Abuse, anger, and control

Question:

– – Whatever it takes to make sure he knows who’s in charge of the – relationship, right? – – You mean this friend refuses to play by your rules? – – All of this after you have been so mature and told him how you feel in – a firm manner. – – Yet YOU have chose to be a friend with this man. Doesn’t that bother – you in the least? If this is part of who this man is and his behavior – pattern then why are you determined to change him into some else? – Either accept him or leave him alone. – – Reread what you just wrote! What kind of relationship has this kind – of game-playing retaliation in it? – – Did it ever occur to you that learning how to deal with your emotions – might be a better way of using your energy? – -Victoria I have no idea who/what tripped your trigger regarding me, but -these personal attacks are completely unwarranted and demonstrate am -extreme lack of good sportsmanship, much less anything resembling courtesy, -decency, or an ability to carry on an intelligent discussion among people -with whom you might disagree. – -Get a life hon. Or keep attacking. It matters about the same to me, but -the second option really shows you in a poor light. I call them like I see them and from what you described you sounded like you were trying to manipulate the man into behaving like you wanted. If this man has so many problems that you go into these rages then why are you with him? Do you really consider this a healthy relationship? With 5,971,178,022 people on this planet that you’d think you’d be able to find one that doesn’t send you a rage, wouldn’t you? Victoria Lee

Response:

-Oh Victoria, you nailed it right…..funny thing my ex used to fold the -towels, and I wouldn’t tell him he folded them wrong, but would go into the -bathroom, and refold them when he didn’t notice. It’s odd…..it just -really bugged me unless they were folded the way I thought they should be. -It really didn’t matter, but you are right, why should it matter as long as -he did it in the first place? :) Daisy, if you stop and really start listening to women we have all of these "rules" about almost everything. One of the "big" issues on Dear Abby or Dear Ann (don’t remember which) was which was the RIGHT way to put toilet tissue on the holder. Is that weird or what? Victoria Lee

Response:

-This reminded me of something in my marriage that I did learn to keep -quiet about … I hate to do dishes. On my list of things to do it -always gets put towards the bottom (blame mom for forcing me to do -dishes when I was 6 ) Anyway, my ex didn’t mind doing the dishes and -did them often. Except the way he loaded the dishwasher drove me nuts. -He was forever putting the plastic, tupperware etc, bowls and lids in -the bottom rack. Need I say more? – -Quite a few times I made suggestions about the plastic going on top, -quite a few times I left the bowls out as ‘evidence’, quite a few times -my irritation showed, but it never seemed to phase him that none of the -lids would work on the bowls. – -My mom was actually the one who got me to shut up and let it go. She -said "What’s more important to you, perfect tupperware or the fact that -he helped you out by doing the dishes?" – -I learned to head to WalMart about every three months to stock up on -more bowls and lids. – -Heidi A wise mother and a wise daughter. Victoria Lee

Response:

Oh Victoria, you nailed it right…..funny thing my ex used to fold the towels, and I wouldn’t tell him he folded them wrong, but would go into the bathroom, and refold them when he didn’t notice. It’s odd…..it just really bugged me unless they were folded the way I thought they should be. It really didn’t matter, but you are right, why should it matter as long as he did it in the first place? :) Daisy Mr. Spock wears vulcanized rubbers.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – -I would wager, Victoria, that few men can actually have emotionally healthy -relationships. Women are left scratching their collective heads, to some of -men’s behaviors. Vice versa, too. Therefore, women have developed an -impressive arsenal of emotional tools to get what they need from their -relationships with men. – -This leads into a point that Victoria is sensitive to, and I am still -formulating an opinion on. The thought that ‘women know better, so they -make the rules – whether on relationships, schedules, what the man does, how -the man does housework, etc – so they try to dictate the rules or change the -man.’ I have to say something here (Okay, so you’re NOT surprised . It’s not that "women know better, so they make the rules," but that they make the rules because they think they know better and believe they should be in charge. Really simple example – Wife wants hubby to help with the laundry. So he folds the towels. She then informs him he folded them the wrong way. Where is it written that towels should be folded any certain way? And why does the wife get to make these rules? This is something I have seen in most women. I see this in posts and I personally am trying to eliminate it from the relationship I have with my husband. -P.S. – aside to Victoria. I would like to think that I can emote, -sympathize with other people’s pain, feel with my heart, and express my pain -and anger passingly well. I would also like to think that I can carry on an -intelligent conversation. This is just a conceit of mine – it may or may -not be true. I leave that up to everyone’s individual perception of me I personally think you have done all of the above very well. Certainly I have had a treat with this discussion. Victoria Lee

Response:

I call them like I see them and from what you described you sounded like you were trying to manipulate the man into behaving like you wanted. If this man has so many problems that you go into these rages then why are you with him? Do you really consider this a healthy relationship? With 5,971,178,022 people on this planet that you’d think you’d be able to find one that doesn’t send you a rage, wouldn’t you? Victoria Lee

I think you "assumed" that this was an "intimate" (i.e., love, living together, bonded mates) friendship Victoria. This is a guy who’s been a good friend to me for more than 10 years. Don’s introspection made me think of this challenge we face regarding how we deal with anger, and I thought I could get some feedback, because my friendship with this guy – though long-distance now, and platonic always – is important to me. I am not "with him". And yes, we do have a damned healthy friendship – possibly healthier and of longer duration than any you yourself have with a man? Possibly not, just a thought. Is he going to be "the one" that doesn’t send me into a rage??? Get a grip Victoria, such degrading personalizations, as I mentioned before, are beneath generally accepted rules of courtesy in discourse. If you didn’t assume (incorrectly) and make such vicious unfounded comments about me, then you wouldn’t now be in this place of looking so silly for your viciousness, now would you? Janie — Praise is more spontaneous when things go right; but it is more precious when things go wrong. To reply via email replace "JLT_ALB" with "janiet" ICQ#22924224 [Smoke-free since 1/1/99]

Response:

This reminded me of something in my marriage that I did learn to keep quiet about … I hate to do dishes. On my list of things to do it always gets put towards the bottom (blame mom for forcing me to do dishes when I was 6 ) Anyway, my ex didn’t mind doing the dishes and did them often. Except the way he loaded the dishwasher drove me nuts. He was forever putting the plastic, tupperware etc, bowls and lids in the bottom rack. Need I say more? Quite a few times I made suggestions about the plastic going on top, quite a few times I left the bowls out as ‘evidence’, quite a few times my irritation showed, but it never seemed to phase him that none of the lids would work on the bowls. My mom was actually the one who got me to shut up and let it go. She said "What’s more important to you, perfect tupperware or the fact that he helped you out by doing the dishes?" I learned to head to WalMart about every three months to stock up on more bowls and lids. Heidi – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Oh Victoria, you nailed it right…..funny thing my ex used to fold the towels, and I wouldn’t tell him he folded them wrong, but would go into the bathroom, and refold them when he didn’t notice. It’s odd…..it just really bugged me unless they were folded the way I thought they should be. It really didn’t matter, but you are right, why should it matter as long as he did it in the first place? :) Daisy Mr. Spock wears vulcanized rubbers. -I would wager, Victoria, that few men can actually have emotionally healthy -relationships. Women are left scratching their collective heads, to some of -men’s behaviors. Vice versa, too. Therefore, women have developed an -impressive arsenal of emotional tools to get what they need from their -relationships with men. – -This leads into a point that Victoria is sensitive to, and I am still -formulating an opinion on. The thought that ‘women know better, so they -make the rules – whether on relationships, schedules, what the man does, how -the man does housework, etc – so they try to dictate the rules or change the -man.’ I have to say something here (Okay, so you’re NOT surprised . It’s not that "women know better, so they make the rules," but that they make the rules because they think they know better and believe they should be in charge. Really simple example – Wife wants hubby to help with the laundry. So he folds the towels. She then informs him he folded them the wrong way. Where is it written that towels should be folded any certain way? And why does the wife get to make these rules? This is something I have seen in most women. I see this in posts and I personally am trying to eliminate it from the relationship I have with my husband. -P.S. – aside to Victoria. I would like to think that I can emote, -sympathize with other people’s pain, feel with my heart, and express my pain -and anger passingly well. I would also like to think that I can carry on an -intelligent conversation. This is just a conceit of mine – it may or may -not be true. I leave that up to everyone’s individual perception of me I personally think you have done all of the above very well. Certainly I have had a treat with this discussion. Victoria Lee

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Whatever it takes to make sure he knows who’s in charge of the relationship, right? You mean this friend refuses to play by your rules? All of this after you have been so mature and told him how you feel in a firm manner. Yet YOU have chose to be a friend with this man. Doesn’t that bother you in the least? If this is part of who this man is and his behavior pattern then why are you determined to change him into some else? Either accept him or leave him alone. Reread what you just wrote! What kind of relationship has this kind of game-playing retaliation in it? Did it ever occur to you that learning how to deal with your emotions might be a better way of using your energy?

