3 Reasons You Are Still Angry

There are a lot of reasons people hold on to their pain and anger. The main one, I think, is that people believe they are protecting themselves by holding on to anger. The thinking goes:

“If I continue to be angry about this, it will keep me from being foolish in the future by being duped or having this happen again.”

“If I maintain my anger, my partner will really know how much he or she hurt me and how important this issue is to me. Consequently, he or she will be motivated to take care of my hurt feelings and not repeat the transgression.”

There are at least three issues hidden inside the statements above that reveal the real reason you are holding onto your anger. They are:

1. You want to show your spouse how hurtful his or her actions were so you can get the special treatment you desire from them to make you feel better about the transgression.

2. You want your spouse to know how hurtful the behavior was and continues to be so he or she will diligently search his or her behavior for an understanding of how this happened, accept full responsibility for it and for the subsequent pain it caused, and be properly apologetic about it.

3. You want to have some assurance that this will never happen again. This is a big one, and it comes up over and over again. You might feel as though you have been made to look foolish, and you never want to feel that way again.

I see these issues come up all the time for people, and you might be in the same situation right now. You could be holding on to your anger for any one these reasons…perhaps even all of them.

You think that your anger will protect you from being made a fool of again or help show your partner how awful his or her behavior was so you can get the apology or the special treatment you deserve.

But in the end, continuing to carry this shield of anger doesn’t work. Eventually, it reaches a point of diminishing returns. Once you become aware that you are in this position, you probably feel like you are crumbling inside and all you want is a way out of the nightmare.

Clinging to your pain and creating even more stress doesn’t just interfere with the healing process, but can create actual damage to your body and mind.

When you maintain the stress of long-term anger and pain, your physiology changes. The way your brain functions biochemically is altered, and if that continues, there can be structural changes as well.

It also changes the way your body functions in some pretty serious ways. It can be hard on your heart for one thing. It can change the way your blood vessels deposit fat. It can even affect the way your body processes sugar and uses insulin.

In short, your anger isn’t serving you at all. In fact, it’s hurting you. It’s eating you alive – breaking you down physically and psychologically and causing damage to your body and mind.

All the while, you aren’t even getting the hoped-for benefit. You aren’t protecting yourself from the pain, and you aren’t changing your spouse by being angry. All you are doing is hurting yourself and probably your relationship.

Dr. Frank Gunzburg is a licensed counselor in Maryland and has been specializing is helping couples restore their marriage for over 30 years.

For more information about forgiving your partner and working through the past, please visit http://www.howyouforgive.com/