Meet Brent*, a very angry, fairly well-to-do middle aged guy. He is not your typical anger addict. Yes, he is your typical road-rage junkie. Yes, he is guilty of occasional property damage. He has the typical angry person's atypical ability to endure whatever it takes to accomplish his objective. Brent is also exceptionally selfish and self-absorbed. He has lots of typical anger stuff.   However, Brent is member of an elite subset of angry people who really, really want to lose their rage. Perhaps he has suffered enough. After all, his anger has cost him dearly. His 3 ex-wives and only daughter want nothing to do with him. While the typical anger addict continues to proclaim "innocence," dumps the blame, and finds another partner, Brent is atypical. He sincerely wants to stop participating in his own demise. He wants to see the obvious. 

Known as "Mr. Nice Guy," Brent has always been great to his friends. He goes out of his way, is personable, gregarious, and very generous. These qualities attracted Maureen*, a pretty and empathic young woman almost 20 years his junior. Maureen occasionally attended sessions during their stormy 18-month relationship. She was present as Brent again complained about her "selfishness,"  "poor manners," "insecurities," etc. The pair had just returned from a week-long Caribbean excursion with 2 couples Brent knew. He complained that Maureen slept through breakfast most days, forcing him to dine "alone" with his friends.  Maureen was disinterested in socializing and sightseeing. She only wanted to sleep, lounge on the beach alone, tend to her tan, and embarrass him further by drinking too much. He was very sensitive to what  his friends must be thinking: What a fool he was for staying with her!  Maureen listened in tears, trying to get a word in edgewise to apologize for her admittedly poor behavior. When she finally got a chance to speak, she explained that she slept and drank her way through the trip out of humiliation followed by intense and overwhelming depression, and anxiety. Brent was unimpressed. I scratched my head and asked her what she was doing with someone who found so much wrong with her. She told me that she loved him, and I believed her. Brent broke up with Maureen later that week. I did not see him again until a year later.

Back in my office, Brent told me that he and Maureen got back together after a few months. He returned to therapy now since Maureen walked out on him 4 weeks ago and was refusing to speak with him. Apparently, she had had enough. Brent wanted to understand what she had had enough of. He felt he treated her so well. He was beside himself with grief and wanted her back.  Brent listened carefully while I reiterated Maureen's tale of a year ago: Thinly veiled, crude comments "jokingly" made to his friends concerning her weight, her appearance, her religion; his "inability" to keep his eyes off other women in her presence, etc. Mortified and deeply hurt, Maureen could not face the other couples. Brent treated her with thinly-veiled contempt. Yes, he was gracious and opened doors, but he also paid more attention to anyone else than to her. Riddled with serious problems of her own, Maureen's barely contained anxiety broke through as she realized the extent of his problems. Knowing their relationship would not work, she reacted with full-blown panic attacks and depression that lasted the duration of their trip. 

I told Brent:

He justified his perception of "selfish" based on her social withdrawal from his friends. He felt that had she been less "selfish,"  she would have been there for him and been a companion. Instead, she embarrassed him by withdrawing.          I told Brent:

It is a set-up to expect that Maureen exercise exquisite self-control over her emotional or physical pain - simply because she does not do it. Furthermore, why should she? It is unhealthy and contrary to nature. If you are tired, rest. If you are hungry, eat. Your body is wise, and if you listen, it will communicate. Maureen was wise to time out and care for herself because she was hurting. My feeling is that Maureen was not "selfish" enough! Had she more self-esteem and self-respect, she would have cut the Caribbean trip short and gone home - alone.   When you endure instead of feel, you control your body instead of allow it to guide you. Stop listening long enough, and you lose yourself. Brent's admitted inability to be alone with himself (alone vs. lonely), his restlessness, his craving for excitement, his boredom, sense of emptiness, and, above all, his lack of inner peace - is evidence of loss of self. Moral of the story: Fighting nature just doesn't work. 

Finally, he told me that Maureen was probably too insecure for him; he needed a confidant woman. While that may be true, I pointed out that he did everything humanly possible to ensure that her insecurity increased. A caring person would drop everything to comfort their loved one. Empathy and concern are more likely to diminish insecurity than is contempt.   That is when Brent realized that he would not, as opposed to could not comfort her. His secret script revealed itself to him: "Emotional closeness is dangerous. A woman will let you down and you will die. I will do everything in my power to push my partner away. Then I will convince everyone, including myself, that it is her fault".   Fifty-something Brent handled intimacy issues with about as much aplomb as a neglected toddler. His behavior reflected strong underlying childish fears and assumptions. He fully believed these assumptions and never questioned their validity. In fact, he was unaware he was making any assumptions! As a result, his actions thwarted his natural, healthy human thirst for partnership and family. The irony is that Brent's life was wildly out of control because of his exquisite ability to impose control!  

The problem with the anger addict's remarkable and twisted self-control is that is it devoid of conscious choice. This increases the odds of working towards destructive ends. Relationships suffer most since serious anger issues tend to be rooted in an inability to trust. "She has the power to kill you!" But, that's neither here nor there - that was then and this is now.   Maybe Brent's care takers really were horrible, rotten, abusive and untrustworthy people. Maybe not. Either way, so what? They did the best they could, and that is the subject of another chapter. What matters is that Brent is an adult now and is quite capable of taking care of himself, should he choose to. (Which, by the way, he did.)  Brent's therapy focused on re-evaluating his fears to free him to make rational, clear-headed choices that corresponded to his aims. As his fears diminished, so did his need to protectively distort reality. As he became comfortable with simply being as opposed to orchestrating, his inner life changed. He could see the obvious.