Victoria I have no idea who/what tripped your trigger regarding me, but these personal attacks are completely unwarranted and demonstrate am extreme lack of good sportsmanship, much less anything resembling courtesy, decency, or an ability to carry on an intelligent discussion among people with whom you might disagree. Get a life hon. Or keep attacking. It matters about the same to me, but the second option really shows you in a poor light. Janie — Praise is more spontaneous when things go right; but it is more precious when things go wrong. To reply via email replace "JLT_ALB" with "janiet" ICQ#22924224 [Smoke-free since 1/1/99]

Response:

-I would wager, Victoria, that few men can actually have emotionally healthy -relationships. Women are left scratching their collective heads, to some of -men’s behaviors. Vice versa, too. Therefore, women have developed an -impressive arsenal of emotional tools to get what they need from their -relationships with men. – -This leads into a point that Victoria is sensitive to, and I am still -formulating an opinion on. The thought that ‘women know better, so they -make the rules – whether on relationships, schedules, what the man does, how -the man does housework, etc – so they try to dictate the rules or change the -man.’ I have to say something here (Okay, so you’re NOT surprised . It’s not that "women know better, so they make the rules," but that they make the rules because they think they know better and believe they should be in charge. Really simple example – Wife wants hubby to help with the laundry. So he folds the towels. She then informs him he folded them the wrong way. Where is it written that towels should be folded any certain way? And why does the wife get to make these rules? This is something I have seen in most women. I see this in posts and I personally am trying to eliminate it from the relationship I have with my husband. -P.S. – aside to Victoria. I would like to think that I can emote, -sympathize with other people’s pain, feel with my heart, and express my pain -and anger passingly well. I would also like to think that I can carry on an -intelligent conversation. This is just a conceit of mine – it may or may -not be true. I leave that up to everyone’s individual perception of me :) I personally think you have done all of the above very well. Certainly I have had a treat with this discussion. Victoria Lee

Response:

–

- -Maybe you can help me figure this one out . . . – -I’m getting this phrase more and more, recently. I am actually thinking of -writing a book – using my introspection as a core. I am also thinking of -starting an advice column in the local newspaper. I’m glad to help and -spread any knowledge that I can. On the other hand, I don’t want to be some -crack who thinks he knows relationships, personal interactions, and how to -cure all the world’s ills on those subjects just because I look within -myself and I read a few books and who has no formal training on the subject. Aw, don’t worry. I’m sure the folks here will keep you honest Victoria Lee

Response:

First, she asserts that our country was founded on, and continues to operate under, a system of patriarchy. I believe this to be inherently true, though the women’s movement and subsequent increase in single mothers may be causing change to that system even as we discuss it. According to Kelly, a patriarchy is "a social and political system in which men control, and have power over, women. . . . [and] control in patriarchal societies, as in all political systems, ultimately rests on force."

Ahem. Well, er, we seem to be getting a bit far afield here into the realm of sociology and social psychology. I’ll give it a go, though. IMHO, Kelly is full of it. She seems to have signed up to the idea that because INDIVIDUAL women are caring and nuturing beings, that a group of women – running a political or social system – will also run a caring and nuturing system. A system like that is doomed from the start, due to group psychology. "A person is an intelligent, rational, and capable being. Humans are flighty, unpredictable, and a dangerous group." – paraphrased from ‘Men In Black’. This has nothing to do with matriarchal or patriarchal societies. Several societies in the South Americas were matriarchal. They were more vicious and protective than the local patriarchal societies around them – think of a lioness versus a lion as far as protecting home and family and territory. This is not an attack on you or your ideas, by any means. I do appreciate this kind of conversation and your extensive use of supporting material. It raises the bar on the conversations that we are used to :) I just humbly believe that so many people who start misapplying individual thoughts to groups or attempting to assess characteristics or causality to a cause that MAY NOT in fact be a contributing factor are people who either have an axe to grind, not considering what they really mean, or have some other intentional or unintentional shortsightedness. Kelly talks about the use of force by dominant majorities in societies as a last resort to maintain control. e.g., police officers shooting criminals when all other reasonable means of control have failed; the imprisonment of "deviant" members of society who continuously refuse to conform to the dominant majority’s rules/laws; the battering of one’s spouse when you can’t get them to be what you need them to be through other means. Kelly comments on the fact that the dominant force would *prefer* to have voluntary coopeartion from those it seeks to control, because the use of violence "makes coercive power explicit and, therefore, increases the possibility of resistance." Kelly says that "male violence arises out of men’s power and women’s resistance to it." Interesting idea, no?

I think that Victoria’s comment is interesting, but I still have a problem relating group psychology to individual psychology, unless that person in question belongs to a group that is interacting in a particular manner. See the studies done on prison guards versus inmates and the power struggles that ensue. See how you react to these quotes: "Violence is the supreme authority from which all power is derived. If you disagree with that premise, ask the fathers of Carthage or Hiroshima. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue – and thoroughly immoral – thought that violence does not solve anything, I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. {Societies} that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms." "War is not violence or killing, pure and simple; war is *controlled* violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government’s decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing them . . . but to make them do what you want them to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence" I really have a problem with setting up the idea that normal traits of men (either individually or in groups) = use of violence for control and power and normal traits of women (either individually or in groups) = support and caring and no use of violence. Once again, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetant." I don’t care if they are a society controlled by men or women, the lowest common denominator for getting your own way is violence. This is why I learned a little Tae Kwon Do. I am most certainly a non-violent and pacifist person. However, I must ALWAYS be prepared to defend myself from those who cannot function on any higher level than violence. If I were personally and skillfully using words to attack Victoria, and she could not defend herself, I would wager that any PERSON in that situation would consider the use of violence, even if it is over the internet. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -This first conecpt, that as a patriarchy even our *fathers* are encouraged to instruct us in the ways of submission to men, was a shock to me. I recall in 1988 when I was the amazed and unprepared victim of a sexual assault (by a close friend), how very PISSED I was at my Dad! He should have WARNED ME that this could happen! He’d raised me and my 3 sisters (against society’s rules) to believe I was IN FULL CONTROL of my life and my body, and no one could beat me down if I followed the basic rules and used my brain (including how to say *NO!* in no uncertain terms). He was wrong. It seemed ludicrous to me at the time, and even now, that my first emotion of anger was toward my father, not the "friend" who assaulted me. (I wasn’t anywhere near ready to begin to sort out my previous feelings of friendship from my new feelings of disgust with this person.) Before that night in the Netherlands in 1988, I would have responded exactly like Victoria did to the idea that women are afraid of men’s physical power (finding the idea hilarious). I was on that end of the continuum then. Not surprisingly, this event, and the way in which the military MEN who handled the event treated me, pushed me pretty far onto the other side for a while. The second concept that Kelly proposed that seems relevant here ties into the feelings of shock that our fathers are training us to be submissive (mine didn’t I don’t think – he was sort of a rebel himself). But this idea says that all the men in our lives that we love and care for, and who care for us, may not be all we want them to be in their motives (Stepford Wives comes to mind <tongue-in-cheek). Not that all men are monstors, just that maybe they aren’t all the princes or knights we’d like them to be. Kelly talks about how the victimization of a few women keeps all (most?) women in line. Wow! All women reading this post who have never been physically or sexually assaulted but know someone who has been, or have heard the accounts of brutal assaults of others – think about that. Do these stories affect in any way your behaviors? Do you make sure to get home by dark? Do you avoid certain neighborhoods? Do you make any effort whatsoever in your daily routine that you have adopted, maybe subconsciously, as a result of hearing about rape since you were a young girl? "The threat of rape, and the fact that it does happen to some women, creates a climate of fear; all men benefit from the fact that some men rape women. . . . The factor which is seen to account for [differences across cultures and history], is the level of male dominance within a society; higher rape rates correlating with greater male dominance." How shocking that is to contemplate. We know that only *some* men rape women. We know that only *some* women get raped (and as women we figure it will never happen to us until it does). But looking at it from a purely behavioral modification point of view, think of this — a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement of behaviors (including thoughts) is the best way to cement behaviors in subjects. (Another topic for another day – was that Skinner?) Behaviors which have been learned and are reinforced sporadically are almost impossible to extinguish. Is that something that can be said also of thoughts, beliefs, fears?

Thoughts, beliefs, and fears – adjusted and re-enforced by socialization. I’m not going to get on the ’socialization is bad’ bandwagon. I’m just pointing where the group mind and the values it holds get filtered down to individual thought, beliefs, fears, and ACTIONS. I’m sorry that ANYONE is affected by violence of any sort. It is humiliating, demeaning, and makes one feel totally powerless. I’m sorry that your education did not include the possibility that someone may make use of any advantage they have over you to use violence to control you – or implicitly control anyone else. I don’t know if that education by males or fathers is to blame for the socialization of submissiveness in women, or if the powerless rage that women feel as a result of that realization that they are weaker in some aspect of human interaction is to blame. Educate for the whole spectrum, realize that there are pros and cons, accept that the best or worst may happen, protect yourself from the worst happening, then act in the best and most utopian way that you know how. This, IMHO, sounds like a complete education and personal reaction to socialization and social issues. Anyway Don, your post on this topic was very well articulated and reflected a tremendous amount of introspection and honesty on your part. Thanks again for that gift which had the beneficial outcome of stirring up all this thought on the issues that exist between genders. Janie

Thank you, once again, for … read more »

Response:

Maybe you can help me figure this one out . . .

