My temper is ruining my marriage - need advice

[AngryMonster]

First of all apologies: I am a regular poster but I have had to change my name for this as I don't find it very easy to discuss.

I don't have any close relatives or family or friends I can discuss this with.

I have a huge problem with my temper. I have had this problem as long as I can remember, mostly due to difficulties in my family and circumstances as a child and later as an adult.

I was in a very long relationship before getting married in 2002. It ended largely because my ex-boyfriend couldn't deal with my temper tantrums and depression.

I am now in serious danger of ruining my marriage. My DH won't touch me he is so upset with me. We have had no physical contact, apart from a few kisses on the cheek, for months. Basically we haven't had a sex life for 2.5 years (pregnancy + 1.5 years since DS was born).

I get angry easily and I shout at DH and have a go at him, sometimes for no apparent reason. I have also had some very serious conflicts with people at work in the past and had to leave several jobs because I found it difficult to get on with my bosses/work mates.

I would also admit to being very very depressed. I have suffered from depression before, but never for such a long time, basically on and off for the past 1.5 yaers since our son was born. The fact that DH won't touch me makes me even more depressed. The only thing that makes me feel happy and loved is my beautiful DS (1.5 years old).

I would consider anti-depressant drugs (I have taken these before) but can't take any now because I breastfeed. I found they had a calming effect on me, but I don't want to give up breastfeeding my son for at least another year or so.

Today DH and I had another row beacuse I shouted at him. Basically he says I need to get help or he will leave me.

Could any one please suggest what I should do to save my marriage ? I have been looking for Anger Management type courses on the internet, but can't find anything that does not cost a bomb.

Does any one know where I can get counselling or a course to deal with my anger for free in the London area ? I really can't afford to pay for anything as I am on benefits.

Message withdrawn

I don't know of any courses but I would go to your GP as a starting point if I were you!

It is interesting to note from your post that you almost see 'your temper' as something quite separate from you!

Perhaps if you saw yourself as controlling your temper (i.e. owning it, and taking responsibility for it) rather than your temper controlling you, it might be easier!

I think you are allowing the way you phrase things to almost absolve you of the responsibility, rather as if it were a beast separate from you. In actual fact this temper that you talk of is just your over reaction to events. This reaction is entirely within your control!

However, very easy for me to analyse, I am positively the most bovine laid back person you are likely to meet. Have only manage to raise my voice about twice in my whole adult life, never mind having a full blown temper attack

So please do feel free to ignore me

Good luck with getting this sorted out - well done for recognising the issue - I suspect that is a good starting point!

Nothing to suggest i'm afraid but I know how you feel.

I too have a dreadful temper. Blow off the handle completely. DH hates it.

I try to keep it under control and TBH have calmed down since DS (4) arrived. Still loose it sometimes tho - esp with PMT.

Will read replies with interest!

soapbox - know what you mean about seeming to make "temper" a seperate part of you but for me anyway that is sometimes how it feels. People say count to 10. I have exploded before most people would get to 1! A "red mist" descends and that is that - cery hard for others to understand I know.

I have a quick temper myself. I have been thinking for a while I should calm down a bit - so i will follow this thread for any advice AM

BT - I really hope tommorrow goes well for you and your dh [hopeful face]

Message withdrawn

Thanks everyone. I was afraid to approach my GP, I thought she would laugh out loud for getting something like this on the NHS.

I appreciate what you say soapbox. Yes, perhaps without realising it I see my temper as separate from me. I hadn't really thought of it like that. It's probably because I give myself too much credit for being underneath all of it quite a nice person. My temper is so out of range compared to what I am really like. But perhaps I am wrong about that too. Perhaps I am really a 3 headed monster and I haven't really wanted to deal with it up to now.

I WANT to deal with it, both for DH and DS sake. Interestingly I have a lot more control with DS. Probably because he is tiny and I find it difficult to shout (and most certainly never hit) at him. In fact, my temper has never had a physical aspect to it, like it seems to with many men. Mine is totally verbal.

