I expect him not to get angry. Is that fair?

[PreciousChild]

I have not been on the forum for a while. Sometimes I find that I meander away for a while - it might even be avoidant behavior. There's a topic I'm struggling with - anger. I have certain ideas about it that I think sometimes go against what people on here believe, but I'm not sure if I have a good point or if I'm afraid of anger given that my dad was a rage-a-holic.

I agree with the stress-cup theory, and that those with ptsd are more likely to spill over in anger. I agree with Pete Walker and other authors that anger is a protest behavior that can develop out of not getting our needs met as children, and it being carried over into our grown-up lives, intensifying any angry response we may have to real events. But I further believe that through healing and choices we make, we can and should limit the expressions of our anger. A few things motivate me - 1. I've read research that demonstrate angry expressions are not cathartic. Repeat, they do not ease tensions that lesson our anger. In fact, studies show that every time we get angry, we set ourselves up to get more angry. That makes sense to me that anger makes more anger. If I want to get good at a skill or habit, I repeat. Two references: "Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding" in Personality and Social Psychology and "Anger and Catharsis" in Psychology today. 2. My son got scared when I yelled. I thought that it was okay to act "human" around him, but I realize it was not okay. We have neighbors, and I hear the dad go into yelling fits nightly. As soon as he starts to yell, his young child starts to cry. Even I feel scared - my heart starts to beat faster and I get anxious. I think that even once a year is too much. I rarely ever yell now, and I don't feel at all like I'm artificially suppressing myself. I don't feel that I am not expressing my genuine self. 3. Studies show that anger depends on how we interpret the situation, which is exactly what this forum is about - cognitive distortions. I realized that meditating, switching perspectives, etc. were highly effective to avoiding the slow burn of anger in a genuine way.

The reason I want feedback now is because I've been seeing someone, and we're getting to the point where we're sharing some of our deeper feelings. I get the feeling that he gets angry sometimes like many people do. I shared some of my beliefs about anger, and I'm not sure how he's taking it. In the past, I've wondered about how reasonable my expectations were as well.

 

[Kubash16]

I don’t think it’s reasonable to want a person to not experience or have any expression a very normal and healthy emotion.

Yelling isn’t the only expression. Anger does not equal yelling.

The suppression of any amount of any emotion is very unhealthy. The key is to find ways to express all emotions in a healthy way. Yelling is not healthy, but feeling angry and calmly telling someone that that is what you are feeling and why is completely normal and healthy.

****Edited to add resources:

What constitutes healthy anger?

Healthy anger and your health.

Healthy and unhealthy expressions of anger.

Can getting angry be good for you?

 

[EveHarrington]

I didn’t read any of your post....

It’s not fair to expect someone to not get angry.

Everyone is entitled to their feelings.

Feelings are never wrong.

It’s what we do with our feelings that can be harmful.

Now that I’ve read your post, you are confusing HAVING anger with EXPRESSING anger. These are two very different things.

If you only want to date people who don’t express anger, this IMHO is an unhealthy result of your trauma, pulling a complete 180 from how you grew up. I think you’re finding extreme opinions about anger to support your view, when the truth is that a happy meduis best.

 

[PreciousChild]

I actually agree with you both. I actually should say that I expect him to try not to lose it every time he gets angry. The one way that I do think yelling and anger are related is that becoming angry in the first place makes it more likely that you'll yell. I have become so good at taking perspective that I actually experience anger far less than I used to. @Kubash16, I 100% agree that yelling is not healthy, but there are other ways to express anger. I feel like those who either suppress anger or become explosive are two sides of the same coin. Neither of them are actually dealing with their anger in a meaningful way.

I told my guy that I'm not afraid of anger and I can even handle yelling sometimes, but that I'm not into someone who thinks that the point of getting angry is to vent and explode. Does that seem like a reasonable thing to say?

 

[Sideways]

Perhaps reframing this issue might be more helpful.

Is it reasonable? Sure. Why not? You can place your boundaries wherever you want in a relationship. Your boundary seems to be “Don’t ever yell at me, because that’s not something I’m going to tolerate”. Ok. Got it.

How helpful is that to your relationship, though? Putting it out there that this is a problem behaviour for you, and you feel particularly vulnerable when someone starts yelling? That’s super helpful information to give a person.

Here’s the problem I’m seeing with going that step further and saying “So I expect you to never yell at me...”: “yelling” is not a absolute.

There comes a point where someone is literally screaming at the top of their lungs, as an expression of anger, where the majority of people will agree, “Yup, now they’re yelling.”

But oftentimes, when 2 people are in a heated argument, it’s reeeeally common for you to hear this exchange take place:
“Stop yelling at me.”
“I’m not yelling.”
Raised voice. And for the person on the receiving end, they’re perceiving that as “I’m being yelled at” (And it’s totally normal to not like that. Few people do).

