SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm a woman in my thirties.

I've been lucky to have a relatively easy life up until I was cheated on by my ex H.

Prior to be cheated on by my ex I've had

1)a easy going personality

2) a cool and level head

3) a calm demeanor .

My friends would say that I embody feminine gentleness and grace . Prior to being cheated on my friends would say that I'm the type of person that would never hurt a fly.

After I was cheated on , I developed anger and rage that I never ever thought that I was capable of.

I began thinking and fantasizing about things I never thought I could before.

My anger and rage reached levels that was totally completely shocking and surprising to me.

DDay was 2.5 years ago.

My anger and rage have calmed down considerably since DDay.

I've also learned that my anger and rage is normal , as long as I don't act upon it.

Can anyone relate?

Did your anger and rage after DDay shock or surprise you?

[This message edited by lara123 at 3:32 PM, June 5th (Sunday)]

The general anger - no, that didn't surprise me. I've always been an emotional person, and I'm fairly quick to get angry when I feel mistreated.

But when the rage stage hit - the suddenness and intensity of my rage scared the shit out of me. At the time, I likened it to a berserker rage. There were times when just hearing now-ex breathe was enough to make me want to physically hurt him. So I'd make myself leave the room, or even the house. After all, I wouldn't look good in an orange jail jumpsuit.

And yep, that was my mantra in those days. I'd repeat it to myself over and over. Guess it worked. Ex isn't dead, I'm not in jail, and I haven't been that full of rage in years.

I've also always been very even tempered and difficult to provoke. But her infidelity and blameshifting brought out something primal, something I've never experienced before. It seemed to be coming from another place, very primitive, raw, and powerful.

I was able to control it for the most part, but it took all my effort. If you have never experienced something like that, there's no way to communicated what it feels like. It's surreal.

^^^What healingroad said.

...except I was not able to control it. Quiet, introverted me became a raging lunatic.

Never, ever thought I could feel such rage. I'd go for long drives on a Sunday afternoon just to get away from WH so my sons wouldn't witness my anger, even though they heard it from time to time but not at the level my WH did.

I became a totally different person.

My anger and rage reached levels that was totally completely shocking and surprising to me.

Oh... yes! Exactly what you wrote. I'm just 14 months into this shit and that anger/rage still boils just beneath the surface. IC helped.

Like you, my anger/rage has calmed down quite a bit, though i'm only 14 months passed D-day. Most days I have to remember that it's the injustice of it all that causes so much of that anger.

I never felt so much rage in my life during and after Dday, I was more a person that will stonewall my STBXWH but my STBXWH was the one who's hothead, he was the one who will yell at me like I was a child but during my limbo months, I was so angry to what he did, that I never thought I can be this angry person, I barely recognized myself, I was mean. Anger that cripples me. I never felt this much of pain in my life. I had a painful childhood, that was nothing compare to this.

I was so angry that someone can hurt me this much, I had nothing to do with this pain. If this is something I caused, like being a wayward, I would feel I deserved this pain but I didn't do anything to deserved this, the disrespect is beyond imaginable. Sometimes I feel that he punished me because he just hate me and wanted to show me how much he hates me.

The anger no. I am an angry person (something I am exploring in IC), and always have been. However, I've never wanted to cause physical harm to others before the cheating. Now when I get angry, my thoughts quickly go there. I suppose it's always been in me, but nothing had ever given me reason to get to that level.

Yes. As you can tell my the user name that I chose, I felt rage like I never imagined I was capable of before. And it didn't come right away after D-day.

Prior to D-day, I had spent a year in counseling in an effort to build myself back up enough from my WH's abuse to even find my voice at all. I was so shattered as a human being, that I could barely speak at a whisper, let alone actually articulate anything meaningful at all. A lifetime of abuse at the hands of my narcissist and savagely abusive FOO along with 17 years of relentless abuse by my NPD husband had taken a massive toll on me. I had a lot of work to do to get me up to where I could even speak in a normal voice.

So about 6 months after D-day (when I found SI.com), I discovered my anger. It was all consuming and I had no coping skills for it. Up until then in my life, I had never experienced it. Being highly dissociative, I had divorced myself from my feeling long ago in order to survive.

I was not allowed anger so it took a while to surface. But once it did, oh wow. At first, it was totally out of control anger. I broke so much crap (but never around anyone or in an attempt to hurt or scare anyone). My IC suggested screaming into a pillow to release it safely. I let him know flat out that doing so was not even going to come close to working for me. So I learned to vent my rage by smashing old dishes. I got really good at it. I had my own hammer, a nice tarp, and after I got rid of all of the old dishes in my cabinets, I went to town on old dishes that I would pick up at garage sales for next to nothing. I kept safety goggles handy and just smashed the crap out of dishes any and every time I felt like it.

And it felt so good to break stuff. I never knew it could feel so good or be so releasing for me.

And to say that it was totally out of character for me was an understatement. I was known as an extremely quiet introvert. I just didn't talk much at all ever. I never spoke up for myself. People who I grew up with would get startled and comment about how it was the first time they ever heard me speak.

Even my WH was stunned at how much I spoke up for myself once my anger and rage hit. My anger is what helped me push through his extreme desire to rug sweep. I was just too angry to allow that nonsense. And I wasn't going to bite my tongue any longer in my life. My anger helped me find my voice, and in a big way, it helped me find myself.

So there are times when I look at my user name and just laugh about it. Who knew that meek little me had that kind of fury in me, lol! Even now, I still like my user name because it reminds me of just how much I needed to find that fury within in order to become who I am now. And I like who I am now.

