Coping With Divorce Anger

Coping with divorce anger

The best remedy in coping with divorce anger is to first get in touch will all of our feelings. We cannot heal what we cannot feel. Within our emotionality is our answer. The biggest mistake a separating partner can make is to fail to learn his or her lessons from their ending marriage. Marriages can end for many reasons, not all of them bad. We are not machines, we are human, and not all parts that can fit together earlier, will remain able to do so forever. As with all else in our life, growth should be the objective, not the support of a failed relationship which damages both partners if it continues. Coping with divorce anger is a sure sign that we still have Soul Lessons yet to learn before we leave this setting and move on.

Welcome to our website. Thank you for joining us. When couples must separate it is always a time of great cost and astronomical expense in terms of emotion, finances, and of personal pride as well. We all here have the deepest respect for anyone going through these changes in this station in life. A person’s life is a serious thing, a necessary change in their lifelong commitments due to reasons of incompatibility is equally serious, and we respect this change deeply. Over time, we all change and some of us change faster or grow in different directions than our partners do. One of the surest signs that there is still unresolved issues from which a partner still need to learn is if they have divorce anger at their separating partner. Before, life was about you and your partner, if you are the separating one. However, after the divorce, life is about you and you alone. Having anger at the other partner will do you, the angry person no good, and will cost you far too much energy, physically, emotionally, and financially to do you any good. In every case, it will do the angry person more harm than the spouse at which they are angry. The one with the anger must work on why they feel the anger, and work it out with friends to help them heal. To work it completely through they must fully understand all their ‘whys.’

The greatest danger of not coping with divorce anger properly is that the angry person will project that anger into the next relationship they enter into. If they cannot define their anger and discover the issues, which create the anger, we guarantee they will take those very same issues into any future relationships they start. The more you choose to run away from your past and deal with divorce anger by trying to choose another mate just the opposite of the first, the more you will tend to pick out another relationship identical to the first, guaranteed!

Why is this so? Here is a little insider secret that most therapists do not want you to know, at least not right away, because they need patients to stay in business.

In every relationship, your partner is the exact mirror image of what is inside of you! What that means is, if you have a need, and/or an unmet expectation, and your partner does not meet that need and live up to what you expect, you are mad at them. They have let you down because they have not given you what you expect. It does not matter if it is a reasonable expectation like paying their part of a mutually incurred debt, as in sharing a house payment obligation, and they fail to do so. Or, if it is unreasonable, like the other partner not allowing you to use all your pay to buy drugs to keep you high all the time because you can have dope at your place of employment. The reasonableness of your expectation is not the issue, what is the issue is you expect something on which the other partner does not wish to comply. The issue is not that they are failing to comply with your wishes and that your anger is justified, the issue is that you have chosen an incompatible partner who chooses not to give you that which you seek. The failure is not with the partner for not complying with your wishes, the failure is why you chose an incompatible partner to carry out your wishes in the first place. Projecting your lack of skill to find a compatible partner into anger at the partner for not meeting your wishes does you no good. Most difficulties of dealing with divorce anger center on this dynamic alone.

We need to treat having and coping with divorce anger at the incompatible partner as a source of valuable information about ourselves. Coping with divorce anger here means two things; first finding out why your partner chose not to, or could not cooperate with your expectations, and second, most importantly is why you would choose this person to depend on as a mate in the first place, for those expectations. Leaving a marriage relationship with anger at the spouse almost guarantees that the next relationship will be a duplicate of the one just left. There is one cardinal rule in social dynamics that is a secret we want you to know, and that is we all seek out partners with the same exact emotional availability as ourselves. If we are hostile, non-intimate, and unavailable emotionally, abusive, and psychologically distant, we will pick a mirror image of ourselves as a partner. If we feel inferior, ourselves, and we pick an inferior spouse so we feel on par with them we will get inferior compatibility as well.

