H and I are doing very good right now, but I can't seem to let go of my anger of all the bullsh*t he put me through. He listens to me while I tell him how I feel and he feels horrible for causing me that much pain but I am still so angry. He holds me while I cry and tells me how sorry he is but it doesn't make me feel better. How do you let go of the anger? Does it just take time like everything else or are there things that I can do. I can't stand having this knot of anger in my stomach all the time anymore and it is starting to affect my patience with my children. Anything anyone can suggest would be helpful.

Thank you,
Kelly

I wrote down every evil thought I had for my husband. Then I read them outloud to myself. Afterwards I went out to the bbq and burnt them. Then when I was done with that I sent him an email since i couldn't ever get a word in, and asked that he be patient with my anger, understand that I am hurt, and give me more affection than he ever thought was possible to give. I told him he hurt me more than anyone has every had the ability and asked him to pray for me. I know that sounds strange, pray, for me, but I needed prayer to be able to forgive him. and yes it does take time.. So much time and patients. I have forgiven him for the act of betrayal but find it hard to forgive him for what he did to me as a women. As a Wife....

I am glad you are asking this question. It was almost 8 years ago that I came to this site as a betrayed wife. This is a place of healing where you will get much help. And this question has been asked MANY times!

Recognizing your anger is the first step in dealing with it. For many women we are afraid of our anger and afraid to face it. However, learning how to deal with it does take time and hard work. The most important thing is to learn how to speak about your anger respectfully. Cause if you just let go it does not help to heal yourself or your marraige. Someone once said that the under belly of anger is fear. I think that says it so well. So if you can explain that to your H it will help him to better deal with your feelings of anger, pain and fear.

Write here about what you are feeling. When someone else writes back yes me too that is healing. You need to find constructive ways of dealing with those feelings. Talking and writing helped me a lot. I also read all of the healing books listed in our helpful links as well as dearpeggy.com

Anger.. we have been betrayed. There is no worse feeling. However, it is because you were so loving and so trusting that you were able to be betrayed. In time you will learn to trust your own feelings again. You will trust your gut rather than his words. This will keep you safe and prevent you from hurting like this again. Gaining your own sense of balance once again and feeling safe in your own skin will help with the anger too.

It is funny, when I saw your post I remembered those feelings. But now when I try to write I forgot how I dealt with all that anger! This is good! It goes to prove that you do move on even if it feels like you never will. So I am sorry I can not offer you more statigies but writing and talking are what I remember helping me most and most important of all learnng to talk with respect and not allow the horrible emotions to take over.

Also, are you in therapy? That helped me so very much. It was there that I learned that the anger was poison and that I had to control my feelings of rage and not be controlled by the anger. I had to express my pain to not feel like a pressure cooker that would explode BUT I had to speak with respect in order to heal myself, my H and the marraige. Therapy reading and this board were key factors in healing and dealing with the anger.

I hope this helped and do know that the hard work and time really are worth it. You will feel better.. in time.

EL

Kelly,
I have been dealing with the same issue and it has been over 2 and half years for me. In fact, I spent almost the entire time in IC last week just railing at the world in fury.....angry that H did what he did, angry that there is no justice in the world....angry that life isn't fair...angry that OW get to carry on with their lives with their memories of shared secrets with my H....angry that H had his cake and gets to keep me too...angry that I may have to live damaged for the rest of my life because of his selfish, sick decisions....angry that H gives me that look that says, "do we have to talk about this again?"...angry that father left me feeling unlovable...angry the mother didn't protect me...angry that H didn't value me..angry that H is unhappy with the inconveniences caused by the painting and redocorating going on in our apt, despite the fact that these renovations are so that I don't have to look at the same walls I looked at when he wac cheating...the list goes on and the anger mounts. Even as I write, I am getting more and more angry. As I look at my H sitting in a chair near me, I feel my rage and want to lash out at him. My H is truly remorseful, has listened to my rage and has morphed into a new man and still, the anger is there. We just came back from a really loving dinner and still, the anger is here.