I have to say as well that I think some of it at least is genetic. My mother's side of the family all have terrible tempers and apparently my grandfather once hit one of his employees (he was a businessman) so hard on the ear the guy went half deaf. This kind of thing really scares me. Perhaps it is because I know it is partly genetic that I have thought, oh well, can't do much about it, it's in the blood. I now realise this is the wrong way to think about it too.

Thanks everyone again. I will look out for more advice here.

Even if there is a genetic component, you've also learned (accidentally) from your family that expressing anger in this way is normal and acceptable.

I have struggled a bit with my temper, it was never very bad, but always worse than DH's. I wasn't sure that keeping myself under control was a valid goal.

But since having my kids, I've realised, no, keeping control, and telling people how you feel, rather than just lashing out, is the sensible adult thing to do.

Do you do yoga or meditation or anything of that sort? I find they help.

Good luck with the NHS, they should be able to provide some more support.

good luck with the GP. AFAIK there are anti-depressants that are OK to take when you are bfing - certainly obs/gyn consultant and psych were fine with me bfing whilst on Prozac.

Just wanted to say that I sometimes get really angry too, and have noticed it is moreso at certain times of the month (IYKWIM). Can't really offer any advice just wanted to say I know how it is when you feel so angry and don't know how to calm yourself down. The best thing for me is to stay away from people until I feel more calm.

AM, dp and I both fly off the handle easily - esp with each other - and I'm worried about the effect it will have on ds .

We seem to spend a lot of time arguing about how much we argue and I'm starting to think we need outside help for it.

This is turning into a bit of a hijack, sorry, but has anyone tried Relate for this sort of thing (i.e. where it's the tempers rather than the relationship itself that's the problem)?

AM you can break the cycle of inherited anger. My Dp's father has very short fuse and a terrible, frightening temper but DP is the mildest and calmest man I have ever met. He saw at first hand the effects of his father's behaviour on his family - to put it simply it drove two of the children to leave home early; the other had a bad breakdown as a teenager and the family ended up in family therapy.

I admire you for recognising your problem and wanting to change it - good luck.

Hi AM,
don't know whereabouts you are in London, but in New Cross there's a psychotherapy centre called Astis that you can be referred to by your doc. I would heartily recommend psychotherapy rather than anger management because it gets down to the nitty gritty rather than just looking for coping strategies. Also, I read somewhere that during a burst of anger your brain gets a dose of the same chemical produced when you're very happy, so it can actually become enjoyable in a weird, addictive way! Crazy hey? It makes sense when you think about the shaking, heart-pounding, cheeks flushing sensations...

Hello, AM. Just to say that I, too, am like this. Until recently, I believed I could excuse it- it's what I'm like, time of the month, pregnancy, people wind me up- any excuse to justify it. However, it has got out of control a few times, and I have had to accept how dangerous my temper can be. I have always refused to lean on anti-depressants because I don't want a crutch which will become difficult to lose- as well as coping with side effects. So now, every time I feel about to lose control, I phone a close relative or friend. In the end, only I can actually stop myself from losing it, but it helps a lot towards calming me down to be reminded what kind of person I am turning myself into by doing this, and also how disappointed and disgusted others will be with me.

I read a book called "Calm Down" which helped me ? don't remember author but your library will be able to help and library = free. Had a line drawing of a boiling kettle on the front. Right from the opening chapter, which is about how bad it is for your health to be angry, it helped me.

My doctor has just put me on Fluxoetine as I just couldn't cope with PMT any longer and neither could my poor family. Just seem to have PMT for 3 weeks out of the month and have only been taking them a couple of weeks so am going to see how I go.

I too "had" a problem with this - again stemming from my background. We went to relate and they suggested some anger management techniques which seemed to work - I'll try and post a link if I can find it. Relate also made me realise that I actually enjoyed confrontation whereas my dh hated it.

However, the big turning point for me (I can now count the number of outbursts I've had since, on one finger) was when a friend mentioned that a friend of hers had said the following...

Anger is something "you" control - not circumstances or people. Therefore if you are angry then your are causing yourself to be agressive - no-one else.

I really thought about this statement a lot and now, when I start boiling up, I reflect on this statement. You can only blame yourself for the anger.

Sorry but counting to 10/50/100 just didn't work for me though.

