Anger Management Workbook

Anger Busting Workbook

Page 97

Anger Management Group:
Being in the Deep Doghouse

did?) landed Carter in trouble. Shutting up - or putting a sock it - and walking away is always a good strategy.

But sometimes you just can't get away with saying nothing. You are in the doghouse and you have to be accountable for your behavior over something that has wounded your wife in a very real and deep way. Take note here: shutting up and walking away may not work - it may even make things worse. In a situation like this, "putting a sock in it" doesn't mean saying nothing, it means not saying what you would normally say, what you would like to say, and instead saying something that would really help resolve the situation.

When You Find Yourself In the Doghouse, Don't Keeping Acting Like A Dog

A lot of the information found in this chapter can be very helpful even to men who aren't rageaholics. But anger addicts create - or at least escalate - many arguments and conflicts with their angry responses. For men like this, the principles discussed here can literally be the love- saver you have been looking for.

First of all, we need to make a distinction between two kinds of situations that anger addicts create with their wives. We call them the the deep doghouse and the shallow doghouse. Neither situation is good, but being in the deep doghouse definitely calls for more drastic and immediate action. Let's look at this one first.

Being in the deep doghouse

You know you are in the deep doghouse when your wife is overtly, extremely angry with you. Her tone is harsh, her words are critical, and she rarely communicates anything to you except extreme displeasure, open hostility and maybe even serious threats of divorce. Very often, waking up in the deep doghouse is what finally pushes an anger addict to go to a therapist or other helping professional. He has finally run out of tricks, trinkets, promises and, most significantly, the ability to intimidate and control with anger. He is now ready to ask for help.

Maybe that is how you ended up reading this book. Maybe you have even started to learn to control your anger by abstaining from the destructive behaviors we noted earlier. Maybe you are even trying to be more open to "spiritual stuff." And maybe you are still in the deep doghouse with your wife. She is still angry with you; she is still barely talking to you. You still aren't allowed back into the house, and she thinks that the changes you are starting to make are just one more trick to weasel your way back into a relationship that she is ready to flush.

If this sounds familiar, then may we make a suggestion? Move these three little words to the very top of your conversation list immediately:

"You Are Right."

The vast majority of anger addicts get into discussions that lead to arguments that lead to very noisy fights that sometimes lead to trips downtown in a squad car because they are unwilling to lose. It is just a guy thing to defend yourself, to protect your territory and justify your actions. It is important to a guy's sense of "guy-ness" to believe he is right about practically everything. You are not God. This can only lead to one obvious conclusion: Sometimes - maybe a lot of the time - you are going to be at least a little bit wrong, and maybe extremely wrong. But you are a guy so