I don't really have an answer about how to manage it but am encouraged by El's recovery. Maybe I will get there.

I will share what IC talked about though I am not sure it really helped me that much.Also, the whole discussion was kind of blurry, as it often is, particularly because I was so stubborn during the whole session. Generally, IC is my liferaft, along with all the people here who "know."
-Basically, she acknowledged the legitimacy of the anger but also said that the world may not be fair and that I have to give up that fantasy (not her words but my interpretation)
-I should focus on the good supportive M I have today and that many people never get to this level of honesty in their M's
-She consistently tries to help me understand that H was in a sick, desperate place and that he was not having the time of his life, as I imagine (I have a hard time swallowing that one.)
-I may be angry but H is living with shame and degradation.
-I have to decide what I want - and if that is a healthy relationship with H, I have to give up the anger and he has to give up the shame.I can think whatever I want, but expressing the anger non-stop is not going to lead to a mutually fulfilling M. My choice....and that makes me angry too. I feel like after what he has done, I have the right to be as angry as I want for as long as I want. Yes, I have that right but punishing him for the rest our lives is not really the way I want to live.
-She thinks that a lot of my anger is really directed at myself - for having been so duped and so "played." That really resonated with me

The theme I have been dealing with recently is the idea that we can make whatever choice we want....as long as we recognize and are prepared to deal with the consequences. And staying angry keeps me unhappy and could deteriorate the new M we are working on building.

I feel that rage is, to some extent, replacing the pain and hurt and maybe that is a good thing, as El says. It means that I am going to stand up for myself and never, never allow myself to be treated that way again.

SO this has been a roundabout way of saying that I totally understand your anger and don't know how to deal with it either but know that is sabotaging my life and H and OW have done a good enough job of doing that...they don't need my help. I have to stand up and deliver my own happiness.

I also find that keeping busy keeps the pain and anger at bay. When I am focussed on other things...work, friendships,kids, yoga, shopping, whatever, I don't focus on the A's or the accompanying anger. It is when I am not distracted by daily life that the anger sets in and the movies start playing. So, I need to stay busy which is difficult lying in bed at night, fantacizing about the revenge I want to wreak on the OW and H. Then I realize how self-defeating that is....it wil not get me what I want.

It is late and this is crazy night talking. But, wow - I totally understand.

Thank you everyone who posted. It does help to know that I am not abnormal in having a hard time to let go of the anger.
El what you said "Someone once said that the under belly of anger is fear." Wow that made me realize that a lot of my anger is from the fact that I am afraid that I might be missing something, that he could be still sneaking around but has gotten so good and deceiving me that I wouldn't have those gut feelings. I think now that the waether is a lot nicer I will hopefully be able to start walking again exercise seems to help me find that calm place that seems to have disappeared.
Thank you again for replying.
Kelly

Kelly,

I agree with what the other posters wrote. I would like to add a few other thoughts to the discussion.

I so understand your pain and anger. We find ourselves looking at a huge pile of crap that was not of our making nor wanted by us. What do we do with it? We feel like we have the right not only to be angry, but also to exact some kind of justice, if not downright revenge. The problem comes when we realize that we are so overwhelmed by the situation that we have no idea of what justice could be nor how to exact revenge.

After a while, we realize that there is likely nothing that could come close to what we believe justice should be. Furthermore, if we still love our spouse, and most of us do, even while we are hurting and angry, we don't want to hurt our spouse. Sure, some of us want to rub into our spouse's face the idea of how much s/he would hurt if we had a revenge A, but the fact is that we are hurting so much that we know there is no way we would willfully have an A and inflict comparable hurt on some other innocent spouse. So there we have the dilemma: how do we get justice without inflicting hurt on innocent people?

The answer is that we can't. We must accept that the notion of life being fair is a childish concept. Life is never fair or unfair. It just is. It is a balance of the two, but we don't tend to notice when fair actions occur. We each have the choice to be fair or unfair people, but the world as a whole is not fair per se. All we have to do is look around in our own town to see the truth of that statement.