I’m getting this phrase more and more, recently. I am actually thinking of writing a book – using my introspection as a core. I am also thinking of starting an advice column in the local newspaper. I’m glad to help and spread any knowledge that I can. On the other hand, I don’t want to be some crack who thinks he knows relationships, personal interactions, and how to cure all the world’s ills on those subjects just because I look within myself and I read a few books and who has no formal training on the subject. That’s why I try to suggest everything I say, ‘IMHO’. :) So, once again, everything I say in this post and thread is JMHO. I have a friend that I’m pretty close to (a guy) but we’re different enough that we disagree on things fairly regularly (not bad disagreements, just the challenging kind that keep things interesting as friends). Sometimes something he says, does, doesn’t say, doesn’t do (fill in the blank) sparks a little flare-up of anger — low enough in the beginning to maybe be called "annoyance" rather than "anger." I observe the emotion, look within to understand which behavior, word, inaction, whatever it is that this friend expressed that triggered the emotional response. Then I tell him about it. Of course I don’t tell him in a very sweet, syrupy voice – but neither do I yell or use profane language in these cases of what I refer to as "3rd degree" anger (as in 3rd degree burn – not so bad to need a trip to the E.R.). My voice and words are carefully chosen to express firmness in these circumstances – "this is a boundary, I believe you’ve violated it, that won’t be tolerated, now let’s talk about it."

Sounds to me like a healthy expression of anger – a defining of something (a situation) that hurt you. Now my "expectation" (I know what a trap that is, but I’m human so bear with me) is that he’ll think about what I say, evaluate himself, and respond in some intelligible way that allows us to correct misunderstandings or agree to disagree on that particular topic, or whatever outcome we reach that resolves the conflict. After I’ve expressed my moment of anger/annoyance, I’m through with that emotion now – its served its purpose, sending a warning flag and getting me to redefine my boundaries with my friend. Now I’m ready for dialogue and the exchange of ideas and the verbalization of all relevant feelings. But of course, that isn’t how it goes . . .

Healthy expressions are like that. Express, understand, compromise, move on . . . At least, that is what I’ve heard. I am still learning how to do that, myself. My friend gets angry in a defense-like manner after I express my anger. I’m not even going to try to say *why* he gets angry – I know anger is a boundary setting tool, so it should be safe to say he perceives I have violated a boundary with my own expression of anger. But I wouldn’t bet on it, you guys are too complex for me to make safe assumptions about motives. Anyway, its not like he doesn’t want me to *know* he’s angry – he does all the non-verbal and verbal things that make sure I know – sullen facial expression, short clipped replies to my questions or comments, no eye contact, shutting down things (at least that’s how I see them) — i.e., passive-aggression?

Victoria brought up a vaild point in our private e-mail conversation that I will attempt to paraphrase (ie – correct me if my perception was wrong, Victoria). We assign too much credit to people as far as their ability to be self-aware and react with forethought every single moment. For guys, IMHO, this is very true. Stimulus and response – animal behavior – is the most common interaction for people in general. To quote from my web site: "Men will generally interpret any difference in opinion or identification of a problem as blame or criticism. As soon as a difference is mentioned, the lines of right and wrong are drawn in the male mind. The last thing that any man wants is blame, responsibility for causing the problem, being at fault, or being the person who was wrong. When men feel like they are being told what is wrong with them, they will generally get defensive. They will not take the criticism and look within themselves to see if the other person was right or not. They will usually discard it and stop listening to the person who was telling them what is wrong with them, and start arguing that the other person has no right to feel that way or that they are trying to change or control them." If you would like to see the core of the book I am thinking of writing, and where I have this posted, it is at: http://www.gatecom.com/~wcrane/LoveandRel.htm . Especially hit the page on Generalities of men – that page is expanding day by day. A futher complication is that I would lay odds that he isn’t quite in touch with his anger. I may be very wrong about this one, I will not even attempt to analyze this person – I will just give a general overview of men who aren’t in touch with their anger or emotion. These men will show all the non-verbal and even some verbal clues that they are angry. However, they aren’t truly feeling that anger – consciously. They are reacting, they aren’t quite sure why they are reacting that way, and they have no real ability to deal with the situation that they don’t understand. This may be a motivation for that passive/agressive that you seemed to think may be happening. He can’t quite comprehend what is going on, much less be able to express it, even much less be able to discuss, compromise or find a solution so that he doesn’t step over your boundaries. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -The shutting down is the thing that gets to me the most. And I’ve made no secret about how much it gets to me with this friend. As a rebel who refused to keep secrets in my alcoholic family, I was shunned by one-and-all by the "silent treatment" as punishment for blabbing to a school friend or counselor what was going on behind closed doors. So I have this Family History thing that makes shutting down behaviors very difficult to tolerate. But it takes two to tango, you know? He knows it gets to me, is he using it because I’ve expressed anger and he *wants* to get to me? (I do that when I’ve gone far beyond angery and tripped into rage – he hates the F*** word and I use it with great frequency under those emotional circumstances.) He says he’s not using it as a tool – that he simply responds to my anger with an angry response himself that scares him with its force, and he has to withdraw for a time to get that under control so he doesn’t say things he will regret. He says he’d be ready to come back to the table after he’s accomplished that, but he never has. He only comes back to the table when I offer an olive branch because I can’t take any more of the silent treatment or my own feelings of powerlessness and rage.

Escape from the discussion and hope it will go away. Control his emotion – never let it get out of control. Avoidance. Very typical of men who cannot deal with anger or negative emotion. They feel that if they express it, the anger will consume them and they cannot control their actions. Unless he feels he is not wrong (your offering an olive branch), he will not return to the discussion. He will just avoid it until (he hopes) it goes away. I’m not sure if he is using your boundary as an unconscious reaction/punishment/lashing back emotionally or if it is conscious. I made a throw away comment to Victoria that people attempt to regain control (when they don’t feel that they have any) by using ONLY those tools that the people around them give to that person. I don’t know if it is a subdued conscious action or a unconscious action to use that particular boundary or tool to regain control. My ex put herself on the line when she told me on our first date, ‘I won’t tolerate physical violence. You hit me, you’re gone.’ I could have tried pushing that boundary, just to see how far I could go (sound like a child, pushing their boundaries with a parent???) I never tried pushing boundaries, I would like to think I am a bit more mature than that. However, I know many people who do that, just because they know it bothers the other person and they are trying to ‘get back at them.’ I would wager, Victoria, that few men can actually have emotionally healthy relationships. Women are left scratching their collective heads, to some of men’s behaviors. Vice versa, too. Therefore, women have developed an impressive arsenal of emotional tools to get what they need from their relationships with men. This leads into a point that Victoria is sensitive to, and I am still formulating an opinion on. The thought that ‘women know better, so they make the rules – whether on relationships, schedules, what the man does, how the man does housework, etc – so they try to dictate the rules or change the man.’ I agree, in principle, that this inequality isn’t healthy or positive in any relationship. However, what other options are women really left with, when men dodge out of the equality game – for whatever reason? He may feel inferior, or superior. Both are unhealthy, if either gender expresses those things in ANY relationship. Accepting differences and respecting boundaries, while maintaining equality is a very mature, adult, and healthy way to conduct any relationship. Once again, though, how many people (not just men), are able to get to that kind of healthy relationship? If both parties can express their boundaries, express the anger that happens when those boundaries are crossed, work out compromises and work towards a healthier interaction in the future – that would generate relationships of unusual sharing, caring, interaction, and healthiness. This, once again, gives too much credit to most people, who are not self-aware of everything they do every … read more »

Response:

– -<snip – -I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread Don – thanks to you and to Victoria -for your contributions on this issue. I’ve commented on a couple of items -already, but wanted to comment separately on this issue of fear. – – I believe that Roto is right, most women are afraid of men’s physical power, – that they will use that power to hurt them. On the converse, I believe that – most men are afraid of the women’s emotional power, that women will use that – power and skill to destroy the soft and tender places in a man – if the man – is able to expose his tender parts to his wife in the first place. If he – can’t allow that kind of closeness and intimacy (many men never will, – because of that fear), the relationship will ALWAYS have problems. – -I believe you were referring to husband/wife situations in your comments -here, and certainly the research I have available covers all relationships -between men and women, including the marital ones. But though the context -implied marital relationships, the statement was general (women are afraid -of men’s physical power). This is not new, of course. Victoria reminded -us that mental power/control are *also* common in intimate relationships, -and certainly we see a lot of that in unhappy marriages. But the frequency -(or lack thereof) of that different kind of fear (physical) doesn’t remove -or diminish the genuine fear that many women experience. (Thank goodness -all people (of either gender) have intriguing and different experiences and -beliefs to bring into a discussion – -Liz Kelly was a feminist researcher who was popular among academia folks -who studied the Psychology of Opression around 1988-1992. Her work -included a study of the oppression of women in our society through the use -of sexual violence. Although some people of that time thought she was -radical, most of the people who found her work useful were really quite -moderate – not bleeding-heart liberals nor southern crackers – -She made a couple of statements in her book "Surviving Sexual Violence" -that seemed to be such Significant Truths that they have stayed with me -over the past decade. Your post on abuse, anger and control caused me to -remember them. Before I type her statements from the text, let me loosely -generalize women into three groups (very loosely . . . a small group on -either end of a continuum with labels for "extremely fearful" and "never -fearful", with a large middle group (bell curve stuff) labelled "aware of -the threat and cautious but not fearful all the time." Of course with any -continuum there are strays, a few here, a few there, no two people can be -expected to be just alike. So with that grouping as the foundation of my -beliefs on this topic, and that caveat in place to avoid the accusation of -generalization, onward . . . – -First, she asserts that our country was founded on, and continues to -operate under, a system of patriarchy. I believe this to be inherently -true, though the women’s movement and subsequent increase in single mothers -may be causing change to that system even as we discuss it. According to -Kelly, a patriarchy is "a social and political system in which men control, -and have power over, women. . . . [and] control in patriarchal societies, -as in all political systems, ultimately rests on force." – -Kelly talks about the use of force by dominant majorities in societies as a -last resort to maintain control. e.g., police officers shooting criminals -when all other reasonable means of control have failed; the imprisonment of -"deviant" members of society who continuously refuse to conform to the -dominant majority’s rules/laws; the battering of one’s spouse when you -can’t get them to be what you need them to be through other means. Kelly -comments on the fact that the dominant force would *prefer* to have -voluntary coopeartion from those it seeks to control, because the use of -violence "makes coercive power explicit and, therefore, increases the -possibility of resistance." Kelly says that "male violence arises out of -men’s power and women’s resistance to it." Interesting idea, no? Evidently she’s never seen a man who is working on a lawn mower that is being "resistant." But seriously, Kelly’s idea is absurd. By this theory the wife who cooks her husband’s meal, serves is hot, at exactly 6:00 (per his order) gets beaten to a pulp because she resisted giving him a large enough serving of corn (or the excuse of the moment)? There is no "voluntary cooperation" that will satisfy an abusive spouse. -This first conecpt, that as a patriarchy even our *fathers* are encouraged -to instruct us in the ways of submission to men, was a shock to me. I -recall in 1988 when I was the amazed and unprepared victim of a sexual -assault (by a close friend), how very PISSED I was at my Dad! He should -have WARNED ME that this could happen! He’d raised me and my 3 sisters -(against society’s rules) to believe I was IN FULL CONTROL of my life and -my body, and no one could beat me down if I followed the basic rules and -used my brain (including how to say *NO!* in no uncertain terms). He was -wrong. It seemed ludicrous to me at the time, and even now, that my first -emotion of anger was toward my father, not the "friend" who assaulted me. -(I wasn’t anywhere near ready to begin to sort out my previous feelings of -friendship from my new feelings of disgust with this person.) Before that -night in the Netherlands in 1988, I would have responded exactly like -Victoria did to the idea that women are afraid of men’s physical power -(finding the idea hilarious). I was on that end of the continuum then. -Not surprisingly, this event, and the way in which the military MEN who -handled the event treated me, pushed me pretty far onto the other side for -a while. Interesting. I grew up with a sexually abusive foster father and I still don’t think of all men in relationship to the physical power they have or do not have. And when sitting around discussing issues with other women it’s not something that comes up unless in reference to a specific incidence of abuse. Victoria Lee

Response:

-First, she asserts that our country was founded on, and continues to -operate under, a system of patriarchy. I believe this to be inherently -true, though the women’s movement and subsequent increase in single mothers -may be causing change to that system even as we discuss it. I have been hearing a lot about single mothers lately for whatever reason and I’ve just realized something. Often the term "single mothers" is used in relationship with a statistic or a reference to statistics. But what doesn’t seem to be considered is the fact that usually women aren’t single mothers for the rest of their life or even the years they spend raising their child(ren). So if the number of single mothers rises might be a bit difficult to really figure out because you would also have to know the number who have remarried, married, or even died to get an actual figure. Victoria Lee

Response:

– -<snip -I understand that many people (men and women) find that they – are angry and don’t know how to deal with it in a healthy manner. I – personally think that most women can grow over time into a healthy – expression of their anger, because they have the emotional and relationship – tools (through socialization) that men don’t have. I agree; personal – attacks, name calling, manipulation, and other unhealthy expressions of – anger are very common on both sides – especially early in a person’s life. – JMHO, though, that most men will never get to an emotional maturity that – most women get to, especially dealing with their own emotions. – – -Don, – -Maybe you can help me figure this one out . . . I have a friend that I’m -pretty close to (a guy) but we’re different enough that we disagree on -things fairly regularly (not bad disagreements, just the challenging kind -that keep things interesting as friends). Sometimes something he says, -does, doesn’t say, doesn’t do (fill in the blank) sparks a little flare-up -of anger — low enough in the beginning to maybe be called "annoyance" -rather than "anger." I observe the emotion, look within to understand -which behavior, word, inaction, whatever it is that this friend expressed -that triggered the emotional response. Then I tell him about it. Of -course I don’t tell him in a very sweet, syrupy voice – but neither do I -yell or use profane language in these cases of what I refer to as "3rd -degree" anger (as in 3rd degree burn – not so bad to need a trip to the -E.R.). My voice and words are carefully chosen to express firmness in -these circumstances – "this is a boundary, I believe you’ve violated it, -that won’t be tolerated, now let’s talk about it." Whatever it takes to make sure he knows who’s in charge of the relationship, right? -Now my "expectation" (I know what a trap that is, but I’m human so bear -with me) is that he’ll think about what I say, evaluate himself, and -respond in some intelligible way that allows us to correct -misunderstandings or agree to disagree on that particular topic, or -whatever outcome we reach that resolves the conflict. After I’ve expressed -my moment of anger/annoyance, I’m through with that emotion now – its -served its purpose, sending a warning flag and getting me to redefine my -boundaries with my friend. Now I’m ready for dialogue and the exchange of -ideas and the verbalization of all relevant feelings. But of course, that -isn’t how it goes . . . You mean this friend refuses to play by your rules? -My friend gets angry in a defense-like manner after I express my anger. -I’m not even going to try to say *why* he gets angry – I know anger is a -boundary setting tool, so it should be safe to say he perceives I have -violated a boundary with my own expression of anger. But I wouldn’t bet on -it, you guys are too complex for me to make safe assumptions about motives. -Anyway, its not like he doesn’t want me to *know* he’s angry – he does all -the non-verbal and verbal things that make sure I know – sullen facial -expression, short clipped replies to my questions or comments, no eye -contact, shutting down things (at least that’s how I see them) — i.e., -passive-aggression? All of this after you have been so mature and told him how you feel in a firm manner. -The shutting down is the thing that gets to me the most. And I’ve made no -secret about how much it gets to me with this friend. As a rebel who -refused to keep secrets in my alcoholic family, I was shunned by -one-and-all by the "silent treatment" as punishment for blabbing to a -school friend or counselor what was going on behind closed doors. So I -have this Family History thing that makes shutting down behaviors very -difficult to tolerate. Yet YOU have chose to be a friend with this man. Doesn’t that bother you in the least? If this is part of who this man is and his behavior pattern then why are you determined to change him into some else? Either accept him or leave him alone. -But it takes two to tango, you know? He knows it -gets to me, is he using it because I’ve expressed anger and he *wants* to -get to me? Reread what you just wrote! What kind of relationship has this kind of game-playing retaliation in it? -(I do that when I’ve gone far beyond angery and tripped into -rage – he hates the F*** word and I use it with great frequency under those -emotional circumstances.) Did it ever occur to you that learning how to deal with your emotions might be a better way of using your energy? -He says he’s not using it as a tool – that he -simply responds to my anger with an angry response himself that scares him -with its force, and he has to withdraw for a time to get that under control -so he doesn’t say things he will regret. He says he’d be ready to come -back to the table after he’s accomplished that, but he never has. He only -comes back to the table when I offer an olive branch because I can’t take -any more of the silent treatment or my own feelings of powerlessness and -rage. This isn’t a healthy relationship. Victoria Lee

Response:

<I have done some snippng of previous posts and of posts that I totally agree with in hopes of making this easier to read -Like I started with, I just have opinions, and they may or may not reflect a -common experience. I can only show the insights that I know from my -background :) But is not that the very reason we all come here – to read the opinions of others? It is that exchange that draws us here and keeps us coming back. –Many men and women have problems dealing with anger and rage. However, I –believe that there are many, many more men than women with that problem. – -I disagree. When is the last time you saw a child (male or female) -showing anger that s/he was not scolded for, laughed at, etc.? If a -child gets upset and "pouts" then far too often the parent makes fun -of them maybe calling them a baby or something similar. Or if they -say they hate someone in anger they are told they should not say -things like that. Or if they fight they are told to behave and nice -boys/girls do not act like that. All of these are expressions of -anger in children. Children who don’t have the vocabulary skills or -the life experiences to handle it in a positive way and far too many -parents do not take the time to teach them. – – -Agreed. I believe that self-esteem and emotional damage occurs when -children express themselves and then they are told that what they are -expressing is unacceptable. The unpleasant emotions are particularly -censored and censured (anger, jealousy, unhappiness). Many parents will -never realize the damage they do along that line. It is MHO, though, that -girls are ‘allowed’ to express thier emotions more than boys are. In the -newer society that we are growing up in where it is becoming more and more -unacceptable for men to hit women (even though it still occurs), physical -manifestations of emotions by boys are starting to be severly clamped down -on – or redirected to controlled violence such as sports. "It is MHO, though, that girls are ‘allowed’ to express their emotions more than boys are." Being allowed to express something and being taught how to express it properly are two very different things. –The implicit socialization of men is still to repress feelings to be able to –do solutions without emotions getting in the way and creating self-doubt and –hesitation in the man. When the repression occurs, this affects the whole –gamut of emotions – from the positive (love and happiness) to the negative –(anger and rage). – -Oh, but that is not true. If you do not believe me watch a group of -men watch the Super Bowl. You will most definitely see emotion. -Including rage if there is a very bad call against their team. Other -feelings men, like women, have in abundance – competitiveness, greed, -pettiness, fear, resentment, jealousy, guilt, despair, etc. – -Good point. I agree that both men and women have the feelings. I think -that just the ability to express them or repress them is where I was -expressing my opinion on. :) How about in interpersonal interaction, -though? How often do men express healthy emotions about people or social -situations? You hit the key word – healthy. Let me give you one of my favorite examples. The wife complains that the husband won’t help around the house. He then takes to doing the laundry. She then is upset because he doesn’t fold the clothes right. Discouraged he stops helping. The wife complains that the husband won’t help around the house…we have become socialized to believe that he’s at fault for not helping, but I still don’t remember reading that the wife got to make all of the rules. (I wrote this AFTER the next paragraph -I know that men have many emotional attachments to sports, -tools, toys, cars, jobs, etc. Do men (in general) express as much -excitement about a personal triumph of his wife that he does about a good -play on the super bowl, or pride in his son or daughter as much as his job -or hobbies, or love and attention to any of his relationships as much as his -possesions? Many men also have problems expressing affection, and that can -cause just as much damage to relationships. Think about who is making these rules. Often when I posted on alt.support.marriage I would comment who decided the wife should make all of the rules. There’s a valid point there. Even with this discussion the assumption is that the women’s way of expressing emotion is somehow superior to a man’s way. I checked locally and was told that domestic violence is actually about 50-50, but that because of social reason men were less inclined to report it to the police. I think there is a misconception in this country that women are the victims and men are the victimizers – but that is not always true. That being the case then neither sex are handling their negative emotions appropriately. — The actions generated by rage are destructive and –negative. The actions generated by anger define your boundaries and allow –for healthy human interaction. — –I believe that Roto is right, most women are afraid of men’s physical power, –that they will use that power to hurt them. – -Personally, I think that idea is hilarious! The kind of fear you are -talking about would have to be instinctive in women and I do not think -it is there. Most women I have ever talked to are not instinctively -afraid of men’s physical strength. I think it is because the power to -abuse someone does not come from the physical strength someone has, -but the mental control they have over you and women understand that. -If it was a physical power then once a woman was physically away from -an abusive spouse she would simply move on with her life. What draws -her back into the abusive situation over and over again is the mental -power that man has over her. – -BTW – the above also applies to men who are/have been abused. – – -Perhaps I forgot to add mental abuse to my list :) Actually, I think that -emotional abuse catagorizes what is going on. The woman is too emotionally -(and self-esteem) beaten to leave – so she would rather come back to a bad -relationship than have no relationship at all. – -To give a bigger list of issues that I think divide the genders (once again, -JMHO :): – -Men fear women’s power to wound them emotionally; women fear men’s power to -wound them physically. But I don’t believe that. I think they both fear being wounded emotionally. -Men say women are too emotional; women say men don’t feel enough (There’s -an aspect of the emotional repression that I was referring to, earlier) -Women feel that men don’t listen; men think that women talk too much. – -Men say that they will never understand women or what motivates them; women -say that men are childish in action and motivation. Is it an aspect of control? Take the man who wants to please his wife and make her happy. He tries and tries to open up to her, but it is not ever enough. She chides him over and over about how aloof he is, how he does not understand her – he tries and tries…. She makes the rules and he has no clue where the finish line is and she can move it at will and he’ll still be wrong and lacking. -Women know that the danger from men (or anyone else) is not physical, -but their mental ability. I doubt if you would find a large number of -women (or men) who really believed that men are more manipulating than -women. – -I would agree that men don’t have the (conscious) tools to create emotional -or mental manipulation that women do. I do believe that men use the tools -(unconsciously) that women give them – as far as control over the -relationship. I have worked with a lot of people through the years on various projects. Without except, I would much rather work with men. I have yet to have a man snip back at me with a, "Just what did you mean by that tone of voice!?" or "I saw the way you looked at me!" Women tend to create meaning where none exist much more than men do. -Abusiveness isn’t about the sexes. It is about power. The need to -rule over someone comes from the lack of the feeling of personal -power. If it’s an abusive man, he would find someone/something to -abuse regardless. It might be his dog, his wife, little brother, -parent – anyone who he could physically abuse and psychologically -manipulate. -Abusiveness may be about control -or power, but over the fact that the abuser does not feel that they have it -in some important aspect of their lives, so they make up for it by trying to -regain it in some other part of their lives. It is the emotional detachment -and lack of being able to express the healthy emotion (anger at the -situation that is really causing the problem) versus emotional connection -and expressing anger in healthy constructive manners. The majority of abusive men were raised in abusive homes. This behavior was taught by their parents. -I was using the -spousal situation, because IMHO, that is where the abuse should never occur, -but it seems that it is exactly the place that it occurs the most. Well, we definitely have a difference of opinion here. I think where it should never occur is with the children and the elderly parents (elder abuse is rising). These in many cases are helpless or frail human beings brutalized by their caretakers. -The -spouse is usually the closest, but over whom they feel the least amount of -control. If the emotional connection is there to be able to understand -exactly what your spouse is feeling, the control, abuse, and manipulation -would not occur. Unless, of course, the person is just a sociopathic and -uncaring deviant. Now I don’t agree with that. I think

Response:

<snip I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread Don – thanks to you and to Victoria for your contributions on this issue. I’ve commented on a couple of items already, but wanted to comment separately on this issue of fear. I believe that Roto is right, most women are afraid of men’s physical power, that they will use that power to hurt them. On the converse, I believe that most men are afraid of the women’s emotional power, that women will use that power and skill to destroy the soft and tender places in a man – if the man is able to expose his tender parts to his wife in the first place. If he can’t allow that kind of closeness and intimacy (many men never will, because of that fear), the relationship will ALWAYS have problems.

I believe you were referring to husband/wife situations in your comments here, and certainly the research I have available covers all relationships between men and women, including the marital ones. But though the context implied marital relationships, the statement was general (women are afraid of men’s physical power). This is not new, of course. Victoria reminded us that mental power/control are *also* common in intimate relationships, and certainly we see a lot of that in unhappy marriages. But the frequency (or lack thereof) of that different kind of fear (physical) doesn’t remove or diminish the genuine fear that many women experience. (Thank goodness all people (of either gender) have intriguing and different experiences and beliefs to bring into a discussion Liz Kelly was a feminist researcher who was popular among academia folks who studied the Psychology of Opression around 1988-1992. Her work included a study of the oppression of women in our society through the use of sexual violence. Although some people of that time thought she was radical, most of the people who found her work useful were really quite moderate – not bleeding-heart liberals nor southern crackers She made a couple of statements in her book "Surviving Sexual Violence" that seemed to be such Significant Truths that they have stayed with me over the past decade. Your post on abuse, anger and control caused me to remember them. Before I type her statements from the text, let me loosely generalize women into three groups (very loosely . . . a small group on either end of a continuum with labels for "extremely fearful" and "never fearful", with a large middle group (bell curve stuff) labelled "aware of the threat and cautious but not fearful all the time." Of course with any continuum there are strays, a few here, a few there, no two people can be expected to be just alike. So with that grouping as the foundation of my beliefs on this topic, and that caveat in place to avoid the accusation of generalization, onward . . . First, she asserts that our country was founded on, and continues to operate under, a system of patriarchy. I believe this to be inherently true, though the women’s movement and subsequent increase in single mothers may be causing change to that system even as we discuss it. According to Kelly, a patriarchy is "a social and political system in which men control, and have power over, women. . . . [and] control in patriarchal societies, as in all political systems, ultimately rests on force." Kelly talks about the use of force by dominant majorities in societies as a last resort to maintain control. e.g., police officers shooting criminals when all other reasonable means of control have failed; the imprisonment of "deviant" members of society who continuously refuse to conform to the dominant majority’s rules/laws; the battering of one’s spouse when you can’t get them to be what you need them to be through other means. Kelly comments on the fact that the dominant force would *prefer* to have voluntary coopeartion from those it seeks to control, because the use of violence "makes coercive power explicit and, therefore, increases the possibility of resistance." Kelly says that "male violence arises out of men’s power and women’s resistance to it." Interesting idea, no? This first conecpt, that as a patriarchy even our *fathers* are encouraged to instruct us in the ways of submission to men, was a shock to me. I recall in 1988 when I was the amazed and unprepared victim of a sexual assault (by a close friend), how very PISSED I was at my Dad! He should have WARNED ME that this could happen! He’d raised me and my 3 sisters (against society’s rules) to believe I was IN FULL CONTROL of my life and my body, and no one could beat me down if I followed the basic rules and used my brain (including how to say *NO!* in no uncertain terms). He was wrong. It seemed ludicrous to me at the time, and even now, that my first emotion of anger was toward my father, not the "friend" who assaulted me. (I wasn’t anywhere near ready to begin to sort out my previous feelings of friendship from my new feelings of disgust with this person.) Before that night in the Netherlands in 1988, I would have responded exactly like Victoria did to the idea that women are afraid of men’s physical power (finding the idea hilarious). I was on that end of the continuum then. Not surprisingly, this event, and the way in which the military MEN who handled the event treated me, pushed me pretty far onto the other side for a while. The second concept that Kelly proposed that seems relevant here ties into the feelings of shock that our fathers are training us to be submissive (mine didn’t I don’t think – he was sort of a rebel himself). But this idea says that all the men in our lives that we love and care for, and who care for us, may not be all we want them to be in their motives (Stepford Wives comes to mind <tongue-in-cheek). Not that all men are monstors, just that maybe they aren’t all the princes or knights we’d like them to be. Kelly talks about how the victimization of a few women keeps all (most?) women in line. Wow! All women reading this post who have never been physically or sexually assaulted but know someone who has been, or have heard the accounts of brutal assaults of others – think about that. Do these stories affect in any way your behaviors? Do you make sure to get home by dark? Do you avoid certain neighborhoods? Do you make any effort whatsoever in your daily routine that you have adopted, maybe subconsciously, as a result of hearing about rape since you were a young girl? "The threat of rape, and the fact that it does happen to some women, creates a climate of fear; all men benefit from the fact that some men rape women. . . . The factor which is seen to account for [differences across cultures and history], is the level of male dominance within a society; higher rape rates correlating with greater male dominance." How shocking that is to contemplate. We know that only *some* men rape women. We know that only *some* women get raped (and as women we figure it will never happen to us until it does). But looking at it from a purely behavioral modification point of view, think of this — a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement of behaviors (including thoughts) is the best way to cement behaviors in subjects. (Another topic for another day – was that Skinner?) Behaviors which have been learned and are reinforced sporadically are almost impossible to extinguish. Is that something that can be said also of thoughts, beliefs, fears? Anyway Don, your post on this topic was very well articulated and reflected a tremendous amount of introspection and honesty on your part. Thanks again for that gift which had the beneficial outcome of stirring up all this thought on the issues that exist between genders. Janie — Conscious of our own failures, there is little that we dare condemn in others. –Patience Strong To reply via email replace "JLT_ALB" with "janiet" ICQ#22924224 [Smoke-free since 1/1/99]

