I’ve been an angry man most of my life. My anger has contributed to physical and emotional problems I’ve had growing up and it is also the cause of the ending of my first marriage and my rebound marriage to an angry woman. Fortunately, I learned to understand the causes of my anger, how to heal the wounds from the past that were at the root of my anger, and how to transform the inevitable anger that gets triggered in our love lives. I’ve been married now, to Carlin, for 39 wonderful years. If you’re an angry man or if you’re living with an angry man, you will find this article helpful.
This year I’ll celebrate 50 years as a psychotherapist specializing in working with men and their families. My focus on men began when my son, Jemal, was born and I made a vow to be a different kind of father than my father was able to be with me and I would do everything I could to bring about a world where our emotional wounds could be healed and fathers could have kind, healthy, and loving, relationships throughout their lives.
When I began my work, there were very few clinicians that specialized in working with men. I felt that this was my calling, but it also felt like a lonely profession. A lot of attention was focused on helping women, but not much focus on helping men. That has changed over the years, but its still rare for me to meet a kindred spirit who has the same passion for helping men that I do.
So, I was surprised when I was contacted by Laura Dabney. Laura had heard about my work and wanted to tell me about what she was doing. I learned that she is a certified life-coach, a medical doctor, and a psychiatrist. She also cares about men and has a passion for working them. Like me, she offers straightforward relationship advice for men. She’s particularly knowledgeable about how men can deal more effectively with their anger.
“Believe it or not,” says Dr. Dabney, “success in any aspect of your life—including love—requires aggression. Sounds contradictory, I know. We think of our ideal love as gentle and forgiving, while aggression is best saved for the board room and rush hour traffic. But those are just two examples of aggression. What I teach in both love and life is the concept of constructive aggression—the ability to assert one’s self for the purpose of self-preservation. In other words, it’s a fancy way of describing the act of sticking up for yourself.”
When I read this I thought to myself, “Finally, a woman who gets what I’ve been dealing with in my life. Most people, professional therapists included, have come to believe that male anger is bad and needs to be eliminated and there is no such thing as constructive aggression. For me, and for most men I know, we need help being honest about our feelings.”
Here’s what Dr. Dabney says about constructive aggression. “You have to either present your need to your partner or deal with your anger. For example, you could say, ‘I need you to please talk to your mom less during our evenings together,’ or ‘I’m furious that you interrupted me when I was talking.’”
A doctor telling us that its not only O.K. to be angry, but its O.K. to be furious about being interrupted? Now that’s a pleasant surprise. She goes on to say, “I admit that this can be tough. We tend to fear that using our constructive aggression will come off as mean or selfish. The problem though is that focusing on other people’s feelings more than our own is a recipe for disaster. For starters, you can’t determine in advance how or what people are going to feel. Plus, taking care of their feelings is their job, not yours.”
In my own practice as a therapist I’ve found that most angry men feel hurt, afraid, misunderstood, guilty, or ashamed. We either bottle up our anger and try to keep it hidden away or blow up and lose control. Those who are close to us find they are always walking on egg shells never sure what might trigger our anger. Both partners are afraid of male anger and so the pressure of holding it in builds up until he can’t hold it in any longer.
Dr. Dabney describes two ways men often deal with their anger. They become stuffers or aggressors. Here’s what she suggests:
- For the stuffers, I start by helping them understand why they are compelled to bury their anger (almost always due to guilt). Then I show them how their burying is actually making things worse. The work at this point centers on helping them consciously examine their anger and guilt. This helps them disconnect the feeling from the action (I can feel and examine an emotion with no action such as a blow up). This helps them normalize the anger which helps lessen the guilt. They start learning “shades of anger” such as irritated, annoyed, bothered etc . so they can be aware of the anger before the blow up.
- For the aggressors, I have to, in real time, help them name all their feelings. These men have come to believe anger is the only acceptable/manly feeling and therefore the only one permitted. They turn the “feminine” feelings of needy, worry, sadness, loneliness, etc. into anger. I often have to give them feelings to choose from. When they finally pick one I will ask why that feeling did not come to mind sooner. This is where I get the details of their unconscious conflict. “It’s babyish to be needy” or “It’s weak to be sad” etc. The work at this point turns to normalizing their feelings. We talk about constructive vs. destructive aggression as well as constructive vs. destructive passivity.
I’ve found Dr. Dabney’s work to be very helpful. Too often we think that angry men are bad or mad. We’re either judged as being bad guys or crazy guys. What we need is love and understanding, but we often get rejection. We rarely recognize that men’s anger is a symptom of depression.
It’s not easy loving an angry man. Women often feel afraid of our anger, never knowing whether they are safe. Men, too, feel afraid of our anger. I always worried that I might explode and hurt the person I loved the most. It seemed better to stuff my feelings most of the time and occasionally blow off some steam occasionally. I found it difficult, if not impossible, to talk about my feelings. Getting help from someone who really understood men and their anger was very helpful to me and most men I know.
If you’d like to get more information about Dr. Dabney’s work, you can visit her here: https://lauradabney.com/.
Hi Jed,
It has been a while.
Glad to see you are still active on the writing front.
I am still seeking donations to the Changing Men Collections (CMC).
If I read correctly Disillusionment is a E-Book and CMC does not collect e-books.
It appears that My Distant Dad is a print book. if so, might you donate a signed copy to the CMC?
If willing, mail it to me and I will hand carry it to the MSU Library. My address is P.O. Box 4081,
E. Lansing, MI 48826.
Blessings.
Ed Barton