Is it fair that an innocent child develops cancer? A young mother is killed in a drive-by shooting? A couple is severely injured in a car accident caused by a drunk driver? None of those are fair actions, and yet they happen on a regular basis. In most cases, someone made a poorly-thought-out decision and caused damage and hurt that was preventable. Just so did our WS and OP make a poorly-thought-out decision. Did any of the people causing hurt think they shouldn't make that decision because of the potential to hurt innocent people? No, obviously not. Why not? Because they simply were not thinking about others. They were only thinking about what they wanted to do. Period. On this level, you can see those actions were not personal to the victim. The victim simply got in the way.

So the first step is to see that life is not fair. The second is to accept that the bad choices that hurt us were not personal. The third is to look at what our WS are doing now to show their remorse and love. The fourth is to understand that anger and a sense of frustration are normal, but should not be allowed to take over our lives. (Our WS need to know that we are angry and hurt, and that the natural consequence of their behavior is our normal reaction--anger and pain, loss of trust and self-esteem, fear of the future and everything else that we feel.) The fifth is for us to understand that we do have choices and one huge one is to put into place our boundaries. (My H knows full well that while I can not stop him from having another A, I can and will most assuredly choose to end our marriage if he makes the choice to have another A.)

I understand so well the stage you are currently in. I took quite a long while to get out of that stage. I am in the stage of acceptance now--mostly because I understand that I have no control over the actions of others. When I was angry, part of the frustration stemmed from my feeling angry at myself for not being able to control the situation and prevent his A and thus prevent hurt to myself. When I accepted that we truly have no control over anyone but ourselves, I could let go of being angry at myself for not being able to protect myself from my H having an A. When I let go of being angry at myself, the anger started flowing out of my body.

I never stopped loving my H, and I don't believe he stopped loving me either. He just had truly horribly unhealthy coping mechanisms, which is why he could have an A. Today, he has replaced his unhealthy coping mechanisms with a strong understanding of himself, his needs, and healthy ways to live.

Please be patient with yourself while you go through the stages of healing.

Encouraging fairy hugs,

fairyfriend

edited for content

I seem to have the opposite problem. I do not hold on to the nager long enough! I know many will not understand this. Yes, I get angry. It may last a few hours, a few days, or a few weeks...then Im all ready to move on...whether the topic has been discussed and whether or not the issue has been dealt with. I am not a conflict avoider...I do not have a problem telling my WH I have a problem with something. But he does little about it. I know this. So instead of holding on to the anger and trying to get him to do something and "fix" things or change in some way...I just accept it and move on. The problem, this does little to motivate my WH to change. He just waits until I get over it and swoops back in. I have been working at hard at not letting get away with things just because I am no longer angry. Anger does have a purpose, and I understand that holding on to it for too long as not positive. But maybe, just maybe you are not ready to let it go...for whatever reason. Maybe you feel your WH si not remorseful enough, or mybe you are not ready to trust him or be vulnerable to him. Cause if you let go of the anger, and are vulnerable again, you just might get hurt. Perhaps you're just not ready to take that chance. But if it has been too long...and only you know if it has been or not for your own good...sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith...faith in YOURSELF...that you will continue to protect ourself and take care of YOU without all of the anger to keep you in a negative state. So maybe that's what it's about...who knows? We are all individuals and we all hold onto, or let go, of the anger in our own time....just trust in yourself to do the right thing for YOU.

~ CAL
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection" ~ Buddha

I began letting go of the anger when my therapist asked me how long I was going to beat on myself for the wrong my H inflicted on me.  Keep in mind that my H had never, and never will be repentent or remorseful.  My anger and pain did not seem to bother him at all.  It was at that point that I realized that I was only hurting myself with my anger.

In thinking about it further, in holding on to your anger, are you not putting obstacles up in middle of your road to reconciliation?

I have given this a great deal of thought the past couple of days and the one question that keeps spinning in my mind is "What is the greatest gift we can give someone we love?"

