I would have 10 good years without him from say 65 to 75. How sad is that? And then I thought, what if I don't outlive him? Against all odds his liver function is good. What if this hell IS my life, forever?

That's when I started to seriously entertain the idea of divorce.

The other thing that really helped with my anger was starting yoga. It sounds silly but if you can take a yoga class twice a week, it brings a lot of peace. I don't know exactly how but it really does.

CompletelyLost4

Wow - that had became my plan. That's when I decided to start seriously planning how/when I would move his things out.

I write down my angry feelings as well. I tend to be the peacekeeper. My family comes to me with their complaints, coworkers do the same thing - I always try to cheer everyone up, help them all get along, but when I started to feel absolutely disgusted with my own situation I didn't tell anyone. I just kept it all in until I was ready to explode over the smallest things. I started channeling that negativity into a journal, and it has been helpful to me. It has also been nice to go back and read some of my older entries - some of them make me laugh and some of them make me want to bawl, but I also feel comfort knowing I'm in a much better place now than I was even a year ago!

Seren

Anger is a completely normal emotion. Just like any other emotion, you can't help it when you feel it.

The important thing is what you do because of it. Anger can provide us with the energy we need to change some aspect of our life that we don't like, or it can be used in words and violence to destroy.

Resentment against my stepson was huge in my life for quite some time. Getting past it has been a process that I still have to work at to succeed. Journaling helped me tremendously at the beginning. Great, big, angry letters scrawled across the page!!! It's a great release, and there is even a study (I've forgotten the year and author at the moment) that shows that writing for about 20 minutes each day to get rid of all the 'stuff' in your head really helps improve your mood!

I hope today is a bit better

dandylion

WoW, exhausted. I think if you were more detached from him the (justifiable) anger would not be so overwhelming.

How detached are you from him? Have you ever tried attending alanon?

I know that detachment has done a lot towards relieving me of the blinding anger.

It is almost impossible to be detached and angry simultaneously.

sincerely, dandylion

grasshopper53

I feel uncomfortable with some of the responses above. No-one seems to be aware that anger is traditionally one of the 7 deadly sins. The therapeutic gospel of our secular world seems to be saying anger is "natural and good" you need to experience it, express it etc. Really? Does that go for the remaining 6 of those sins, lust, pride, gluttony, envy, sloth, greed? Yes, there is a place for healthy anger but I hear it is usually short lived and followed by meaningful conflict resolution. I am pretty new at this because the anger I grew up with was basically toxic to the max and never resolved, not in this world anyway. I believe the basic text of AA is correct when it says "Resentment is the number one offender, it destroys more alcoholics that anything else". People like me drink deep of this bitter cup then expect other people to die and suffer. They usually have no idea of the seething cauldron that I keep stirring by reminding myself how badly done by I am by xyz. My alcoholic Dad has been deceased for more than 40 years, do I really think he is responsible for my messy emotions and life? As my first sponsor used to say "Get off the cross, we need the wood" The magic thing I get from 12 step help is total identification with another human being who has the same problem as me, the bondage of self. Few professionals can help with this. Dr Silkworth is honest enough to admit this in the letter quoted in "The Doctors Opinion" chapter of the AA book. That's where it all started but the "therapeutic movement" has unfortunately diluted the bad news we all need to face before we can really get well-the WE are the problem, no-one else. The inventory is ours, not the other man or woman's. Sadly we don't recognise that addiction to anger and rage is probably an addiction in itself. Newton Hightower has written an excellent book about this called "Angerbusting 101" It has helped me see what is going on but sadly too late for two of my closest friends, both taken by cancer at age 51. I believe their addiction to anger had a large part to play in that. I am starting on Step 1 again with this issue in mind. God Bless.

Lily1918

My husband went to Jail on the first of July of this year. Ever since then, our communication has been almost 100% letters.

For me, I wrote all of my anger down in my journal, then rewrote it in my letters to him. Just writing it out wasn't enough. I was still angry. Even after sending the angry letters, I was still angry.

about two months ago, I had a friend who told me that anger is a secondary emotion. She said we are never angry just because... We get angry because we are hurt, or offended, in danger etc... the biggest one for most people is a reaction to pain.

I didn't start to come to terms with my anger until I began to work through the pain beneath it. Here is an example of one of my journal entries.

D was supposed to be home from work at midnight, and came strolling in the door at 5:30am. Ugh!!! I'm soooo beyond Pissed!!!!

why? Because I felt rejected. He would rather go out and get high all night than come home and snuggle with me.

I call D on the phone and he sends it to voicemail. He doesn't return my phone calls. How rude!!! that makes me so mad!! why? rejection, once again. Insecurity as well. I feel ignored.

AH compliments another girls dress. I get angry and jealous. Why? what is beneath my jealousy? Insecurity. I want him to think that my dress is pretty. Lack of trust. etc.

I realized it isn't about me being angry at all. It is about me feeling ignored, abandoned, disrespected, or insecure. Once I began to allow myself to feel those difficult emotions, I didn't need to be angry anymore. Anger is so much easier to feel in the moment. It is easier to be mad at him, and yell at him for coming home late, than to say I'm hurt and feel like you don't want to spend time with me. There is much less vulnerability in being angry, than being hurt. My anger is always about me, not about him.

