Wait... I thought this meeting was supposed to bring about calm reflection and greater insight into my own psyche!
It has become a weekly rite with my roommate and myself... I return home after 2 hours of anger management, and we talk about what I've taken from the session and how I've broadened my understanding of interpersonal relationships. But this week was different.
First let me say that my roommate is probably the most well-adjusted (for lack of a better term) human I have ever met. We have parallel histories-- we both have one child, a daughter; both of us married capricious European egotists; and both of us saw the writing on the wall and separated from our mates when our kids were about 2 years old. He's logical, thoughtful and even-handed and is the perfect person to bounce ideas off of because he'll point out the flaws in an argument with compassion and honesty.
He is the wiser of us though, because he saw no reason to move back in with his spouse. I did, unfortunately, and that's partially the reason why I'm taking court-appointed anger management sessions.
We were discussing last night's meeting and a few (I thought) important points came up:
1) While some of us humans have trouble handling our rage, MOST of us are good enough at self-care to know when a conversation is turning dangerous and make the appropriate changes, whether it be a step back, an apology, a breather or a time-out. The times when any anger spills out into rage and physical action is common for an infinitesimal few. For the vast majority of people, whenever somebody directs their rage at us, we back away and say something like, 'take a chill pill, buddy... you're gonna have an aneurism!' I repeat... that's MOST of us.
Those few 'top blowers' bring me to my next point:
2) Anger management is only one-half of a necessary set of tools to help individuals in our modern society cope with stress, and the other half is largely overlooked, which would be (to coin a term) 'anger induction management'. In other words, the other side of the coin. Since it takes two to Tango, arguably there is somebody who is helping to CREATE the angry moment. Anger management meetings may help people who regularly rage up at a friendly 'Hello', but it can do nothing for the person who is not even at the meeting.
Actually, if a study were to be done, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that, of all the angry moments everywhere, there were certain key people who were largely involved with most of them. That is to say, some people's lives seem to center around stirring up the emotional pot. Certainly in my own firsthand experience, I remember being friends with crowds of people where one of them were always more excitable than the others and were involved in most of the flare-ups. Aren't THOSE people the ones who need to be ferreted out and helped? More so than the people who were incited to anger and had no desire to be angry on their own.
All in all, I can't help feeling that I've been thrown into a machine with half the parts missing. We all have-- watch out for that tie rod!
In my own situation, I am forever frustrated that I am required to take Anger Management and yet the angry person who was in the altercation with me is free to create more angry situations whenever she likes. Goddammit, she needs the help Anger Management can provide!
Such as it is.
One of our group members had an issue with money, and was unsure how to get his happily unemployed wife to help. Which is funny on the face of it, because the money problems I am talking about are that his wife wanted a bigger home and an expensive exotic pet. The problem seemed to self-correct in my head, but I kept quiet and listened to the group leader's take on it. I was astounded when he said what he did. I expected something like this: "You make enough money to pay all the bills and put away savings. Your wife wants more. Seems she should also work to bring in the extra money for all the things that she wants, since they all seem to be big-ticket items."
Did he say that? Uh, uh, nope. Apparently this group frowns on problem solving. The focus of this group is on identifying emotions and learning to make wise decisions based on that information. His contribution was more like (and I paraphrase) "How does that make you feel? What can you do with those emotions?"
I suppose there is some help to be gleaned from that. While his wife is raging away at her situation, he can calmly reflect on his feelings. I can see how that will go:
She says, "I want a bigger house... and a pet whale!"
He says, "I feel afraid of the added burden."
She says, "Wimp. I'm gonna find me a real man."
And that reaction is what helps me make my next point:
3) The financial and political climate in the US today make 2 income families more a necessity than a luxury.
The American dream is slipping from our grasp. Although the reasons are legion, I won't go into them. All I will say is that what used to be achieved with a regular guy's salary no longer can. That makes a man seek a second job, which causes him to spend less time with his family. Emotional separation occurs and at some point the wife feels abandoned, and opts for divorce.
OR,
The money's no longer good enough, so the woman gets a job. Now the kids are latchkey kids, and much more likely to get in trouble, use drugs, fail in school. The parents fight over that, then separate, then divorce.
Either way, that's good for owners of apartment buildings, those rich bastards. Oops, I said I wouldn't get into the reasons for today's financial climate. Moving on.
4) The guidelines in American society dictate that a marriage is forever, although there is a way out (separation and divorce) and more than half of the married people choose that way out. IMHO, Marriage is right for some people, and for others, being single is the way to go. And a growing group are looking for that third option-- not living alone, but not being financially or romantically linked to the person you ARE living with.
In other words... ROOMMATES.
Someone who helps out with the common bills, but makes no extraordinary demands on your life or your time. Someone who will be there in case you have a slip 'n' fall in the tub, or receive bad news and need comfort, or can watch TV with you. In other words, someone who is close, but not too close. I hear some talk about 2 married couples that live in adjoining homes-- the husbands live in one, and the wives in the other! I wonder how many fights that solves.
Sadly, I also wonder how many fights that CAUSES.
I was chewed out for making light of a 'politically incorrect' term at the last meeting, even after the group leader made his feelings known. Talk about uncomfortable!
5) Although the term is undeniably sexist on the face of it, the concept of defeating your financial, emotional and physical challenges with grace and aplomb is attractive and necessary, whether it be called 'manning up' or not.
This brings out a larger issue-- has political correctness gone too far? It was designed as an easy way to guarantee that we don't inadvertently insult people within earshot, but has been corrupted to such an extent that our basic language skills have been crippled. (Oh, should I not have used the word 'crippled'? Maybe I'll replace it with the term 'speaking impaired'...) I certainly understand how right it is not to call an Italian (I'm Italian) a 'dago' or a jew (yes, I'm also a jew) a 'kike', but are we able to draw the line at absurdity? Can we even find the line? When I take back a present I have given somebody, has it REALLY insulted our Native American friends when I am called an 'Indian Giver'? Or do the 'tomahawk cheer' at a ball game? At some point will we be so busy editing our 'politically incorrect' language that we end up not being able to make our point any more?
I really don't think I'm insulting women to say 'man up'. I think the term comes about because men have traditionally been the breadwinners. Now that women have gotten in the game I would not have any problem overhearing a woman say, "When things got tough I had to woman up and fix it." I just think it's not a smooth term, phonetically. Heck, if it does come into fashion, I'm afraid I may be banned from saying, "I had to woman up and git 'r' done," because I'm not a woman!
So yeah, this week's meeting stirred up a lot of emotions in me.
I guess that's what it's for, huh?
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