[Cin]

I am very expressive. Even without words you will know how I feel. I speak loudly when I’m upset or when I’m trying to make a point even though that is not my intention. I don’t think I’m yelling, but I’ve been told many times over the years “Don’t yell” or “Stop screaming.” So I’m going to accept that I must be raising my voice even when I think I am not. I suppose that is not likely to change until I get better at hearing myself. But I have taken some responsibility for the ways in which I express my feelings during an argument or when I am angry.

When I was younger it was very difficult for me to control my temper. It even took me a few years as an adult to figure out that I should even try. Anger and rage were the only emotions I felt comfortable expressing. And I believed I had a right to express myself, as long as I wasn’t abusive, regardless of the effect on others. Luckily for me, and it may have been my only saving grace at the time, I have always had the ability to look at myself honestly and to own my shit. After a couple of years in a long term relationship I began to feel uncomfortable with certain ways I would behave during arguments or when I was angry at something. That was the first step.

The next step was a little more difficult. Understanding that there is more to admitting my behavior is unacceptable than just saying “I’m sorry” or “I should have handled that situation better” was a challenge for me. I was able to say I’m sorry I yelled but there was always a justification after. I believed that because I was so upset I couldn’t help raising my voice or saying things I didn’t exactly mean. It took time for me to figure out that sorry implies wrong doing on the part of the person offering the apology and inherent in admitting you did something wrong is a promise to change. It makes absolutely no sense to say you’re sorry and then to continue doing the same thing. And I also realized that saying or believing I couldn’t help acting this way because of my abusive childhood or the abusive and dysfunctional relationships I witnessed growing up was a cop-out. And a lie. One I was trying to sell to myself. Of course I could help it. Why wouldn’t I be able to help it? If I couldn’t help it then who the hell could? It was ME behaving that way. And it was only me who could change that behavior and chose to behave another way. I wasn’t out of my own control, even though I told myself I was. That’s just ludicrous. No-one is beyond their own control. If I couldn’t control myself then who could? There’s not much I can control in this world, as matter of fact there is nothing I can control in this world, BUT myself.

It took time. I think it was a combination of being able to look inward and just growing older that allowed me to make some progress with my temper. It was also my desire to love and to show compassion that helped me to initiate some changes. I started to examine what I meant when I said “I love you.” Did I see love as only a feeling? If love was just a feeling I had about another how would it be possible for the person I loved to feel love from me? They could feel their love for me, but how could they feel my love for them? That’s when it dawned on me that the only way a person can know how much I love them is through my actions toward them. If my actions didn’t express love then it didn’t matter what my words said. That was a revelation. Then I asked myself, did I only love the person when they behaved in ways that were acceptable to me? I decided that of course not, I loved them regardless. However, when I’m angry I don’t behave in a loving way. Yet I don’t want to cause pain or to hurt the person I love, even when I am angry at them. I want them to know I love them, to feel I love them even when they piss me off.

So my next step was to try to figure out how come even when I meant to show love and compassion I was unable to do it when I got really angry. The clue for me was in the singularity of my emotions. I couldn’t possibly only always be angry when someone did something to me. That’s when I realized that a lot of what I was feeling was hurt. The person had hurt me. And I was incapable of dealing with hurt and sadness. I preferred anger and rage.

Over time I got comfortable with feeling hurt and expressing that feeling to the person who hurt me. I was dumbfounded by how disarming sharing my hurt with the person I loved really was. It definitely changed the emotionally charged atmosphere to a less lethal one. Not that saying someone has hurt you stops an argument. It’s not a get out of disagreeing free card. But it is an emotion that allows more room for open engagement. Anger is often so big, especially if it is the only emotion you allow yourself to show the other, that it leaves little room for compromise, compassion or even conversation.

Showing someone you are hurt does make you more vulnerable and certainly less threatening so it takes a certain amount of trust to be able to verbally express your pain as hurt. But it got easier once I figured out that saying, whether unconsciously to myself or out loud by my actions, that I was NOT hurt and I was NOT vulnerable did not in any meaningful way make me less hurt and less vulnerable. The reality is that I would remain hurt and vulnerable regardless of my actions. When a loved one does something to cause you pain you are hurt. When you love you are vulnerable. End of story. No amount of acting like it isn’t so makes a damn bit of difference. That was a game changer for me.

I believe when you tell someone you love them, they have a right to have some expectations of you. My wife is someone who I have professed to love on many occasions. I made some very specific promises on our wedding day. Promises I meant with all my heart. I have tried to explain to her the depth of my feelings often and yet I love her even more than I could ever express. Therefore it is only logical that she believes that I do love her very much and that I will always treat her with compassion and respect. I want her to keep believing this. She deserves to have this kind of love. She deserves someone to love her this way. I try very hard to be the person she deserves.

I wish I could say I do that always, but sometimes I feel like my need to express my anger outweighs my need to express my love. On those occasions I try to remember to look at my wife. To look in her eyes, to really look and see what she is feeling and then to ask myself if this is what I want to make her feel.

I am often capable now of letting stuff go. I could never do that before. I thought it was imperative that an issue be resolved. I think now that if I can let it go that is a kind of resolution in itself. When it’s something I can’t let go of, then I need to work it out with my wife. But no matter how annoyed or pissed off I am, no matter how hurt or disappointed, I can usually manage to remind myself in the middle of it all that this woman is not my enemy, she is, in fact, the person I love above all others. And that, regardless of what I am feeling at the moment, she is the woman who has shown me love, kindness and compassion beyond measure.

That doesn’t mean we are not going to disagree or that I am not going to try to get my way when I think it is important for me to do so. It doesn’t mean that I am never going to feel anger at my wife. However, it does mean that I am going to stay aware of who I am disagreeing with and how much she means to me and what kind of treatment she deserves from me as well as what kind of treatment I deserve to receive from her. It also means that I am not going to focus on being right or making her wrong. I am going to look for the compromise that takes the least away from each of us. And I’m going to do my damnedest to remain as loving as possible while staying true to myself.