Anger and how to cope

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Hi,

I find myself very angry at my husband. I suspect it's justified but my way of dealing with the anger is bad.

I've self referred for counselling after seeing the gp today.

Husband insists that I need to learn not to get angry. E.g. His parents recently treated me pretty badly and he highlighted that as an example of me being an angry person.

My perspective is that the anger in many cases is justified but that I need coping strategies, and that counselling will help me develop some.

Can anyone who has been through it shed any light on the process please? Any tips would be helpful too :)

Anyone?

You say you suspect your anger is justified - and you need coping strategies. Do you want to say why you feel it's justified, as this could well be the root of the problem - maybe your husband needs to learn coping strategies too? I think counselling would be a good idea but for the two of you, as it sounds like that is necessary to me. Why is it just you that needs to change. Your H sounds like a very unreasonable person - if his parents treated you badly, anger is a very usual emotion to experience in such a situation.

Yes we are both going for counselling. DH does need to change a lot.

I feel my anger is justified some times, sometimes it's disproportionate.

I get very angry when DH repeatedly ignores me or lies to me. I think this is understandable.

But I also get angry if he leaves rubbish about or washing on the floor. It's like I'm permanently at boiling point. I'd like not to be.

And when my anger is justified, I'd like to be able to control it and express it constructively.

I'm hoping to hear if anyone has been through the process and knows what it's like?

I'm not sure what you mean by "going through the process" - do you mean counselling. If so I've had many sessions of counselling with 2 different counsellors, one private, one NHS. I think the main thing is that you need to feel comfortable and safe with the counsellor although this might take time to build up. A good counsellor will suggest that you use the first session to see if you can work together. I carried on with the private counsellor even though I didn't like her style and I regret doing this, but the NHS one was much better.

The other thing is counsellors/therapists often have a specific orientation, so a psycho-dynamic counsellor will be very interested in your early life and will tend to see all of our adult troubles as relics of our early life, and whilst I don't disagree with this, when there IS no buried trauma (as in my case) I just found it really irksome that she continued to dig for something. Others use CBT which deals with the "here and now" rather than the "then and there" if that makes sense. Many use a mixture of different types, but it's worth asking what their particular orientation is. I think psycho-dynamic is probably good when there is some buried trauma that has never "seen the light of day" but then people with PTSD often find this kind of therapy leaves them with more pain.

You mentioned looking for coping strategies, but I think any counsellor will want to explore your past lives and particularly the way you were parented, and how this has shaped the adult that you have become. The agenda is yours, and the counsellor is there to manage the therapeutic process, not to give advice. It all takes time and you can feel emotionally drained at the end of the session.

I wonder if you'll get more response if you post in Relationships rather than MH.

Yes, the process of counselling to deal with anger issues, I'd like to hear other people's experiences, what they learned, do they stop feeling angry or do they learn ways to cope with it better, etc.

When I googled anger management and mumsnet, other posts were in this topic. I do have a separate ongoing thread in relationships more about my marriage.

Thanks for the advice about counsellors, that's really useful. I think I was looking more towards cbt but it makes perfect sense that they will want to explore my background too. Whatever helps tbh.