Response:

–

- -<snip – Rage is NOT a – stronger anger, it is a negative emotion based on powerlessness, fear, and – lack of control. – -<snip – I agree about the cheating, but not about the abusiveness. – Abusiveness isn’t about the sexes. It is about power. The need to – rule over someone comes from the lack of the feeling of personal – power. If it’s an abusive man, he would find someone/something to – abuse regardless. It might be his dog, his wife, little brother, – parent – anyone who he could physically abuse and psychologically – manipulate. -LOL Victoria – isn’t that exactly what Don said about rage (which he -asserts lies beneath most cases of physical violence)? That "it is about -power"? (i.e., "a negative emotion based on powerlessness") Don and I have taken this to private e-mail and you bring up a very valid point. After discussing much of this further we find ourselves in closer agreement than I originally thought we would. Sometimes the terminology was different or the understanding of it was different, but as things got more explained more common ground was found. I know one issue I rethought was my idea that women and men feared being hurt emotionally equally. After some comments from Don, I don’t think they do now. I think what has happened on this thread is some of the best of the Internet. Two strangers sharing ideas, expanding, learning, and evolving, but isn’t that what it’s really all about? In your other post you comment on how enlightening Don’s posts are and I couldn’t agree with you more. I have certainly enjoyed these discussion Thank you, Don. Victoria Lee

Response:

<snip I understand that many people (men and women) find that they are angry and don’t know how to deal with it in a healthy manner. I personally think that most women can grow over time into a healthy expression of their anger, because they have the emotional and relationship tools (through socialization) that men don’t have. I agree; personal attacks, name calling, manipulation, and other unhealthy expressions of anger are very common on both sides – especially early in a person’s life. JMHO, though, that most men will never get to an emotional maturity that most women get to, especially dealing with their own emotions.

Don, Maybe you can help me figure this one out . . . I have a friend that I’m pretty close to (a guy) but we’re different enough that we disagree on things fairly regularly (not bad disagreements, just the challenging kind that keep things interesting as friends). Sometimes something he says, does, doesn’t say, doesn’t do (fill in the blank) sparks a little flare-up of anger — low enough in the beginning to maybe be called "annoyance" rather than "anger." I observe the emotion, look within to understand which behavior, word, inaction, whatever it is that this friend expressed that triggered the emotional response. Then I tell him about it. Of course I don’t tell him in a very sweet, syrupy voice – but neither do I yell or use profane language in these cases of what I refer to as "3rd degree" anger (as in 3rd degree burn – not so bad to need a trip to the E.R.). My voice and words are carefully chosen to express firmness in these circumstances – "this is a boundary, I believe you’ve violated it, that won’t be tolerated, now let’s talk about it." Now my "expectation" (I know what a trap that is, but I’m human so bear with me) is that he’ll think about what I say, evaluate himself, and respond in some intelligible way that allows us to correct misunderstandings or agree to disagree on that particular topic, or whatever outcome we reach that resolves the conflict. After I’ve expressed my moment of anger/annoyance, I’m through with that emotion now – its served its purpose, sending a warning flag and getting me to redefine my boundaries with my friend. Now I’m ready for dialogue and the exchange of ideas and the verbalization of all relevant feelings. But of course, that isn’t how it goes . . . My friend gets angry in a defense-like manner after I express my anger. I’m not even going to try to say *why* he gets angry – I know anger is a boundary setting tool, so it should be safe to say he perceives I have violated a boundary with my own expression of anger. But I wouldn’t bet on it, you guys are too complex for me to make safe assumptions about motives. Anyway, its not like he doesn’t want me to *know* he’s angry – he does all the non-verbal and verbal things that make sure I know – sullen facial expression, short clipped replies to my questions or comments, no eye contact, shutting down things (at least that’s how I see them) — i.e., passive-aggression? The shutting down is the thing that gets to me the most. And I’ve made no secret about how much it gets to me with this friend. As a rebel who refused to keep secrets in my alcoholic family, I was shunned by one-and-all by the "silent treatment" as punishment for blabbing to a school friend or counselor what was going on behind closed doors. So I have this Family History thing that makes shutting down behaviors very difficult to tolerate. But it takes two to tango, you know? He knows it gets to me, is he using it because I’ve expressed anger and he *wants* to get to me? (I do that when I’ve gone far beyond angery and tripped into rage – he hates the F*** word and I use it with great frequency under those emotional circumstances.) He says he’s not using it as a tool – that he simply responds to my anger with an angry response himself that scares him with its force, and he has to withdraw for a time to get that under control so he doesn’t say things he will regret. He says he’d be ready to come back to the table after he’s accomplished that, but he never has. He only comes back to the table when I offer an olive branch because I can’t take any more of the silent treatment or my own feelings of powerlessness and rage. I don’t know what I hope to hear Don – your original post and this reply to Victoria’s comments are very insightful into the workings of the male psyche. And phrased and articulated very clearly. Although I am a trained clinician, I can’t begin to imagine what goes on in the minds of men all the time (or women for that matter – but there are some "common" grounds among women that make me less uncertain than when I’m dealing with a male psyche). Some thoughts, feelings, experiences are similar between the genders, but I know some aren’t. Maybe that’s what you meant to say about anger etc. in your original post. It was a great post, and I’m really glad you shared it with us. And I’d be most grateful for any input you have on this "silent treatment" thing that’s threatened to end good friendships with men on more than one occasion in my life. Thanks, Janie — Conscious of our own failures, there is little that we dare condemn in others. –Patience Strong To reply via email replace "JLT_ALB" with "janiet" ICQ#22924224 [Smoke-free since 1/1/99]

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – <snip Rage is NOT a stronger anger, it is a negative emotion based on powerlessness, fear, and lack of control. <snip I agree about the cheating, but not about the abusiveness. Abusiveness isn’t about the sexes. It is about power. The need to rule over someone comes from the lack of the feeling of personal power. If it’s an abusive man, he would find someone/something to abuse regardless. It might be his dog, his wife, little brother, parent – anyone who he could physically abuse and psychologically manipulate. Victoria Lee

LOL Victoria – isn’t that exactly what Don said about rage (which he asserts lies beneath most cases of physical violence)? That "it is about power"? (i.e., "a negative emotion based on powerlessness") Janie — Conscious of our own failures, there is little that we dare condemn in others. –Patience Strong To reply via email replace "JLT_ALB" with "janiet" ICQ#22924224 [Smoke-free since 1/1/99]

Response:

Even now, I want to destroy things – do toned down physical expressions of violence (sports, weightlifting, destructive video games)

I have a woodpile in the back yard and when I want to feel destructive I go out there and chop. Then I get to burn it. — Joe

Response:

Like I started with, I just have opinions, and they may or may not reflect a common experience. I can only show the insights that I know from my background :)

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – -To start off, this entire post is JMHO. I understand that many men and -women have been very hurt and have a particular sensitivity to this subject. -I would just like to put my perspective in – coming from the other side of -the fence. – -Many men and women have problems dealing with anger and rage. However, I -believe that there are many, many more men than women with that problem. I disagree. When is the last time you saw a child (male or female) showing anger that s/he was not scolded for, laughed at, etc.? If a child gets upset and "pouts" then far too often the parent makes fun of them maybe calling them a baby or something similar. Or if they say they hate someone in anger they are told they should not say things like that. Or if they fight they are told to behave and nice boys/girls do not act like that. All of these are expressions of anger in children. Children who don’t have the vocabulary skills or the life experiences to handle it in a positive way and far too many parents do not take the time to teach them.

