Anger. Everyone who gets divorced at one time or another gets angry. Well, let’s not call it anger. Let’s call it blinding red rage and frustration that threatens to overwhelm all rational thought. This happens to EVERYONE. I promise that you are not unique. I promise that the ex is just as angry as you are – whether they have a right to be angry or not. All of the nutty things you hear about divorced people doing and you chuckled at because they were so utterly unhinged – that has become you. If you think about it, it is an utterly humbling situation.
I am suggesting that everyone gets angry but as the rational part of your brain knows, it is how you handle that anger that is the true evidence of your maturity and most of all your humanity. My suggestion is this: when you are truly mad, when you are thinking of bloody murder you must learn to breathe. Yes, breathe. Just breathe until the instinct to irrationality passes. I personally found that writing a truly excoriating and evil e-mail and then waiting and erasing it did it for me. Do not react! Animals react and humans – yes, mature humans think! I recall something, I think from Dune by Frank Herbert where a wolf caught in a trap is discussed. The animal, being caught in the trap will bite its own leg off to escape. The human, will wait in the trap and plot to destroy the hunter. Be human. Stay calm. Do not threaten or rage or hop in the car to run over to fight with your ex. That will only cause you misery and will like a tale told by an idiot all sound and fury – accomplish nothing.
I promise I will get into the weeds on this one too.