Sorry if I am rambling. It's kinda hard for me to explain. This is just what has helped me over the last few months. It hasn't been easy, but I just try to take it one day at a time. My belief system also helps a lot. I mean, I have screwed God over really badly. I deserve to go to hell. I am not a saint at all, but god gave me grace. He loves me anyway, even though I hurt him. He tells me that if he, the god of the universe is willing to become a smelly poor homeless man and be beaten and tortured by some of the most cruel men in ancient history because he forgives me, then why cant I let go and forgive AH? don't get me wrong... I still struggle with being mad. a lot but I just try to take it one day at a time. I hope this helps.
sending hugs,
Lily

KateL

Yes writing stuff down is good. You can read it back later and see your feelings in the raw, especially after you calm down a little. It sometimes helps to rationalize and get to the bottom of things. I have reams of journals and stuff. It always helps. I even have cognitive behavioural classes and they encourage me to do the same, although I've always done it anyway to a degree. Except now they encourage me to draw a tree, The top branches are my negative feelings and thoughts about how people treat me. The middle of the tree is why do I think people treat me like that and what do they think of me. At the bottom I am encouraged to write what I think of myself. This was the eye opener and very liberating for me. It showed that abusive people in my life have actually managed to convince me deep down that I am all the things that they say (even though it's mostly untrue) This is because my answer is similar and almost the same as theirs. They have ground me down so far into self doubt. My job is then to convince myself that they are wrong and make the bottom answer at the roots of the tree different. Anger is normal when people grind you down. I no longer allow them to make me doubt myself so the anger is subsiding. Now I know I am an ok person and can live with that, their opinion means Jack s*** I hope you feel better soon xxxx

lizatola

I am in a similar situation, married 18 years, asked for a separation, angry and resentful, etc. I'm learning to take responsibility for my anger. I have had to accept that I stayed in an unhealthy relationship and that my primary emotion was fear. Basically, it took a lot of soul searching to get to acceptance of myself for where I am and then looking for where I want to be eventually. Do I want to continue living with someone who causes chaos, creates drama(which I found out I do this too), accepting unacceptable behavior under the guise of keeping the peace, and putting up with the stinking thinking of an alcoholic for the rest of my life? No, I didn't.

I'm still angry but mainly I've turned my anger onto myself at times, because I know now that I allowed this to happen. I could have run the first time AH abused the dog. I could have walked away the first time he blamed me for something I didn't do. I could have turned him in when he drank and drove. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, that was how I lived my life and it occupied my thought patterns for a long time.

What helped the most was getting with my sponsor from Al Anon and calling my friends from my home group. I have a great group I attend where most of the folks are just around my age or a bit older. I have found their support to be invaluable. It's never easy to get over anger and resentments, believe me I'm still working on it today. But, I've found that the load lightens up a bit when I started focusing on myself and on my recovery. Because, in the end, that's the only person I can change and I can start fixing me TODAY, one little change at a time. Hugs to you!!! I completely understand.

HealingWillCome

Lily, thanks for your post. It didn't sound like rambling to me. I think it was spot on. My sister sent me a book about this same concept (that underneath anger is some other painful emotion) while I was going through my divorce many years ago and it really helped me to gain some focus. I struggled for many months because I didn't think I had a right to be angry because anger is sinful. Umm, well, my xah had left me with three young children for an 18-year old girl. Yes, I did have a right to be angry.

Anger is a tough one. Anger is natural. Grasshopper, even Jesus became angry and ran the money changers out of the temple.

Anger is tough because what we do with it can turn ugly. That's why I love Lily's reminder that there is a healthy way to deal with anger if we can calm ourselves long enough to ask what is really going on and get help for those issues.

overit263

I get angry when I am not expecting it. Just like they have triggers, they leave us with triggers I think. I try to remind myself that "I am not the addict that has to live with this struggle for the rest of my life". I can choose to get past this and not make it my struggle. I'm working on all the good that has come from this - the friends I've made, the work experiences I've had etc. I still get angry and upset about all of the damage, but mine won't admit that he caused damage etc. I need to move past it, and never have expectations of an apology etc. I only hope that if that day does come, I won't care at all and it won't affect me.

mry

I've been married over 20 years and have been living separately for the last 14 months. RAH is 3 months sober. My parents were dysfunctional. I let go of my anger/resentment towards my parents when I understood that they did the best that they could AND I kept healthy boundaries between us. I find that the same understanding and boundaries helps me deal with my RAH. At some point, I had to accept that as crappy as it was, it was the best he could do. None of that was the life he wanted or expected to live. When he is moody and controlling and difficult, I'm grateful that he no longer lives with us. I don't know what will happen to our marriage but I'm okay with letting time shake it out. Either I will feel that there is some hope for a healthy marriage or it will become obvious that we need to divorce. I stopped needing to take the pulse of the relationship and just accepted that each day was either good or bad for him and that it's too early to tell if he will recover enough that I want to continue a marriage with him.

It sounds like you are putting a lot of pressure on yourself to stop being angry. Maybe it would help to spend some time focusing on what's beyond the anger - the hurt of what happened or the fear that it will continue. You said that you felt stuck and I wanted to tell you something that I find helpful. The answer to stuck is still. Take some time to be still and feel. It may be that his moving out is giving you some space to feel the pain of what happened to your life. I find that while the angry scream may feel good for the moment, it's the ugly crying that heals. take care of you.