The Storm of Anger: What You’re Really Hiding

Every time I got angry, I thought I was being strong. I was actually showing you the exact moment I felt weak.

Anger is a storm where men feel like they’re doing well, and it’s also one of the places they’re least honest about, myself included. Anger is a cover emotion. It feels strong. When I feel weak, vulnerable, out of control, embarrassed, or caught being wrong, it’s a lot easier to come out swinging, raise my voice, use language, than to admit the thing underneath: I feel small right now.

The Rule Book Nobody Else Had a Copy Of

For years, most of my anger came from expectations, something I expected and didn’t get, or something I didn’t expect. Nobody put those expectations on me but me. One of the places this happened most was the airport. I had this mindset that we had to be there ridiculously early, three to four hours before a flight nobody required that early. I’d sleep badly the night before, arrive with my anxiety already around an eight and a half, and anything small would push me over. The world wasn’t failing me. I was walking in with a rule book nobody else had a copy of, and getting furious when they didn’t follow it.

The same pattern showed up calling tech support. By the time I made the call, I’d already decided they were doing it wrong, and I expected them to skip their script because I already knew what they were going to say. They were just doing their job. The expectation was mine.

What the Anger Was Covering

Underneath those expectations was a lack of control, a feeling of weakness, all the vulnerability of not being able to decide whether a flight would be on time, not having information when I needed it, being wrong, being responsible for the mess I created. Anger let me point all of that somewhere else. I made it your fault. I made it my wife Lori’s fault. That’s not just a bad temper. That’s pride and arrogance wearing the disguise of anger, saying I can’t look weak, I can’t ask for help, I have to look strong.

One way to spot this in yourself: tolerance for other people falls apart exactly where expectations are highest. So does tolerance for yourself.

Calm Was the Actual Strength

What I needed most in those moments wasn’t to be right. It was to admit that I felt vulnerable, to somebody safe. Yelling at the people trying to help you doesn’t get you the assistance you need. When a man is willing to say he’s afraid, people can step toward that. They protect themselves from the man who’s angry.

The way out wasn’t willpower. It was other men. Watching men in my circle handle unfair, challenging situations with grace, and hearing them say they’d had to learn to accept the world around them, the same thing the Alcoholics Anonymous big book calls “Acceptance is the Key.” They’d figured out how little they actually control, and that the one thing they do control is their attitude and their response.

There are things worth being angry about. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, the man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square, their anger at real injustice didn’t make the people around them suffer more to make a point. Real injustice like that is rare. Most of my anger was ice cream kind of anger, and while I thought it told everyone I was strong, it showed them exactly where I was weak, and made them pay for it.

This Week

Catch one moment of anger and ask yourself, before you do anything with it: what did I expect that I’m not getting right now? Is it respect? Entitlement? Name it. Nine times out of ten, you’ll find that expectation was something you never told anyone, maybe not even yourself.

Next in the Storms series: the storm of identity.

Take the free Storm Ready Assessment at StormReadyMen.com. Wives, find support at The Couple Cure.