Anger Hurts
Last week I did something quite out of character in an attempt to stand up for myself and regain some self-respect after a very difficult summer of loss. I sent an angry email to the man who caused the heartbreak.
Anger is a stage of grief, and I’ve been feeling quite a lot of it lately. I suppose that’s good because acceptance isn’t too far behind. But it’s not good when it hurts someone you love, and anger almost always hurts. In my pain, I reached out to my beloved to express myself and ask for some respect. We were trying to be friends, which is almost impossible after a love affair, but we were trying just the same, and it was going rather well for the most part.
Early on, he had said that he was determined to make it work between us, and so was I.
That is until last week.
My angry words hurt him and killed his desire to try any longer.
Up until this email, I had treated him and this entire fucked up situation with loving understanding and unending patience to the point of my own detriment. I had refrained from demonizing him just to get through the pain and grief cycle faster. But recently I’ve begun to feel quite used, tossed aside, walked on, and so the anger came.
Although I don’t regret saying much of what I said, because it needed to be said for my own sense of self-worth as well as to let him know certain things were not okay, I was unnecessarily harsh and insulting in my anger. In fact, I was abusive in my language, and that I truly regret. There is rarely a time such cruel words are necessary, and I’m ashamed to have used them against someone I love so dearly. I asked for respect but showed little in that email, and for that I am truly sorry.
All I can hope is that he understands that sometimes things that shouldn’t be said are said in anger and forgive me. Hopefully his anger will subside and the care we feel for each other beneath this struggle will bring us back into each other’s lives, for he is so very dear to me.
Caught in the Cogs 
I think you did the right thing, even if it meant that the distance between the two of you grew. In my experience, we try too hard not to be angry, and that usually develops into resentment, no matter what one does. Difficult encounters are about understanding where both people are coming from, but we usually focus on understanding and accommodating the other instead of looking at where we ourselves are coming from.
Anger has a function before it becomes pent-up rage: it provides the impetus to carry out the actions we need to do to achieve our goals. If we can see this power to achieve and follow it, life becomes easier.
I truly hope that things turn out the best for you in this situation.
I was trying too hard not to be angry and it was turning into resentment, exactly right. I needed to express the anger, but I also needed to express the love. The words of anger were haunting me, and I couldn’t let it end that way. I truly hope things turn out for the best, too. Thank you for your words of support.
If I have learned anything from love it is that it can forgive a multitude of infractions. It is as if the love itself is a healing balm that soothes not just the heart of the one hurt but of the one who did the hurting.
However, I have also found that those who do not forgive and choose rather to harden their heart were never truly in love at all. Perhaps their feelings were mere infatuation and the desire to be sexually satisfied by another and at the first sign of struggle they stray and immediately begin looking for another to fill that void.
I hope your beloved is worth of the love and grace you have shown him. Even in your anger the one(s) who truly love you can and will forgive.
Thank you for your words of support, Sunday. I look forward to sharing stories via email. It can be so healing to do so.
And, yes, I hope so, too. x
Turns out. He wasn’t.
I can’t even begin to express how close to home this hits for me! It seems that I have been in a constant state of anger and frustration the last few months especially….One day I feel I have it under control and the next day I can’t even function! I have said and done things so completely hateful that I may never be forgiven for these. All I could think of was having him hurt as much as I was. And the reality is that I NEVER want to hurt him!! The white hot rage boils to the surface and I see a way to not only tell him how I feel but to twist that knife into him. After the rage subsides all I’m left with is a darkness that takes over my entire being. In the emotional ups and downs I kept pushing him farther away. I couldn’t stand that he could want to be with anyone else. What was wrong with me? What did I do? How could he do this to me? I gave him everything!!! These are thoughts that will destroy you. They have almost destroyed me. I did not even recognize the person in the mirror looking back. I was not in there anymore. I felt lost! But when I looked closer and I looked in the eyes and what I saw was astonishing…..I was there…and I would always be there….
You will always be there. I thought I had lost myself, too. But I’m still here. Still loving. Thankfully, with the help and support of friends, I didn’t do anything unforgivable. But I came too close, really.
Love you, dear. We’ll both get through this. X
I just went through something similar, though the person on the receiving end of my guided missive is not someone I’ve ever held in anything resembling kind esteem, much less someone worth maintaining a friendship with. That being said, nobody deserves to be beaten about the head and shoulders with resentment.
After sending off my vitriolic greetings, I later read a column written by a muse of sorts. She’s a fascinating healer:
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/no-more-drama/content?oid=3464033
The initial reply she makes addresses my situation with the target for my angry words. The meditation made me instantly wish I’d thought a bit longer and maybe put more care into what I had to say. Although, like you, I feel much of what I sent forth though the aether needed to be said. Not that any of it would be heard, but because indignity, I find, is a far more bitter pill to swallow than anger. Sometimes people cross the damn line and need to be told about it.
Sometimes they need to be told about it and truly hear it. If they’re open enough to hear the words, it can lead to introspection and then self-improvement if there is any truth to the words. The words that hurt the most sometimes hurt so much because of the truth behind them.
Still, abusive language is very rarely called for. In this case it wasn’t. I’ve apologized publicly here and privately to him.
Thank you for the link to the article. Very interesting. I like what she has to say about the spark. When I feel that spark, that connection, I always thought it was some kind of deeper connection, some sort of soul mate (& I believe there are several soul mates in one’s life), but looking back, those have been the most tumultuous relationships. And, yes, very much like my father.
Very interesting.
[…] to apologize for and the guy deserved far worse after the way he had treated me (and his family), I apologized for the abuse. The email was loving and healing, and it reiterated what I had said in that voice message a month […]