JOAN’S WEEKEND BLOG – APRIL 15-17, 2011 – WHY AM I SO ANGRY?

Today I have a question for myself. Why do I get so angry at my husband for things that are clearly not his fault? I have been noticing lately that I am not simply annoyed at his questions, which are getting more frequent and more repetitive, but I am lashing out at him in anger. It is an unreasonable response, and I cannot help wonder why it is becoming more frequent and more intense.

The other night, he asked me a question about our taxes, one he has asked at least 10 times in the last month. I yelled at him – “That’s it! I’m not discussing it again. Taxes are done. Stop bothering me about it!!!!”  Looking dejected and hurt, he lowered his head and mumbled something. I was too angry to bother asking him what he said. “How cruel of me”, I thought to myself. It’s not his fault he cannot remember how many times he has asked.

This scenario has played out repeatedly (no pun intended) over the past two weeks. I snap and yell at him every time he asks a question he has asked countless times over a period of countless months. Each time, I think about how it is not his fault.

It is not only the repetitive questions that are eliciting outbursts of anger from me. It is what I am interpreting as either non-compliance or blatant ignoring me, when he does not answer a question I ask. It can be a query as simple as choosing between two snacks. He sits and says nothing. The woman he calls “sweet and adorable”;  the woman I think is acting like a witch, yells at him – “Why won’t you answer me????”  His answer is usually either - “ I don’t know” or “I’m thinking”. It hits me again that I am screaming at him for something that is not his fault - slow processing.

When we got into bed Thursday night, although he did not say anything, I could tell he was upset. When I asked him what was bothering him, he said that I was always snapping at him. At that point, we started what was an actual appropriate, reciprocal conversation similar to those we had BAD (Before Alzheimer’s Disease). I told him that I was aware of how angry I have been; that I had been thinking about it and wondering why. He said that he, too, had been thinking and wondering about it. In an unusually candid, self analyzing statement, he said that he has been very hurt by my anger; that it’s not his fault he can’t remember anything, and that if I am angry about it, how do I think HE feels about losing his memory more and more every day.

This fleeting momentary re-emergence of his ability to express his emotions, brought a brief “reconnection” to the old “US”, that jarred me out of my own self absorption. I told him that perhaps I was so angry at what the disease has done to our lives, our marriage, and his health, that I was taking it out on him. Maybe the overwhelming work of caregiving, the worry over how I will manage the long recovery and rehabilitation from surgery while meeting his constant needs, and the latest impending financial meltdown, has me so stressed that I am taking it out in anger against him. It seems I have just answered the question with which I began this blog.

Yes, I have a right to be angry for all of those reasons, but I do not have the right to take it out on the most vulnerable – a man who, by his own admission, is struggling to stay “with it” as best he can, although he knows he is fighting a losing a battle.

I apologized for my reprehensible behavior and promised to try to do better.  I have no idea HOW I am going to put aside the anger and stop taking it out on him, but he certainly does not deserve the treatment I have been dishing out lately.

Are you angry, and do you take out your anger on your spouse for his/her behaviors that are not his/her fault?  Do you have other methods of channeling your anger? 

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