Being blindsided by my FWH was a complete shock to my system. He had a 2+ year A with someone from the past....that added another layer of icing on the shit cake he served me on dday....I have had loss in my life but THIS...THIS was something totally different...so the anger...sadness ...and utter confusion was something totally new to me...I never KNEW depression....but I totally recognize it now....

3.8years later I am ALMOST back to my old self....

the one thing that surprises me the most though is that I realize that if I want to be happy...that's on me...accepting the fact that I have CHOSEN to reconcile it surpises me and then I reflect and it doesn't surprise me...

Peace

Yep. Mine was very brief, only a few days. But it was more intense anger/rage than I've ever experienced in life. Trying to describe it to people who haven't experienced it does it no justice. Only those here will understand it is normal. Rebuilding After Relationships End has an entire chapter dedicated to the post divorce/infidelity anger.

Yes I have noticed as I have aged (now 51) that I have gotten more angry and less able to tolerate nonsense, but the anger and rage I have felt since the As is unbelievable. I cannot address it directly at WH now so I have taken to screaming when alone in the car in more isolated areas. Also now I am sorting out our apartment to move its amazing how much junk is being destroyed on its way to the bin.

I also keep rehearsing my speech for our final confrontation as I call it. That contains a lot of the rage also. That will be when I am able to kick his ass to the curb finally.

Quite the opposite; I didn't get angry or outraged at all.

I was in pain, but I didn't react in a lash-out way. I was kind of a candyass.

Looking back, raging wouldn't have accomplished much. So it's probably just as well that there isn't some maniacal youtube vid out there of me in bad PJ's where I don't look good, sound dumb and end up kicking myself in the ass.

Quite the opposite; I didn't get angry or outraged at all.

I was in pain, but I didn't react in a lash-out way. I was kind of a candyass.

Looking back, raging wouldn't have accomplished much. So it's probably just as well that there isn't some maniacal youtube vid out there of me in bad PJ's where I don't look good, sound dumb and end up kicking myself in the ass.

I was and still am surprised at how much anger and rage i felt and still feel sometimes. I, like you, don't feel it as often and its calmed down considerably also. I have always been a calm person and never even considered violence however after dday, I really felt a rage that scared me

I was also told its normal as long as you don't act on it. I fortunately to date 2 years out, I still find it creeps up on me from time to time. I am hoping to go back to the calm person I used to be but I am not holding my breath. I find myself more easily angered now over even little things.

Yes.

Yes.

At the injustice of it all.

I was horrified at the thoughts going thru my mind.

So disappointed in who I became.... and blamed him for it.

It has subsided and now I'm depressed.

I'd rather be angry.

Thank you everyone for your responses.

Yes, but in the opposite way-- I have a pretty hot temper, and I was cool as a cucumber the whole time. We were separated and actively divorcing ( a bitter, contentious divorce... OW wanted sole custody of my 2 kids who were 4 years old and a newborn. She was about 40 and didn't have kids, and saw WH and my kids as her ready made family).

OW has some substance abuse\mental health issues. (and she's a nurse. I laugh and tell people I hope you don't get sick and need to go to the hospital she's at!) But she's a pretty sick ticket, and she LOVES drama. She emailed and called me so many times to bait me. I'd never take the bait, and I'm sure that drove her nuts.

More recently, she moved on to ANOTHER married man, and OW was arrested for assault on his wife.

So yeah, I was surprised by my anger, but I was surprised because I was so calm.

[This message edited by Gottagetthrough at 1:57 PM, June 5th (Sunday)]

Yes. I was astounded by the level of my rage. I did not feel it immediately, but got there fast because of a long history of dishonesty and, as it turns out, an entire marriage pocked with infidelity.

Honestly, my anger scared me, because I grew up in a house where negative feelings, in general, were not permitted. (My mother had semi-annual meltdowns that were terrifying to us as kids.)

It did dissipate quickly---and vanished when he moved out.

After I was cheated on , I developed anger and rage that I never ever thought that I was capable of.

Yes. Me too. And hatred, as well. (I don't think I shall ever stop hating OW - not only for what she did, but also for the way she has changed the person that I am. In fact, I don't really want to stop hating her.)

I have always thrown things when I’m angry. As Furious1 has so vividly explained, this sort of thing can be therapeutic. But I don't normally choose as projectiles things that will be destroyed by being thrown and certainly not anything that someone I love cares about..

On D-day,however, I threw and then smashed my husband’s work cellphone, any bottles of alcohol I could find, including very expensive spirits (I don’t enjoy alcohol: my husband does) and even threatened to smash his beloved bicycle. Thankfully, I stopped short at the last, because, had I done so, I’m sure that the guilt would have superseded the therapeutic effect of the rage.

And, referring to OW, I screamed a four-letter word that never, in my entire and rather long life, had I used before.. Or since. Although I was inside when I said it, plenty more of my yelling and screaming took place outside, as I smashed the bottles on the driveway and into the trash can. It is this, really, that tells me now just how angry and out of control I was.

I don’t regret smashing the bottles of alcohol. I only regret destroying the work phone because SI has taught me that I might perhaps have been able to retrieve the deleted text messages on it. But I regret the fact that my anger at OW led me to scream like a fishwife and that my neighbors may have heard me. It was so out-of-character and will also have told the world of my husband's affair. When I see our nearest elderly neighbor, I still wonder whether he heard and whether his opinion of us both changed on that dreadful night, seven long years ago.

[This message edited by Cally60 at 2:12 PM, June 5th (Sunday)]