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The Anger Phase is starting to kick in and I think I'm unintentionally sending my WW away. Why am I destroying the marriage that I'm trying to save?

Last night after internally steaming over the mind movies and thoughts of the A, I just lost it. I went way overboard, yelled, said bad things, basically dumping my internal thoughts onto her. A lot of it was rambling and scattered and probably abusive. It's been just 6 weeks since she came out with (what I guess) is the complete truth and 2 ½ months since she was "caught." I have found that in the last couple of weeks, I'm on a roller coaster of feeling good, feeling depressed, and then really angry.

I'm sure she's not going to want to work on a M when I'm yelling, fighting and pushing her away. I've read a really good book, "I Love You, but I don't Trust You" that describes this anger as necessary, but very harmful.

Lately, the WW has been supportive and trying to change how she treats me. I feel selfish telling her it's not enough, but then I can't define what I want from her. For example, she starts reading a book and then quits. She'll be nice, but when I'm down, she doesn't lift me up, when I'm hurt, she doesn't console me, sad/elate, angry/relax, etc. Our MC quit on her as well three weeks ago saying that he can't do any more. I jokingly tell her that she's great at birthday parties, but sucks when it rains.

My abridged story since I don't post a lot: I caught her having nude "skyping" sessions with other men in late July and then found out she had a year long affair 15 years prior. She claims nothing happened in between those dates.

Anger is part of the betrayal.

Mine came out 20 years after fWW's A ended. It wasn't pretty.

[This message edited by toomanyregrets at 8:35 AM, October 17th (Thursday)]

ANGER is very destructive but it is normal. Have you tried journaling? I did and even now I still write. OMG if I had some of the vile things I wrote to my FWH I would not be M today. Writing is helpful. It will not take all the angry outbursts away but I do think it lessons them. The other thing I did was stack pillows(no one around) and beat them and screamed at them until I had no energy left.

It also helped.

One thing I did have trouble with though is bringing up the subject when the question or thought first popped into my head. I let it fester until I blew. Now I try and ask or talk about whatever it is as soon as possible so I am not as angry.

I also feel the WS has to accept our anger as part of the consequences for their piss poor behavior.

You're not the one destroying the marriage. Her actions did that. Or at least came close to it. Please go easy on yourself. It's normal, and good, to get angry. You have every right to be. What's important is you don't become abusive. Other than that, the anger phase is part of working though this.

If your anger/reaction to this mess ends up driving her away...then there's a good chance she isn't in R with you. She needs to understand and feel compassion and true remorse for what you are going through, and what she's done. It doesn't sound like she has this in her. At least not yet.

You really are still in the early stages of finding things out. Give it more time, and keep expressing what you're feeling, to her. Whatever you do, DON'T feel like you're damaging things. If she's not doing what's needed, at least you're working through your emotions.

We can't control the outcome, but we can control how we handle taking care of ourselves, while getting to that point.

We are still working on how to work through exactly that. One thing that sometimes helps us, is that if I don't feel like I can manage the answers to my questions without 'raging', I write them down for my fWH and he writes his response. Then I can go off by myself, away from our young kids, and feel safe to react any way I want to. Then after they go to bed, when we are both a bit farther fromt he point of rage, we discuss with purposeful calmness.

If she can't handle your anger, she needs help. Is she in IC?

The one thing you can and ought to do to help is to express anger in 'I' statements - 'I'm furious that you did ____!'

Calling her names doesn't really get your anger out of your system. If you do that, stop and use an 'I' statement instead.

I appreciate the great feedback. Dallas, I've been writing my thoughts from time to time. It hasn't been consistent enough. I am finding some comfort having written it down. TrulySad. I think you are right in that she is not yet in R with me. I keep telling her she needs to "get into the water with me."

I've gotten into IC starting next week. She started her IC last week, but she says they haven't done much more than intros and set up the Billing.

Sisoon and eachday, your advice is spot on. I do need to change from attacking to sharing. I find that she's very defensive. I think using the I am feeling/furious/upset that you ….., she'll be more apt to listen.

Thanks everyone!!!

I have this issue as well, only in addition to it I have PMDD combine the two and I am a horrible person. Meds are helping and my MC told me anytime I'm angry to stop and write it out and a few days later if it's still important to talk about it then but only when it can be done without yelling.

I thought this was the dumbest thing I had ever heard since everything seems incredibly important at the time. But then I actually started doing it and seeing my thought flow on paper helped me sort out what was important and what was just anger (I had no idea I knew so many cuss words). This helps me distinguish that thin line between pushing for the info I need and just being mean and pushing my H away.

I still have a hard time with my anger and am not doing great at not lashing out but my H has commented on how much easier it is to talk to me about things.

Also what Dallas said about writing is very helpful. At first we sat down three times a week for 30minutes for me to ask questions and him to answer. It always ended in a fight. So now I write my questions out in advance and he spends 30 minutes answering them. It has made things go much smoother.

1ost0ne.. I totally get where you are coming from.

I equate the whole BS experience to this.

on D-day your emotions are a sine wave that has an infinite amplitude and frequency. As time goes on the amplitude and the frequency decrease steadily but it goes on forever. Like the ripples in a pond when you throw a rock. They ripples are big and close together but as you move away from the location of the rock they get smaller and farther apart. No matter what they will reach the edge of the pond no matter how far away it is.

I am 19 months into this but still "boil over" about every month. After that life is good for about a month. My FWW deals with it because she knows she caused it.

It'll get easier but it won't be anytime soon.

Thank you for sharing and describing closely what I'm going through. While I've got a right to be angry and express it, I also understand that it can be destructive to my marriage. In "Not Just Friends", there is a subsection titled "Pitfalls to avoid". It includes the reaction your wayward spouse can have towards my anger. It's a great book recommended to me from members of this site. While my wife was living with the other man, I ordered it with his delivery address. She called me the day it arrived a bit shocked and paranoid that I knew the address and that he knew I knew it.

So, the recent discussions with my wife have resulted in a lot of anger on my part and dismay on her part. She views her answers as angering me and making things worse. One conclusion that can be drawn in such a circumstance is not to answer or not fully. I'm reverting back to e-mail exchanges so that I can better formulate my comments, feedback and questions. That also helps me as a later reference so there is no confusion due to innaccurate memories about who said what.