The answer that keeps coming back to me is "forgiveness".  And, at least the way I operate, that to be fully capable of forgiving you have to let go of the anger.

I am not a deeply religous person, but I do have a strong faith in God.  And the greatest gift God has given us as imperfect humans, is forgiveness.

WWJD?

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

There are not many people who still post here from the days I had my angry stage (El, Dave, Helen...) but I used to write about anger alot. My angry/rage phase lasted about 8 months and it was AWFUL.

but eventually I realized that for me, the anger was because I had to give up the dream - the image - the vision of what I thought was my life and I had to relate the anger to the loss - I felt ripped off.

For me - I had the "perfect" life. Everything I ever wanted and every major goal attained - really. I was living the dream.

And then it all came crashing down and I had to accept that my life wasn't what I thought it was - it wasn't what I wanted and it wasn't what I'd chosen and that made me REALLY, REALLY angry.

Then I also had to accept that it wasn't coming back. No amount of anger was going to "make things right" or "fix things" Now amount of "But I WANT" was going to get it back.

Once I was able to make that connection and then to let go .. the anger faded rather quickly.

Okay so I still got angry - but it wasn't a rage. It wasn't waking up with burning tears, it wasn't some need to strike out. My dday was 7 years ago -- and amazingly I had to think for a minute to remember just when it was. I can still make myself angry if I think about it for too long, but I can pretty easily dismiss it with "ahem! Keep thinking about this and you are only going to get angry" and I know that doesn't solve anything for me now.

IT was very real though and I think it was a phase I needed to pass through.

I read a something once that said "Anger is a normal response to having your boundries violated" I'd say this whole thing was a violation - and anger is pretty normal.

Just try not to live there for too long.

-Susan

Chris - I'm mulling over your thought that anger perhaps puts a roadblock into reconciliation, and I'll keep turning that nugget over in my head over the next few days. However, I guess for me, my H and our marriage, I'd have to answer at this point: no. Anger has been a really necessary part of our healing journey. If by "holding onto anger" you mean purposefully revisiting triggery situations, nurturing rageful behavior, looking for ways a WS is still messing up, I agree; that would be detrimental to reconciliation. But if "holding onto anger" means a BS hasn't forgiven their WS, I can't agree.

There are pieces of our story I haven't told here; they are too, too painful, too monstrous, too unforgiveable. It doesn't mean I don't love my H. It doesn't mean I'm not willing to work towards a complete reconciliation, but reconciliation and healing for us has much more to do with acceptance and change than forgiveness.

Maybe in time, there will be a place for that. I'm not going to project ahead or put it out as a requirement to our healing that forgiveness be there. For now, occasional anger exists. I have a hold of it. It does not have a hold on me. As unpleasant as it can be for me and for H when I'm angry, it is, as Susan says, a normal response. I'm remembering Ami's wonderful post, too, about the stages we go through after being betrayed and losing the life/identity we had and anger is a common part of the process.

"What is the greatest gift that we can give someone we love?" Different opinion: our honest selves. The gift of the beautiful person that we are, warts and flaws, good feelings and bad, dreams, and hopes, trials and tribulations. The greatest gift I give my H is being here and sharing my self, working really hard to heal myself and be the best person I can be. And for H to be here and to give himself - and I mean really, truly know himself and be present without escaping into fantasy, or avoiding conflict - is his gift back.

Its still early in our healing process; we're 18 months past DDay. Anger still exists, though not in the way it ruled me right after DDay. There is A LOT of me that got thrown away because of how H conducted his A. Its going to take a while to process through the grief of those losses.

But the recipe for our so-far-successful reconciliation includes the ingredient of "anger". Like any other good recipe, its important to measure it out well and not dump in too much by accident. BlueIris

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

“I read a something once that said "Anger is a normal response to having your boundries violated" I'd say this whole thing was a violation - and anger is pretty normal.”

