MISDIRECTED ANGER

She was angry. I mean angrrrry! Actually she was enraged and her husband was the villian and the victim. In her eyes, her fury was justified because of his infidelity more than two years prior. Yet, with alot of marital therapy, she professed to have "forgiven him." However, every time he did the slightest thing to irritate her, she exploded with profane name calling and at times threw dishes at him or whatever else was handy.

Did she have a right to be mad because of his indiscretion? Yes. Was she justified in her outrageous behavior? No. Due to having forgiven him, at least intellectually, was the intensity of her anger (two years after the transgression) excessive? Without question. Why? Why did she still have a hair trigger for unloading on her husband? The answer? Her intense anger was grossly misdirected. Why do I say that? Because...

As a girl, she had been physically and sexually abused by her brother, uncle, and a teenage boyfriend who was a sexual bully and she was his prey. All three of these men were sexual predators but due to a lack of opportunity to direct her anger at the appropriate men, she had transferred it all to her husband. She certainly had grounds to be angry at her husband but he didn't deserve the rage that had been caused by these other men in her life.

With some intensive therapy, she unloaded a lot of baggage in the right direction, got some healing, and with time and hard work, she stopped raging at her husband.

If you're misdirecting anger, you're probably hurting some undeserving people. Some good therapy could be extremely valuable to you and them.