Turning Down the Volume

I gave a recap of our horrible vacation here.

At the end of that one evening that started out with me trading shouts with my wife and her sister, my wife kept me awake begging me to get therapy and get drugged for my "rage". I calmly and quietly asked her if I had ever... ever... come out of the blue and just started yelling at anyone. She had to answer no.

It is true, my temper has been a problem for me in my life.

It was a problem when I was a kid, and I learned to control it by the time I was a teen. Now that I think about it, I think I got a handle on my temper about the time I started masturbating to orgasm. Coincidence?

Anger has never been a problem for me professionally. If anything, there are times when I should have displayed anger and didn't.

It hasn't been a problem while I drive (no road rage from me).

As an adult, it has never led to a physical fight or violence.

I don't throw things, hit things or people, kick things or people, push people, or break things.

I don't berate or insult others.

I scream... loudly and angrily... often I'm screaming questions... "Why did you do that? What do you expect me to do?" Or refusal, such as "I'm not going to do that!"

It was never a problem in any of my past relationships – I don't recall that I ever yelled at a girlfriend except perhaps with one who would have already been yelling at me. But sometimes with my family, and that now includes the family I have made, I yell. My wife has correctly noted it is when I think I should have control over something, but don't.

With the kids, it was "STOP [fill the in blank]!" I say "was" because when my wife sat me down to point it out and why it was a problem, I stopped.

Even when the yelling is a response to an angry or yelling statement from another adult, I shouldn't be yelling as often as I am.

But I refuse to drug myself when I know behavior modification can work.

My mind is the last thing that is mine.

I'm not sure I have a need for outside help based on something that happened under very unusual circumstances, and things got better after that, as least as far as I'm concerned. I haven't yelled since. But my wife would argue that it has been a pattern.

Maybe it is.



But I'd have to think that any decent therapist, before passing out drugs, would ask questions like:

1) Do you get enough sleep? (The answer would be no.)
2) What do you do to blow off steam? (Besides blogging, nothing.)
3) What do you do to unwind? (I don’t. I work, I take care of the kids and things around the home, and the only breaks come when visiting family that can keep the kids occupied.)

My wife has repeatedly said she has the life she's always wanted. But apparently that's not quite true. She married a man who is happy to earn the income so she can concentrate on being there for the kids, who takes the lead in taking care of the kids on days when I am home, who likes to be financially responsible, who doesn't abuse substances, who seeks to meet her needs and please her in various ways, who encourages her in her faith and generally agrees with her outlook on current and personal events, who does some chores around the house…AND who sometimes yells.

I told my wife I would probably yell a lot less if I did more things my way in my timing, so she should expect to hear "no" more frequently. She didn't think that was a good solution.

Now she's got my mother and one of my sisters telling me that going to see a counselor would be a good thing. But what my wife doesn't realize is that my mother and sister would want certain changes that would make things more difficult for my wife.

I'm wary. I think going to a counselor would be a waste of time (we don't have enough of it as it is), money (ditto... I don't care how much of it insurance covers... we're not saving enough), and there is always the risk that the counseling will do more harm than good.

My wife and I do a good job of talking things out.

I find writing therapeutic.

I don't have anything to say to a therapist. Like I said above, I could tell the therapist I yell too much and it is bothering my wife and kids. Then what happens after the therapist finds out I don't get enough sleep, personal time, or time with the guys? I have my responsibilities, and those aren't going to change.

Okay, so what about joint counseling? I'm wary of that for additional reasons. The fact is, I can't tell my wife everything that has been bothering me or has bothered me. That's why I write it here. I can't tell her because it will hurt her and much of it isn't going to change. Some of it can't be changed. I do need to tell my wife what bothers me instead of letting it build up inside me, as long as it isn't something that will hurt her AND that she can't change. Once something is said, it can't be taken back.

My wife accused me of resenting her and the kids. I love them. I genuinely like to be around them and enjoy them. But what I did not admit to her is that yes, there is some resentment there.

1) I'm pissed off that the house costs so much. It's energy inefficient, and that can't be changed without spending lots of money. The shower, the laundry water, and the kitchen sink all back up too often in no small part, according to multiple plumbers, because the flippers were monsters who didn't bother to do things to code. (Why did I pay for an inspection?). We need to redo the electrical wiring in parts of the house. The "walls" in parts of the house are going to need to be replaced. The place attracts ants and bees to the point we have to contract with a pest control company. I told my wife that if we were going to buy the place, we were going to be dealing with it as it was, because we weren't going to have a lot of money to fix anything, and she agreed. But here we are. So what? We're not going to move. So why talk about it? My wife has already told me that reacting to her saying something like "We need to get a plumber out here again" with anything but indifference or happiness (and then scheduling a fix) is going to feel like a personal attack on her, since she likes the house and picked it out. So I blow up when I realize it is going to be time to cut another check.

2) I'm pissed off that I didn't make a point of finding out how much my wife's medical and dental bills would be before we married (I've never had a cavity, so it is hard to relate to the fact that her mouth needs constant work.) I wrongly assumed it couldn't be that big of a deal since she was making it just fine financially. I can't bring this up; it would hurt her to the core and there's nothing she can do about it.

3) I'm pissed off that I got more sex when I was unmarried, and that the woman who seemed to have as much drive and passion as I did, and had certain skills lost those things after she became my wife.

4) I'm pissed off that, much more than I expected, life as a husband and father has meant what I want, from little things to big things, has gone by the wayside. Of course I want to meet the needs of my wife and kids, and I am proud to do that. I just didn't realize that my needs weren't going to be met.

And I don't want to hear a laundry list, in front of a therapist, about what is wrong with me or what I do wrong. My wife already tells me. I don't need some third party saying, "She's right!" I believe her when it comes to just about everything. I do think my yelling has been a problem. I don't think it is as much of a problem as she thinks it is. I'm determined to get better.

I also don't need a therapist to tell me to focus on the good. See, I just wrote it. Focus on the good. Fine. But I'm still not getting enough sleep or other things that will help reduce my yelling, and no matter how much I reduce my yelling, chances are, there are still going to be times when I yell. My wife yells, too. Not nearly as much as me, but she does. Most people do. But even if it is two years down the line, the next time I yell is going to bring all of this up again.

It turns out that after the fight she immediately used her phone to buy a book and companion workbook on anger. I came home after working to find her reading them, and she wants me to read them, and I will. After the kids were in bed that night, she kept insisting that we were going to need counseling. I cited past success in modifying things and the books, and told her that unless she has something else she wants to bring up, I don't think counseling is yet necessary. My wife says there's nothing else… just this yelling stuff.

Things started to get better after the fight on the trip. They got much better when it was just our family again, and it got MUCH better after a long sleep

After I pointed out that I don't get violent, I don't make cutting remarks when I yell, etc., she finally said it was "the tone of my voice". I had to laugh inside and think about how I've heard Dr. Laura Schlessinger tell women who call and say the same thing about their husbands to ignore the tone.

Her family handled things differently. Again, yelling is usually not the way to go, and I should work more on that again. But handing my wife a drink and getting drunk along with her, which is what her father does, isn't a good way to handle it, either. My wife knows that, but since yelling apparently wasn't her father's thing, it bothers my wife more than it should.

But I will work on it. Obviously, it is possible for me to handle things without yelling, since I only do it with my close family - the people who deserve a better me the most of all.