Susan, I could not agree more. Like you, I was in the anger/rage phase quite longer than most about 6-7 months. I felt strongly then, and feel strongly now, that it was a necessary stage in my healing. Some may not have as much as others, or go through it as long, it depends on the individual. But stifling it will do more harm then good. It needs to be felt and expressed. If you cannot get validation from your spouse then I recommend counseling to help you work through it.

Ami

Good thread.

Anger/ RAGE Kelly you are experiencing normal emotions for recovery. I did find that hugs and holding hands was a positive step in calming me down.. the triggers were easier for me to handle when H held me. Time, understanding and remorseful S, and will add.. Patience ..Knowing that one way or another the issues would resolve themselves....WE were either going to make it work or divorce.

I was angry for a long time..I felt that my whole marriage was a lie..most of the marriage H was cheating. First time blamed myself for his cheating..trusted him that he wouldn't cheat again.. The anger was aimed at me.. I read all magazine articles but didn't buy any books because we didn't have a big bookstore in town and the ones we had, I knew people who worked there...so didn't buy anything.

2nd D-day different situation.. H and I went to bigger town and bought some book...got some on the internet... found HH and stopped blaming myself.. Chris mentioned forgiveness... I had to forgive my self first.. IC helped me..forgiving H ... took a long time ... my theory is I stayed.. so in essence I was forgiving him as we moved along the reconciliation path.. I have never told my H I forgive you...just can not say it out loud. I did decide a few years ago to put that burden in God's hands..if God can forgive him so can I, that took a weight of my shoulders let go of the remaining anger.

I still get angry..and those times are when H and I don't communicate well... the past rises and I can see patterns of the past emerge.. My H has changed, but he sometimes, (not often) slips back in to a mode that I recognize and now rebel against, and communication is more fireworks that listening. I haven't been able to fully control that emotion yet.

((((HUGS)))

Pat




"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."

This thread has been really helpful for me as someone who continues to be plagued by the anger over 2 and half years past D day. Somtimes it is ferocious, other times tamer and rarely, not present....but it is wild animal always ready to pounce.

Like Susan, I think that the frustration of not being able to turn the clock back and make it all go away drives a lot of the anger. I also thought that I had the life that everyone else wanted (and through denial was able to dismiss the emotional abuse as a form of intimacy??????????? Still having a hard time forgiving myself for that.). How did I end up having the life that everyone dreads? How did I become THAT woman? Well,we have spent a lot of time in IC working on that and I have a lot of the answers but still keep struggling with the rage that comes from being literally cheated out of the life I thought I had.

I also think that I sometimes use the anger and the hurt as a monument to remind H how big and destructive the betrayal is. I am afriad to let the anger become past tense as if that somehow makes it seem like little problem that I have gotten over. I know that is ridiculous and keeping me from living life fully today. That is what I need to work on.

I also have to remember that a lot of the anger that I am directing at H is pent up fury towards father and others that have let me down. And I have to be kinder to myself as well as to H as we both try to change into the people we want to be.

Every morning I wake up and I ask myself this question...

"If today is my last day to live, do I want to have lived it as an angry person or a joyful person?"

And, with that...and a deep breath...I let go of the anger.

When I do I have an angry moment in the day, I ask myself again this way...

"How many minutes of this day, that may be my last day, am I willing to WASTE on negativity?"

I use this method whenever needed and not just for A related anger.

I found that to use the technique effectively, I had to be decided and committed to not being angry.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Here is the 2X4 method I use on myself. I've written it to you so you can really hear it if you want to. If you don't want to, then just read as me talking to myself. It's the only way I could break my anger thought patterns, they were turning into habits. I had to stop them or lose myself. It's a little brutal. It's not the only way. But, you sound frustrated, so I thought I'd offer the option.