We see in others that set of characteristics that are within us. If you have to cope with divorce anger at your spouse, the object of that anger is a duplicate incompleteness present within you, guaranteed. If you see your spouse as a loser, that same low self esteem characteristic is somewhere within you, and that is why you felt similar and married them. What you had in common was not good traits, like both of you enjoying hiking and horseback riding; it was bad traits, like needing each other to survive the hostile world, or to give each other a sense of value.

The exact reason they failed to be compatible for you is the exact reason you chose to depend on them in the first place. The best way to cope with divorce anger is to look specifically at about what is the anger. Put into words what did they not do for you, and quantify what it was you saw in them in the first place. If you do not do that, you will replay the same tape in the next relationship. You must do that before you can unlock the secret to a new life. What is it about them that made you choose them over another spouse in the beginning? If you can see the energy of the attraction that started it off, then you can see how to fix yourself. Remember, relationships are not causes relationships are only results. You cannot fix a relationship, you have to fix the people that have the relationships, and the relationships will fix themselves. Your relationships only mirror you. It is entirely possible if you can cope with your divorce anger here, and you can heal, that may provoke an accountability within your present partner and you both can heal and restore your relationship. Sometimes a change of heart in one partner will catalyze a positive response in the other and restoration may be on the horizon. We have seen that happen.

Search your feelings deeply and get in touch with why you would not feel comfortable with a more intimate, psychologically independent spouse than your present one is. What is your attraction with someone who is ‘dependent’ and ‘needs fixing?’ Most of the time people seek out lesser status spouses because they feel they are a better balance if they have the upper hand financially and emotionally. For the majority of us who end of having to cope with divorce anger, it is usually because we make some painful mistakes in all of this. We do not feel on par with normal people, so we choose lesser status spouses so we will ‘feel needed.’ That is bad logic and a bad choice! Most people choose emotionally needful people because they feel the emotionally needful person will make a more appreciative spouse if you do something good for them in their lives. Moreover, they also feel the emotionally needful spouse will remain loyal to them since they are codependent. Then they find out the exact opposite is true.

Emotionally needful people, far from tending to be loyal, are the most desertive and disloyal of all. They tend to seek security not just from you the spouse, but also from every other source of love that comes nearby as well, the milkman, the neighbor, your pastor etc. A good rule of thumb in coping with divorce anger in cases of infidelity is ‘if they were insecure when I met them, they will be insecure while I am with them as well, and I will never be able to change that. All I can do is to forgive them for their infidelity and realize that I deserve better than to have an insecure spouse in the first place. My coping with divorce anger means lesson learned and move on.’

Those lesser than you who need you will also be the ones to bring you down and fail you as you try to save them from a ‘lesser life.’ Coping with divorce anger usually means at some point, ‘I chose them to help them. Look at all I have done for them and they do not appreciate it, for they have turned their back on me, and now I am angry about it!’ Do not use helping other people as a way to build yourself up. Most coping with divorce anger centers on failed attempts to use others in relationships to do exactly that.

In cases of financial mismanagement, withholding of affection, and failing to support life growth changes, the same rules apply. We assume the needful spouse will be appreciative of all of our hard efforts to grow their personal and financial estate with all of our hard work. We see an excellent opportunity to be a knight in shining armor and come in and open doors of opportunity to this wonderful but needful person. What always happens is they sabotage our efforts and we feel betrayed and angry. Just as you may have made bad choices in selecting a mate because you feel you do not deserve a better one, so too do they feel they do not deserve the good life you have tried to give them, so they destroy all your hard work. You cannot force a better life on lesser people who feel they do not deserve it. Look within yourself to see if your coping with divorce anger has some element of trying to change the other person in some way, and be honest!