Agreed. I believe that self-esteem and emotional damage occurs when children express themselves and then they are told that what they are expressing is unacceptable. The unpleasant emotions are particularly censored and censured (anger, jealousy, unhappiness). Many parents will never realize the damage they do along that line. It is MHO, though, that girls are ‘allowed’ to express thier emotions more than boys are. In the newer society that we are growing up in where it is becoming more and more unacceptable for men to hit women (even though it still occurs), physical manifestations of emotions by boys are starting to be severly clamped down on – or redirected to controlled violence such as sports. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –The implicit socialization of men is still to repress feelings to be able to -do solutions without emotions getting in the way and creating self-doubt and -hesitation in the man. When the repression occurs, this affects the whole -gamut of emotions – from the positive (love and happiness) to the negative -(anger and rage). Oh, but that is not true. If you do not believe me watch a group of men watch the Super Bowl. You will most definitely see emotion. Including rage if there is a very bad call against their team. Other feelings men, like women, have in abundance – competitiveness, greed, pettiness, fear, resentment, jealousy, guilt, despair, etc.

Good point. I agree that both men and women have the feelings. I think that just the ability to express them or repress them is where I was expressing my opinion on. :) How about in interpersonal interaction, though? How often do men express healthy emotions about people or social situations? I know that men have many emotional attachments to sports, tools, toys, cars, jobs, etc. Do men (in general) express as much excitement about a personal triumph of his wife that he does about a good play on the super bowl, or pride in his son or daughter as much as his job or hobbies, or love and attention to any of his relationships as much as his possesions? Many men also have problems expressing affection, and that can cause just as much damage to relationships. What you do not see (because you’ve never been a little girl) is the implicit socialization women have to repress many of their feelings.

I’ve seen it – be good, sweet, demure, not too competetive, not too strong willed or strong personality, more caring of other people, etc. The cartoon ‘The Simpsons’ has had a couple of episodes with that kind of theme. I agree and understand that socialization occurs both ways. I think what happens is two people meet who have for much of their life have been taught not to feel anger marry, then in the normal course of living find they are angry. Rather than dealing with that anger both do exactly what they have been taught – repress, repress, repress – until there is an explosion.

Very much agreed. It never ceases to amaze me how many opposites marry. The demure wife to the abusive husband, the passive man to the domineering woman, etc. I understand that many people (men and women) find that they are angry and don’t know how to deal with it in a healthy manner. I personally think that most women can grow over time into a healthy expression of their anger, because they have the emotional and relationship tools (through socialization) that men don’t have. I agree; personal attacks, name calling, manipulation, and other unhealthy expressions of anger are very common on both sides – especially early in a person’s life. JMHO, though, that most men will never get to an emotional maturity that most women get to, especially dealing with their own emotions. -Semantics: anger is a positive emotion used to define what hurts a person -and enables positive action towards solving the problem. Rage is NOT a -stronger anger, it is a negative emotion based on powerlessness, fear, and -lack of control. For most of us "lack of control" simply does not exist. We often talk about it as something that happens when we "lose" our temper. But in reality we do not "lose control," because we only "lose" control as much as we allow ourselves to thus we are in control.

Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, and I will use a personal example to possibly clarify what I meant. We moved to NC because my profession took me there – the positions in my profession are located on either coast, but not anywhere else in the US. My ex discovered that she hated being away from her family, the midwest, and hated being in the south, in particular. I also had the emotionally unhealthy attitude that my happiness depended on her happiness. So, my choices were: divorce her so that I could stay in my profession, convince her to be unhappy (and myself unhappy in the process) and stay in the south, or change my profession and move back to the midwest. Option 1 was right out – my relationship to my wife is more important than my job, but giving up my profession and where I wanted to live made me very unhappy. Option 2 was right out – my happiness was tied to hers, so once again, the relationship wins over the profession. So 3 was the only thing available to me. I had no control of what happened to me, because of my ex’s unhappiness. I guess I was shooting for a lack of control over a situation, not over one’s own personal reaction to the situation. Imagine, for a second, a child getting a humiliating whipping by the parents, for no explicible reason. And, the child knows it is going to happen again, and there is nothing he can do about it. The child can control their reactions – to avoid further irrational punishment, but they have no control over the situation actually occurring. Reference: the movie ‘Good Will Hunting’ – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text — The actions generated by rage are destructive and -negative. The actions generated by anger define your boundaries and allow -for healthy human interaction. – -I believe that Roto is right, most women are afraid of men’s physical power, -that they will use that power to hurt them. Personally, I think that idea is hilarious! The kind of fear you are talking about would have to be instinctive in women and I do not think it is there. Most women I have ever talked to are not instinctively afraid of men’s physical strength. I think it is because the power to abuse someone does not come from the physical strength someone has, but the mental control they have over you and women understand that. If it was a physical power then once a woman was physically away from an abusive spouse she would simply move on with her life. What draws her back into the abusive situation over and over again is the mental power that man has over her. BTW – the above also applies to men who are/have been abused.

Perhaps I forgot to add mental abuse to my list :) Actually, I think that emotional abuse catagorizes what is going on. The woman is too emotionally (and self-esteem) beaten to leave – so she would rather come back to a bad relationship than have no relationship at all. To give a bigger list of issues that I think divide the genders (once again, JMHO :): Men fear women’s power to wound them emotionally; women fear men’s power to wound them physically. Men say women are too emotional; women say men don’t feel enough (There’s an aspect of the emotional repression that I was referring to, earlier) Women feel that men don’t listen; men think that women talk too much. Men say that they will never understand women or what motivates them; women say that men are childish in action and motivation. Women know that the danger from men (or anyone else) is not physical, but their mental ability. I doubt if you would find a large number of women (or men) who really believed that men are more manipulating than women.

I would agree that men don’t have the (conscious) tools to create emotional or mental manipulation that women do. I do believe that men use the tools (unconsciously) that women give them – as far as control over the relationship. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –On the converse, I believe that -most men are afraid of the women’s emotional power, that women will use that -power and skill to destroy the soft and tender places in a man – if the man -is able to expose his tender parts to his wife in the first place. If he -can’t allow that kind of closeness and intimacy (many men never will, -because of that fear), the relationship will ALWAYS have problems. I think that is very true. -This is one of my hypotheses on why men cheat or

Response:

P.S. – I do have many more thoughts on this subject, which I can post as people show interest. I am also looking forward to seeing posts from those on ASD who have strong opinions on abuse (emotional, physical, or verbal), strong opinions on infidelity, who feel that the ‘thousand little things finally wore me out – I wish he would have done something major to make me leave’, or men who grok what I am saying.

Response:

Don, As ususal your insights are most welcome! You have expressed so clearly what the express differences between men and women can do to a relationship. We see/hear things on such different levels. Communication is so important and each sex has it’s own way of making their needs known. Sometimes there is a miscommunication and that leads to a path of sadness and doom for the relationship. To start off, this entire post is JMHO. I understand that many men and women have been very hurt and have a particular sensitivity to this subject. I would just like to put my perspective in – coming from the other side of the fence. Many men and women have problems dealing with anger and rage. However, I believe that there are many, many more men than women with that problem. The implicit socialization of men is still to repress feelings to be able to do solutions without emotions getting in the way and creating self-doubt and hesitation in the man. When the repression occurs, this affects the whole gamut of emotions – from the positive (love and happiness) to the negative (anger and rage).

Repression of feelings – big issue in most relationships. It is really hard for men to express emotions. The men on ASD are learning by the very nature of the group, in a non-threatening way to see both sides of every story. Semantics: anger is a positive emotion used to define what hurts a person and enables positive action towards solving the problem. Rage is NOT a stronger anger, it is a negative emotion based on powerlessness, fear, and lack of control. The actions generated by rage are destructive and negative. The actions generated by anger define your boundaries and allow for healthy human interaction.

Agreed. I believe that Roto is right, most women are afraid of men’s physical power, that they will use that power to hurt them. On the converse, I believe that most men are afraid of the women’s emotional power, that women will use that power and skill to destroy the soft and tender places in a man – if the man is able to expose his tender parts to his wife in the first place. If he can’t allow that kind of closeness and intimacy (many men never will, because of that fear), the relationship will ALWAYS have problems.

So true… Both parties need to recognize that power and control it’s misuse. This is one of my hypotheses on why men cheat or are abusive- they are afraid to be that intimate, and so they never connect emotionally with their spouse. This allows men to disassociate themselves from the emotions of their spouse and allows them to create new, shallow relationships or allow rage to be vented at their spouse.

Great insight, Don. IMHO, I also feel that men are more sensitive to expressions of blame, control, or power.