But for the person being accused at yelling, their perception, of exactly the same situation, is “Okay, my voice is raised because I want to be clear and understood, but I’m not yelling, I’ve just raised my voice”.

So, which person is right? Which person in that exchange decides whether or not the voice was loud enough to be considered “yelling”?

It’s absolutely healthy to expect your partner to make reasonable attempts to communicate with you in a respectful way. That’s really healthy. But turning that into “so I expect you to never do this...”? That’s a pretty hard line. Communication in emotional contexts is oftentimes not as simple and clear cut as that. “Yelling” is a great example of how 2 people can, and often do, interpret a situation differently.

Second issue? Whilst it’s okay to set clear boundaries (“If you ever hit me, just once, we’re over”), for some issues it might be more helpful to communicate the underlying issue (“I don’t cope with being yelled at”), and then leave some space to see how things play out.

Growth (by both parties), compromise, and communication are super helpful qualities to nurture in a relationship. Does your partner even have a tendency to yell when they’re angry? If they do, is that a behaviour that they’ve learned from their parents (usually is), and are they willing to work on learning how to communicate in a different way if it becomes a problem for you?

You’re going to have to guide your partner about when they’re starting to use a tone of voice that makes you uncomfortable anyway, because there’s no red light that goes off to let us know when we’ve crossed from “I’m angry right now, and I’m expressing that because I’m human” into “and now I’m yelling”.

Yelling isn’t a great way to communicate. Respectful communication, that treats the other person as your equal, is usually far more effective. But learning how to communicate assertively, rather than aggressively, is a skill tonnes of people need to learn how to do as adults. So, if this one’s a keeper? Perhaps consider whether this might be a boundary that you’re prepared to be a little flexible with, depending on how the relationship plays out. Hopefully? It’s not something that comes up too much.

 

[PreciousChild]

Thanks @Sideways . I think you make some good points. I definitely think he's a keeper, and I was thinking exactly that I want to be a little flexible in my expectations because he definitely seems like someone who is willing to listen and work with me. I have never seen him yell in over 4 months (that's how long we've been dating). The conversation I had with him was only me wanting to lay some ground rules beforehand. I get what you're saying about how whether it's yelling is based as much on the perception as on about the actual tone of the voice. My reflecting on anger right now has everything to do with perception - how one perceives the situation which in turn affects whether and to what extent one gets mad, and how one perceives the other's reaction as well.

Maybe the title is a misnomer, but I don't really identify with how you characterize what I said. I said to him that someone who sees venting and exploding as an inevitable result of anger was not for me. I did not say that he couldn't ever yell. I think anger is a really important emotion that tells us that our needs might have not been met and that a resolution is in order. But in recent years, I've been trying to focus on the resolution part, to identify what needs to be addressed and to give the partner a chance to meet that need. I find people ranting, raving, venting, partly mixed in with rage from unresolved emotions from childhood etc. to be without resolution. That leaves the partner with no recourse and no way of satisfying one. I think raging simply perpetuates the distress and negativity that we got from our experience with our traumatizers, and worse, multiply the suffering by dumping it onto others. My ex hubby was like, and in the past I was like that too. I just want my potential partner to know that I do think there are healthier ways to express one's anger, as well as avoid generating avoidable anger in the first place. I think way too many people approach anger inflexibly - as though it was a fixed store of emotion and the only solution is to blow off the steam. In my experience, healing from past hurts, building healthy habits of mind and authentically engaging those who hurt us rather than blasting off all the time is possible and has made me happier.

 

[Sideways]

Yup, so I’ve deliberately reframed the question you seem to be asking. Just giving my opinion: if it’s helpful, great, if not, move on to something else.

Setting boundaries openly with your partner about unacceptable behaviour? Super helpful.

Four months into a relationship, is it helpful to start telling your partner how they should cope with their emotions? Deciding for your partner “If you feel emotion A, coping strategies that you should avoid because I’ve read they’re not helpful...”, seems like an unhelpful, and at least premature, step to take.

When you have a bit of a track record with someone, you start to learn what kind of things make them angry, and you start to get insight into how they cope with that anger. If you find out this guy flies into a rage at the drop of a hat? Absolutely that’s going to be a problem.

But if he successfully manages his anger by going into a quiet room and beating the crap out of a pillow - why would you interfere with that? Because of a couple of studies that you’ve read that suggest it’s not the most productive way to manage emotions?

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have boundaries abot acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, which is why I reframed your issue that way. Telling a partner how to manage their emotions before there’s even been an issue with their emotional regulation? Seems a bit unreasonable to me, and a lot like projecting your (perfectly valid) issues from your own past onto your partner, and then trying to take control of those issues (your issues), before they’ve even become a problem.