21st..so how did this statement stop you from becoming angry not sure I understand. How does it make you control your anger? Is it in the stopping and thinking..?

Yes precisely - it is in the stopping and thinking - "I am causing this anger" - not the person who has wound me up.

I actually have become a better person for being able to control my temper when circumstances used to dictate that I would blame them for "my" anger.

I guess it is the passing of the blame for the anger from the third party to "myself" which I believe some posters have said.

hmmm..still very difficult in the heat of the moment. Will give it a go. ATM dp is still quite forgiving of the explosive outbursts but it's just a matter of time before they wear him down as in Angry Monster's case...

This thread is very very helpful. Thanks every one.

Yes, I think I am wearing DH down and I feel like shit about. He is the kindest, calmest most loving man I have ever met.

I agree with what one poster said here - I wonder if it is that I know I CAN be aggressive and angry with him because he usually ignores the outbursts. Whereas with my son I know he is tiny and small and fragile so I have better control over how I treat him. I know I can't shout at my son the way I shout at my DH and "get away with it".

It's the terrible thing with anger that we hurt the people we love most. My poor (now sick) mother has put up with my temper all her life (she is such a kind and caring angel though compared to the rest of her family).

Honestly the guilt over how I behave is making me more and more depressed and I want the anger to just STOP.

I have promised myself that I have to beat it in order to save may marriage.

Well Bimble and AM after 8 years of it my dh had had enough.

Unfortunately, I can't find the article that I used to deal with my anger but this is what I did.

1. Take each episode one step at a time.
2. If you have managed to defuse yourself this time then congratulate yourself ? you will find your day will be a much happier one and you will feel proud of having been able to control yourself.
3. Compare this with one where you have lost a fuse and the rest of your day/week is spent reflecting on the outburst and feeling a failure for losing it.
4. Imagine you are looking at yourself as an onlooker seeing this ?mad? woman
5. Relate recommended that each time I felt angry with dh (or him with me) that we both had a ?signal? to communicate this. So rather than say ?F* Off? and start a full scale argument, we say ?I?m just going upstairs for 10 minutes? and this would let the other know that we were in a fowl mood. Once we had calmed down (could be minutes/days) we would then ask ?if we wanted a cup of tea? and if we both agreed, we would discuss in a calm manner.
6. Another thing that has made it work for me is that I do not want my dds to grow up with a memory of a parent who was always aggressive (as I have). Your ds, AM, is young enough for you to start on the path of recovery and you will feel all the more better, in years to come, knowing that he is living in a loving, peaceful family.
7. Also, I have a ?Little Book of Calm? that my dh got for me and I take it wherever I go. If I am feeling particularly stressed/angry I just take it out and read a quote.
8. Finally, I know from experience that my ?triggers? seem to a lot worse when my iron levels are down so I now take a multi-vitamin with this in (or rather my dh forces me to take one!). In fact, he now knows when I haven?t been taking them. It?s amazing how lack of iron can really drag you down.

Good luck to everyone ? you can all do it and you will feel so much more better for having achieved it. We could always have a ?Anger Support? thread to post each day?s achievements.

21st - thanks for the really great support and useful info. I will be following it.

Interesting point about iron levels. I do take a multivit and calcium/magnesium/zinc every day. The multivit. has iron. I hope that helps me !

Excellent idea about starting a support thread. I find it so much easier talking about my problems here than say sitting in a class room full of people. I am also surprised to find out that I am not the only angry woman around and others suffer from this problem.

I hope we can help each other more

AM - I was certainly surprised to hear how common anger is in women. I remember years ago I had a lovely petite friend who was stunning and all the guys used to really fancy her. Another friend and her dh went out with this girl and her bf one night and was totally amazed to see her beating up her bf. After that, we used to feel sorry for any guy that was trying to chat her up .

god this sounds like me except in my case not only will I shout but if i'm really provoked I will push dp and thump him which even though he has an explosive temper himself, he hates.

I know it's wrong but I can't help it and I need help for it.. it gets worse when I'm due on.

I am trying. Now I'm training myself to walk away when I can feel a fight coming on and it is working.. albeit slowley