This is debatable. I am VERY sensitive to all of these issues. Maybe not so overt in my expression of my sensitivity as a man would be. Sometimes I would just be quiet and think until I could compose my thoughts to discuss the issues. Rage is created in men who cannot deal with positive expressions of anger. They feel powerless to defend themselves from blame, control, or power. I am not saying that the man is actually being blamed, being controlled, or has no power – I am saying that he feels that way and that he is angry, but cannot express it cogently enough to form a positive action. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" – Isaac Asimov. When impotent rage is created in the man, he may lash out – verbally, emotionally, or physically.

Oh yes!!! Great observation and one that I can relate to at present. Some men suppress and become passive or passive/agressive – but the men who lash out are the ones who are the most visible. The person he lashes out at may feel like he is trying to control or exercise his power. But he feels that he is just trying to regain some control when he feels that he has none – but he is doing very negative things and making things worse.

Ah, men are only human after all… In my situation, my wife came home and told me that she might want out of the relationship. For two months, there was nothing I could do or say to have any effect on the outcome. I could have done everything right, been the nicest guy in the world, said all the right things, and she would still have left because of my past transgressions. Can you see where some impotent rage could be developed? I feel so powerless now that my worst fears have been realized. I tried to create and support emotional intimacy and connection during our marriage, but I felt so unsupported and blamed

Emotional intimacy can be re-created, but it takes time and understanding. It can be done!!! that I was afraid to expose myself most of the time. I could not express my anger, so it all transferred into rage – which built up and built up and I tried to suppress but could never keep entirely under wraps. It caused me to do and say things that I would never have done in a rational mind. Even now, I want to destroy things – do toned down physical expressions of violence (sports, weightlifting, destructive video games) – anything to release this feeling of absolute inability to do anything to make my situation better (in other words, get my marriage back). I cry alot because now I am my own accuser and blamer and there is nothing I can do to escape the relentless spotlight on my own soul.

Don, your self-exploration is your reward. You are creating a new YOU. This new you will draw to it many people of worth, both men and women. Everything happens for a reason, you’ll see. In the Grand Plan for all of us, there is learning from every experience. Perhaps she will see you in a new light as time passes, or maybe a new door will open for you to a new life. Don’t ever give up on yourself! Life can be a wonderful thing if we take our hurts and turn them into positive growth passages. Anyway, I hope this rant gives some thoughts for someone to ponder on why these things happen. Everyone, make a great weekend and take care. Don

Thanks, Don – you too! Best, Dona

Response:

-To start off, this entire post is JMHO. I understand that many men and -women have been very hurt and have a particular sensitivity to this subject. -I would just like to put my perspective in – coming from the other side of -the fence. – -Many men and women have problems dealing with anger and rage. However, I -believe that there are many, many more men than women with that problem. I disagree. When is the last time you saw a child (male or female) showing anger that s/he was not scolded for, laughed at, etc.? If a child gets upset and "pouts" then far too often the parent makes fun of them maybe calling them a baby or something similar. Or if they say they hate someone in anger they are told they should not say things like that. Or if they fight they are told to behave and nice boys/girls do not act like that. All of these are expressions of anger in children. Children who don’t have the vocabulary skills or the life experiences to handle it in a positive way and far too many parents do not take the time to teach them. -The implicit socialization of men is still to repress feelings to be able to -do solutions without emotions getting in the way and creating self-doubt and -hesitation in the man. When the repression occurs, this affects the whole -gamut of emotions – from the positive (love and happiness) to the negative -(anger and rage). Oh, but that is not true. If you do not believe me watch a group of men watch the Super Bowl. You will most definitely see emotion. Including rage if there is a very bad call against their team. Other feelings men, like women, have in abundance – competitiveness, greed, pettiness, fear, resentment, jealousy, guilt, despair, etc. What you do not see (because you’ve never been a little girl) is the implicit socialization women have to repress many of their feelings. I think what happens is two people meet who have for much of their life have been taught not to feel anger marry, then in the normal course of living find they are angry. Rather than dealing with that anger both do exactly what they have been taught – repress, repress, repress – until there is an explosion. -Semantics: anger is a positive emotion used to define what hurts a person -and enables positive action towards solving the problem. Rage is NOT a -stronger anger, it is a negative emotion based on powerlessness, fear, and -lack of control. For most of us "lack of control" simply does not exist. We often talk about it as something that happens when we "lose" our temper. But in reality we do not "lose control," because we only "lose" control as much as we allow ourselves to thus we are in control. – The actions generated by rage are destructive and -negative. The actions generated by anger define your boundaries and allow -for healthy human interaction. – -I believe that Roto is right, most women are afraid of men’s physical power, -that they will use that power to hurt them. Personally, I think that idea is hilarious! The kind of fear you are talking about would have to be instinctive in women and I do not think it is there. Most women I have ever talked to are not instinctively afraid of men’s physical strength. I think it is because the power to abuse someone does not come from the physical strength someone has, but the mental control they have over you and women understand that. If it was a physical power then once a woman was physically away from an abusive spouse she would simply move on with her life. What draws her back into the abusive situation over and over again is the mental power that man has over her. BTW – the above also applies to men who are/have been abused. Women know that the danger from men (or anyone else) is not physical, but their mental ability. I doubt if you would find a large number of women (or men) who really believed that men are more manipulating than women. -On the converse, I believe that -most men are afraid of the women’s emotional power, that women will use that -power and skill to destroy the soft and tender places in a man – if the man -is able to expose his tender parts to his wife in the first place. If he -can’t allow that kind of closeness and intimacy (many men never will, -because of that fear), the relationship will ALWAYS have problems. I think that is very true. -This is one of my hypotheses on why men cheat or are abusive- they are -afraid to be that intimate, and so they never connect emotionally with their -spouse. This allows men to disassociate themselves from the emotions of -their spouse and allows them to create new, shallow relationships or allow -rage to be vented at their spouse. I agree about the cheating, but not about the abusiveness. Abusiveness isn’t about the sexes. It is about power. The need to rule over someone comes from the lack of the feeling of personal power. If it’s an abusive man, he would find someone/something to abuse regardless. It might be his dog, his wife, little brother, parent – anyone who he could physically abuse and psychologically manipulate. Victoria Lee

Response:

To start off, this entire post is JMHO. I understand that many men and women have been very hurt and have a particular sensitivity to this subject. I would just like to put my perspective in – coming from the other side of the fence. Many men and women have problems dealing with anger and rage. However, I believe that there are many, many more men than women with that problem. The implicit socialization of men is still to repress feelings to be able to do solutions without emotions getting in the way and creating self-doubt and hesitation in the man. When the repression occurs, this affects the whole gamut of emotions – from the positive (love and happiness) to the negative (anger and rage). Semantics: anger is a positive emotion used to define what hurts a person and enables positive action towards solving the problem. Rage is NOT a stronger anger, it is a negative emotion based on powerlessness, fear, and lack of control. The actions generated by rage are destructive and negative. The actions generated by anger define your boundaries and allow for healthy human interaction. I believe that Roto is right, most women are afraid of men’s physical power, that they will use that power to hurt them. On the converse, I believe that most men are afraid of the women’s emotional power, that women will use that power and skill to destroy the soft and tender places in a man – if the man is able to expose his tender parts to his wife in the first place. If he can’t allow that kind of closeness and intimacy (many men never will, because of that fear), the relationship will ALWAYS have problems. This is one of my hypotheses on why men cheat or are abusive- they are afraid to be that intimate, and so they never connect emotionally with their spouse. This allows men to disassociate themselves from the emotions of their spouse and allows them to create new, shallow relationships or allow rage to be vented at their spouse. IMHO, I also feel that men are more sensitive to expressions of blame, control, or power. Rage is created in men who cannot deal with positive expressions of anger. They feel powerless to defend themselves from blame, control, or power. I am not saying that the man is actually being blamed, being controlled, or has no power – I am saying that he feels that way and that he is angry, but cannot express it cogently enough to form a positive action. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" – Isaac Asimov. When impotent rage is created in the man, he may lash out – verbally, emotionally, or physically. Some men suppress and become passive or passive/agressive – but the men who lash out are the ones who are the most visible. The person he lashes out at may feel like he is trying to control or exercise his power. But he feels that he is just trying to regain some control when he feels that he has none – but he is doing very negative things and making things worse. In my situation, my wife came home and told me that she might want out of the relationship. For two months, there was nothing I could do or say to have any effect on the outcome. I could have done everything right, been the nicest guy in the world, said all the right things, and she would still have left because of my past transgressions. Can you see where some impotent rage could be developed? I feel so powerless now that my worst fears have been realized. I tried to create and support emotional intimacy and connection during our marriage, but I felt so unsupported and blamed that I was afraid to expose myself most of the time. I could not express my anger, so it all transferred into rage – which built up and built up and I tried to suppress but could never keep entirely under wraps. It caused me to do and say things that I would never have done in a rational mind. Even now, I want to destroy things – do toned down physical expressions of violence (sports, weightlifting, destructive video games) – anything to release this feeling of absolute inability to do anything to make my situation better (in other words, get my marriage back). I cry alot because now I am my own accuser and blamer and there is nothing I can do to escape the relentless spotlight on my own soul. Anyway, I hope this rant gives some thoughts for someone to ponder on why these things happen. Everyone, make a great weekend and take care. Don

Response:

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