So: I think there’s a reasonable, healthy, and constructive way to deal with this issue, and then there’s your proposed alternative, which seems like a bit of a stretch to me, and adding dimensions to (a currently non-existent) issue with this person that are more about you than them.

Ultimately, if he behaves in a way that you really like, why go setting rules about how he manages his emotions? I don’t know why you would take a valid issue of yours (you don’t like yelling) and reconstruct that issue into: I’m going to tell my partner how to manage his own emotions because I know what’s best...? It’s okay to not like people yelling, and to set boundaries around that behaviour for your own benefit....

 

[Friday]

There’s a difference between the emotion of anger, and the behaviors or expressions that follow it.

What it sounds like to me is that you’ve conflated the two.

But others have already hit that, although it’s worth mentioning again because...

I think that even once a year is too much.

My ex hubby was like, and in the past I was like that too.

So there’s a danger, coming out of bad relationships (abusive or not), of black and white thinking + generalizing/labeling about the traits your ex has onto everyone else.

Jumping traits for a moment.

If you’ve just gotten out of a relationship with someone who is histrionic? Queen of the Sad instead of RageMonster? Who has used tears to manipulate, as a weapon, as a come on, as a way to get attention, and -apparently- because it’s Tuesday :banghead: it’s perfectly natural to be I don’t want to be with anyone who cries! Once a year! At MOST! That’s my limit on crying. And even that is too much. No crying. No sadness. I don’t want either in my life. There are better ways to deal with things than getting sad all the time, and crying over every little thing.

Now is it rational to draw the line at crying, that your partner isn’t allowed to be sad? Nope. Not at all.

It’s natural, you’ve been up to your eyeballs in highly dysregulated bullshit for far far too long, but it’s not rational.

Nor is the expectation that most people would need to told not to inflict highly dysregulated bullshit on others. People get sad. People cry. Most people? Aren’t histrionic. They wouldn’t in a million years even consider taking it to that level. It’s like telling someone they’re not allowed to rape you. If you have to tell them, because they didn’t know? Telling them won’t do any good. And for everyone else it’s just insulting.

Attempting to hold future partners to a standard created in a bad relationship by a past partner? Not only no dysregulated bullshit, but no crying whatsoever? Is a great big red flashing warning sign that they’re not over their ex, and are still seeeeeriously f*cked up by them. Now, that may change over time, as one cries and gets sad and doesn’t take it to the next level... they relax their f*ck. NO! I said NO CRYING! We talked about this! You have no respect for me! How dare you treat me like this with your snivellig manipulative sympathy seeking drama mongering selfish self centered bulkshit! I don’t care your mom died, your kids sick, your dog got ran over, etc... you LIED TO ME!!! I said I didn’t want to be with anyone who cries, and I meant it! Boundaries! You’re not respecting mine! Get out! Get out now! Liar! Abuser! Villain! How DARE you cry! (Reacting to the person in front of them like it’s the person from their past)... but it’s rare for it to happen in one relationship. What’s far more common? The next several relationships that person has will end, because their partner was sad or cried, and it created a huge relationship breaking fight. (See internal monologue above ;)) Or they just don’t want to put up with being treated like a scumbag, when they’re not, and leave before it all ends in tears.

Does switching traits & behaviors parse things better?

 

[PreciousChild]

I think both of you make good points about how already anticipating problems and providing guidelines is kind of like asking not to be abused in advanced, which is not helpful because if the person has that in him, he's going to abuse anyway, and if he doesn't, then I'm running interference before the relationship even begins. I think that's a good perspective. I also think that's a good point @Sideways makes about learning about the person for who he is, which is hard to do when you are holding them to predisposed expectations. I do think I do this for the most part. I just want to point out that I did not frame the conversation as something that was about his behavior and what he should or should not do, though the title suggests that I was telling what I expected of him. I framed the conversation that I had with him as my general philosophy on anger. I think people can talk about expectations about relationships, etc. in general in advance to see if they mesh. We also talked about a future together and how we might handle blending of families, etc. even though these things have not happened yet.

As for @Friday 's comments, I agree that I sound like I have carry over from my past, which is why I wanted feedback. I definitely still have templates from my ex hubby and ex bf in my head. But I don't really understand the entire thing you said. I don't think I came close to being that dramatic. Btw, this new guy tells me that he feels super close to me and says I make him a better man. He feels heard, loved, and is really over the moon for me, as far as I can tell. I'm ultra-senstive about things I say because that's part of my hyper-vigilance, and this is a part of it because I thought I turned him off with how I was talking about anger. But I'll tell him when I feel weird about telling him something, and he usually laughs it off and reassures me. I try to hard to communicate in a mature way, and not let things either get out of hand or ignore it (even when I think something is silly).

