What You Can Change _. And What You Can't - Martin E. Seligman [64]
Many people are, of course, in rocky marriages, filled with strife and conflict. Less dramatic, but more common, is this situation: After several years of marriage, many people don’t like their spouses anymore, which breeds resentment and is fertile ground for fighting. But at the same time, both marriage partners are often overwhelmingly concerned with the well-being of their children. It seems to be a plain fact—at least statistically—that either separation or fighting in response to an unhappy marriage is likely to harm children in lasting ways. If future research tells us that it is parents’ unhappiness and not the overt fighting that is the culprit, then I would suggest marital counseling aimed at coming to terms with the shortcomings of the marriage. This sometimes works. But if future research determines that it is the act of fighting and the choice to separate that are responsible for children’s depression, very different advice would follow. All of us save money for our children. We put off the trip to Hawaii now, and perhaps forever, so that our children might lead better lives than we do. Are you willing to forgo separation from a spouse you don’t like anymore? An even harder challenge: Are you willing to choose to refrain from fighting—on just the same grounds—for the sake of your children?
There may be something to be said for couples’ fighting. Sometimes justice is achieved for you. But as far as your children are concerned, there is very little to be said in favor of parents’ fighting. Therefore, I choose to go against the prevailing ethic and recommend that it is not your well-being, as much as it is your child’s, that is at stake.13
Physical violence and childhood depression are the two major costs of venting anger, but there is a third—milder but much more commonplace. It is the most persuasive, however, because it is so obvious: Anger damages relationships.
Anger is hot and quick. Its content, uncensored, is destructive. An angry person never sees things from his target’s point of view. Judgment, in contrast, is cool and long. Because there is such weak restraint nowadays on expressing anger, because our society is no longer “well mannered,” we often do and say things we regret. Words and brash acts, unlike thoughts, cannot be erased. In a lifetime, most of us wreck dozens, even hundreds, of relationships in the heat of anger. Examples are legion:
In his last tantrum of childhood, an eleven-year-old boy screams “I hate you” at his doting father. Wounded, and unskilled at handling anger or rejection himself, the father never again expresses warm affection to his son.
A shy woman, used to her husband taking the sexual lead, makes her first direct advance. He, however, is preoccupied with his income-tax forms and gruffly rejects her advances. She never tries again.
A brilliant psychology undergraduate bursts excitedly into his professor’s office, interrupting an important phone call, to tell her his new theory of anger management. With obvious irritation, the professor says, “Go make an appointment with my secretary.” Hurt, he switches his major to physics instead.
A woman slaps her fiancee, infuriated by his flirting at a party. Rejected and furious himself, he storms off, and the flirtation becomes a bedding. The engagement is broken off. Both regret it for years to come.
Some say that telling the other person off clears the air, or that blowing off steam makes you feel less angry. This is the “catharsis” theory of anger expression, and it is one of the pillars of the ventilationist ethic.