Ok, so really...be straight with me here. Why do you insist on being angry? What does it buy you to be angry about this after 2 1/2 years!!!? Does it make you feel safe? Let me tell you something...being angry is not going to protect you from being made a fool again or a repeat. Do you think you deserve to be angry for once in your life - finally someone has done something so atrocious that you can finally be angry and everyone around you will think that it is fair to be angry, so let it fly? You don't get anything for being angry, just pain, negativity, and fear. Ok, what you really deserve is joy and you are not going to get joy by being angry. You can not be joyful and angry at the same time. The only way you can get what you deserve is to banish anger from your life. You have been angry enough. Let me say that again, "YOU HAVE BEEN ANGRY ENOUGH." I hope you live at least 5 years of joy to offset the 2 1/2 years. May you be so lucky to live 5 more years. Really, is it going to make you feel better to be on your death bed in 1 year and say "that bastard ruined the best two years of my life, he gave me a reason to be angry so I was angry when I should have been joyful" - you deserve that? that doesn't sound like anything I would wish for my worst enemy. He had a choice to have an A or to find some other way to resolve his problems. He made a mistake, he chose the A. You have a choice every day to wake up and be angry or joyful. Pick and stop making the mistake that is ruining and eating away at YOU. Have you learned nothing about responsible choice and freewill. You expect it of your H, you should expect if of yourself.

YOU, the real, true YOU does not want to be angry. YOU hate it with a passion, its so not YOU. YOU have never felt this way so intensely. It is your EGO that is driving you to be angry and you need to tell your EGO to shut the F up so you can just be YOU again. Tell your EGO you don't give a flying hoot whether you deserve to be angry or not, whether its fair or not, just tell it to shut up for once and for all. And, when it whispers to you, you just have to tell it ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, thank you for reminding me that life isn't perfect or fair, that I got the bad end of the deal. I hear you, but I'm done being mad. You can go away now EGO. You have your place, but I have the power of choice to listen to your or not. I am not listening to you today. Thank you, "I" am just fine being joyful.

Excellent self-talk, Hope. It really is all about personal choice, isn't it?

ff

Kelly - I feel like we've veered a bit away from your original question and entered a place where maybe it would be best to start a different but related thread.

In the interim, I think there are some wonderful suggestions for how to handle the very normal and healthy emotional response of anger: journaling, ritualizing an ending (the bbq example), communicating with WS about feelings, exercise, looking at the origin of the anger (the underbelly aka "fear), therapy, walking, the decision to process through the feeling till it is gone or to find another way to let it go. Really personal stuff. Very intimate and something no one can or should tell another how to do. You will find what works best for you and with your H's continued support and remorse and good works (+ time), you will get where you want to be emotionally.

I find it interesting that the guys haven't jumped into this topic, and I'm guessing women and men have very different lessons we were taught about anger: if its "nice" or "right" to have it, how it should be expressed or repressed, and what anger looks like to each of us. Maybe its a harder issue for women to grapple with because it goes against general societal rules for women to be angry.

I did an on-line search last night on "healthy anger" and: wow! My brain is blooming with ideas for how to channel what I'm feeling into creating my life as a strong woman and how to build a strong marriage - not by pushing the anger away, but by understanding it and finding positive ways of expressing it. I know that if anger keeps coming to the surface, that there's something that still needs to be processed and resolved - - either with my H or about something in my past that I haven't attended to. There's some resources I want to explore further, so that's what I'm off to do today.

I'm really thankful you've brought this topic out, and I'm very grateful to everyone who's posted, because its planted some really healing seeds for me. Thank you, Kelly. ((Hugs)) BlueIris


"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

My IC stressed that anger is not bad or wrong, and in fact can be a powerful catalyst for change. She used the example of Mother Teresa becoming angry at what she found in India and using that anger to make changes in how orphans are treated.

So often we women have been given the message that we should not have anger, that we are bad or wrong if we do. Anger seems to have been reserved for men. Of course, this is fallacious thinking. All people should and can experience a whole spectrum of emotions because emotions are what we feel, not our gender.

I believe that when I am angry I benefit by trying to discover why I am angry and if my anger is a mask for another feeling, like frustration or hurt feelings. And yes, I agree that it seems sometimes our anger is related to much more than problems in our marriage but goes back to childhood issues.

I'm trying not to take other's hot potatoes and to not just feel anger but explore the feeling and turn it into an opportunity to effect positive changes in my life.

ff