I might be sensitive right now when I say this, but sometimes I think comments here can be pretty critical. I think that's ironic given that we suffer from ptsd and often need a lot of reassurance. I think the justification is that we need to "keep it real"and indeed we probably don't get that enough in our real lives, but I feel like the feedback doesn't truly reflect what I said.

I want to add that I don't want to judge anyone who does rant. There was a time when I totally couldn't help but rant and rage even if I could see it in myself, which I couldn't. It took a long time and a lot of healing just to get to a place when I could manage anger much less have a good handle on it with perspective. So I don't want to come off as though I think people can just snap a finger and control their anger. At the same time, it's been really helpful for me to see anger as dynamic, flexible, and that there's a lot of choice involved in it.

 

[EveHarrington]

I have never seen him yell in over 4 months (that's how long we've been dating).

This isn’t really long enough to form a solid opinion on someone’s anger. I’ve been dating my guy for 8 months and he’s never yelled or screamed at me, but yes, I do know it’s in him as he’s admitted to yelling at other people. Just not me. He knows that yelling will put me in a bawling ball on the floor and will rip me to shreds, so he doesn’t cross that line. When we fight, he walks away.

I caution you about seeming someone a keeper after just 4 months as it is still a very new relationship. Some women know men for quite a few years and the switch doesn’t flip until after the “I do’s”......and sometimes not until even later in the marriage.

Take. It. Sloooooooooow.

 

[mumstheword]

My guy does yell sometimes, usually it's when I've stepped over a line into subtlety, or not so subtley, trying to manipulate him or control him and when he eventually gets through to me, after I change the focus on to "Stop yelling at me! I cant think when you yell at me" and after I resort to yelling back, when I eventually start listening to him, instead of trying to get him to conform to what's comfortable for me, I find he has a good point and that yes, I WAS inadvertently and (emotional reason) trying to control him and manipulate him and THAT'S NOT OK.


The point of power really is one's OWN behaviour and that CAN'T happen when l/ we are too busy looking at the other to see if they are stepping out of line, OUR line. He's not your child, dictating to him what's acceptable and what's unacceptable is a way you would treat a son or daughter, not a partner. He's a grown man.

All one can do, to ensure that you are being respectful and egalitarian as opposed to authoritarian, is to communicate how expressions of anger, hurt, etc make you feel extremely vulnerable and that YOU might not cope too well, when.things (inevitably) go there, because we are talking about a human relationship between.two people who desire intimacy and you have to show and have REAL EMOTIONS and real expressions of emotions and acceptance and communication when those real emotions arise.

Anger is a clear sign of someone feeling too vulnerable and imposed upon. Guys do often, and characteristically, express anger when this happens and this happens in intimate relationships.

Women, more often, cry and yes, certainly that can be perceived as manipulative and be just as much of a trigger for guys, as anger is for us women, and either way, gender norms aside, anger and hurt will arise, at times and these need to be allowed and expressions of them need to be made ok, for it to be a healthy relationship.


Hurt is usually what's really going on, for guys, I've discovered, hurt, vulnerability and fear. it's just that they go to "fight" mode, when triggered, mostly, and rightly so. I don't think we would actually love it if they cried everytime they felt transgressed upon, whereas that's what I do, but I'm a girl and that's quite acceptable and considered normal.

The more you try to control another the more unhealthy the relationship.becomes, but the more you communicate honestly and responsibly and model assertive, respectful and fair boundaries, the more security and trust builds and the less anger and more intimacy and affection builds. That's my experience anyway.

Maybe ask how he deals with anger and hurt when.it arises? Maybe he is the kind of guy who responds with "flight" more than "fight" anyway? Maybe he walks away and goes out to calm down? Is that something more acceptable for you?

How will YOU cope if something you say or do ticks him off ? Do you apologise? Do you make excuses for yourself? Do you get defensive and hurt? How do you handle yourself when you feel hurt and threatened?

If you want to preempt what your first fight will look like, and talk about that, I think that's really healthy, if you can just come from an "I" place, as in "When people get angry with me, I often feel _____ and usually I respond by_____ and so it's very difficult for me to communicate and be regulated emotionally when that happens and I tend to _____ (avoid, hide, get controlling, run away, whatever is your usual go-to) and then you, can, might, get an indication of his usual response to hurt and conflict, by opening up first and encouraging that kind of self reflection and exchange and communication with him.

 

[Sideways]

I might be sensitive right now when I say this, but sometimes I think comments here can be pretty critical.

Didn’t mean to sound critical, so sorry if it came off that way. My mother’s aggressive communication style has been the topic de jour for me and my T for a few weeks now, and I rambled on a bit because I’m currently working through issues around anger and aggression myself!