An alternative perspective and our response might be; you do not need to seek out and fix anyone. That is neither your job nor your spiritual responsibility. A marriage should be about you having a partner that edifies you and shares your views and ambitions in life so you can edify each other. Marriage is not a welfare or goodwill institution to help others. That is what churches and non-profit organizations are to do. Coping with divorce anger usually tells us that we gave something to others in a relationship and they did not appreciate it. We tried to fix them and they trashed our efforts to give them a better life. The lesson to learn is do not use your marriage relationship as a tool to help others, for it is to edify you in your private life’s domain, not used for humanitarian good. You may help others outside of marriage through a church or welfare agency through counseling, not inside of your life, for you will get burned every time.

The relevant issue is why you feel you do not deserve to have someone as good as you are, in the first place. Why would someone on your emotional and financial level or higher not be a better choice? Why do you not choose someone more achieved socially and financially? What about you is not good enough for you to market yourself to that crowd of higher achievers? Your heartfelt answers to these type of questions is how you will best cope with divorce anger, by getting it off your chest, then learning from it and moving on.

A little review: Just because the marriage is ending, it is not necessarily a failure unless the separating partner fails to learn or grow from his or her experience. It is imperative that the one with the anger be able to see his or her participation in the setup of that anger. Coping with divorce anger means look only within you for the answer. If you come to the conclusion ‘my anger is justified because he or she failed to pay this bill or is not taking proper care of the kids’ then you have learned nothing. If this is the case, you will go out and find another inadequate spouse just like him or her.

Do not claim that you are surprised that your partner turned out the way they did with the demonstration of their lack of character. The truth is you married them knowing subconsciously that they were like that. We all psychically and subconsciously know what others are like when we first meet them. This happens through what we call our ‘psychic handshake.’ We may pretend that we do not see their character flaw, but we all know, and may ignore signs that there will be trouble down the road. We misinterpret these bad signs of their lack of character as signs of compatibility because we feel inferior ourselves, and we want to be needed by them, and with that, we pursue the relationship. Does that mean we should not have married them? No, because they may have been the ones for us at that time to help us grow and learn, so we could be who we are today. Coping with divorce anger always includes consideration that you may have indeed helped them to grow in some way yet unseen, and they have may helped you in your soul’s growth as well. Balance what bad they have caused you with what positive they have contributed to you. They could have been the answer to your prayer at that time, let it go at that, and move on. No marriage, no matter how bad or poorly matched, is never without some good points. The partner who can embrace those good times, and learn from the bad, will be the partner who will have grown the most. They will be the one who will heal the quickest and climb the highest. The truth is there is a new horizon of opportunity for the now single person in terms of possible direction for their life. Coping with divorce anger means get in touch with those feelings and get them out of your system. Admittedly, we have been a little harsh with you here because we feel self-discipline is what most people need at this time in their lives. Grow past it, change, and move on with your life. Changing is what you owe to your spouse and to society, and moving on is what you owe to yourself.

You are not a failure, neither did your marriage fail, as long as you learned and you grew. It is always best if the healing can allow the marriage to continue, but if the incompatibility is too great; it is wise to move on. For this decision, leave your ego out of the picture.

There is more to learn about coping with divorce anger in our book Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/Tools of your Mind. For help with any emotional abuse, self-esteem and emotional healing issues, please consider this book as a further source of insight to your or your loved ones difficulties. In our book, we talk about the whole overview of our soul’s journey as we follow our heart’s dreams to our ultimate destiny. We answer many questions about selfishness, prosperity, boundaries, psychotherapy, and finding our dreams and happiness. We talk about the importance of getting our emotional needs met, as we go through life’s changes. We also talk about the spiritual controls we have within to bring our good to us. Those controls are our Sincerity Switch, Spontaneity Switch, and lastly our Feelings and Dream Switch. Written for single, married, and divorced, this is the ultimate book for your type of situation.

God bless you as you begin your new life today. We would love to hear from you at shaynen@mho.com. Please tell us how you are doing in your search for answers, and to share your trials and victories with us! We answer every Email personally. Thank you for visiting.

Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind The Book

Leave Coping With Divorce Anger and Return to Family Depression