podcast 103 "Dealing with Anger After an Affair"
Tim Tedder discusses the role that anger plays in relationship after infidelity. It is often a destructive force, but it's possible to turn it into a means of connection.
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Transcript Excerpt:
Anger is one of those emotions that rises up in a natural way because it helps us feel protected. It enables a person be in control of a situation that often times feels very much out of their control. Following an affair, it’s to be expected in the person who has been hurt. As the process goes on you often see anger even rising up in the one who has been unfaithful.
As a counselor, I recognize that anger should be diminishing naturally, on its own, if healthy recovery is happening. When it’s not diminishing, when it’s not coming under control, then there tends to be a problem.
Anger, because it is is such an easy emotion to hold onto and is so empowering, it is often the thing we rush to when we feel challenged, when we feel at risk, when we feel insecure. But you can actually use anger to help rebuild your relationship rather than destroy it...
I believe that anger does not have to be a destructive force in the recovery process. Once an affair is discovered or revealed, the emotional reaction you will usually get from the betrayed person will be out of control. I would not expect a betrayed person to respond to the discovery of infidelity in a controlled emotional manner any more than I would have expected the people who were caught up in the Brussell bomb blasts to be able to immediately, rationally process the situation and start planning their recovery. No, [in those situations] everyone is in a state of numbness, not sure of what’s going on. All that is going on in the brain is survival: How do I recover from this catastrophe?
In betrayal, being one of the deepest pains and biggest threats to relationship we can experience, the anger evokes the same kind of emotional response: the rush to security, the need for safety. It’s a survival instinct. Even before we can process thought, that emotion is in play.
As a first reaction to an affair, I would not expect anyone to have measured, controlled response. It is going to be out of control for a little bit, but things should settle down eventually. If we properly understand anger and how we can use it, it can actually be a helpful tool...
Transcript Excerpt:
Anger is one of those emotions that rises up in a natural way because it helps us feel protected. It enables a person be in control of a situation that often times feels very much out of their control. Following an affair, it’s to be expected in the person who has been hurt. As the process goes on you often see anger even rising up in the one who has been unfaithful.
As a counselor, I recognize that anger should be diminishing naturally, on its own, if healthy recovery is happening. When it’s not diminishing, when it’s not coming under control, then there tends to be a problem.
Anger, because it is is such an easy emotion to hold onto and is so empowering, it is often the thing we rush to when we feel challenged, when we feel at risk, when we feel insecure. But you can actually use anger to help rebuild your relationship rather than destroy it...
I believe that anger does not have to be a destructive force in the recovery process. Once an affair is discovered or revealed, the emotional reaction you will usually get from the betrayed person will be out of control. I would not expect a betrayed person to respond to the discovery of infidelity in a controlled emotional manner any more than I would have expected the people who were caught up in the Brussell bomb blasts to be able to immediately, rationally process the situation and start planning their recovery. No, [in those situations] everyone is in a state of numbness, not sure of what’s going on. All that is going on in the brain is survival: How do I recover from this catastrophe?
In betrayal, being one of the deepest pains and biggest threats to relationship we can experience, the anger evokes the same kind of emotional response: the rush to security, the need for safety. It’s a survival instinct. Even before we can process thought, that emotion is in play.
As a first reaction to an affair, I would not expect anyone to have measured, controlled response. It is going to be out of control for a little bit, but things should settle down eventually. If we properly understand anger and how we can use it, it can actually be a helpful tool...
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