# Dealing with anger



## sanslife (Sep 7, 2012)

Greetings.

My story is similar in some respects to many here. I've been married 31 years. 1 grown child.

I love my wife dearly. She's my best friend. We have the same interests. We like the same jokes. We like the same movies. We're both crazy about wine. We both like to cook. We love to travel.

She may as well be my sister. 

Our marriage has been punctuated by years at a time without sex. We actually wanted more than one child, but there's something you have to do first to have children 

We've had calm discussions about this. She gets upset and is depressed for a few days. She promises to "Do better." Nothing changes.

She falls asleep on my arm at night with me holding her. After she falls asleep, I quietly get up and wander the streets at night in frustration. 

Last night, I was miles from home at two in the morning. A homeless man on a bicycle tried to squeeze past me on the sidewalk. His left handlebar painfully scraped my right side below the ribs as he passed. He yelled an obscenity and I pulled him off the bike and beat him senseless.

That's not good, but it just came out in a flood of rage. I told my wife my hands are swollen and bloody today because I fell jogging. I don't want her to know. I'm afraid it would only scare her and make things worse. 

Maybe being angry is selfish, but I don't know what to do about it. I feel like a boiler with the needle in the red. I feel like one of the better parts of life has passed me by. 

If you read this far, thanks for listening...


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## Mavash. (Jan 26, 2012)

Anger is a natural emotion to signal that we are being wronged in some way. It's a signal that something needs to change. Where most people mess up is aiming that anger at the wrong person (like that homeless man). 

So now your choices are to accept what is or do something about it.


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## Toffer (Jan 31, 2012)

sans,

You have lots of company around her, especially on the Sex in Marriage forum.

What you're experiencing happens to both men and woman. Do some more reading and find a better focus for this negative energy


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## SimplyAmorous (Nov 25, 2009)

I do not feel it is healthy at all to bottle your anger, you need to learn how to *constructively express *how you are feeling to your wife...with some well thought out *consequences* to what you will allow and frankly --no longer tolerate in the marraige. 

She has a right to know all of this is bubbling under the surface.

This in itself should diffuse some of the steam that is boiling as it renders YOU with some power in the relationship , some choice. 

To hold all of this inside is just asking for major trouble, and how very unfortunate that someone innocent got the brunt of that, you do NOT want this to happen again. Many times kids get it. 

Your wife is NOT being a good wife to you...In fact she is basically pathetic.... it never ceases to amaze me how spouses will paint this rosy picture of their marriage.... then dump this bomb on our laps....a sexless marraige. That is a descent into a PRISON for a man.


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## DangerousCurves (Jul 18, 2012)

SimplyAmorous said:


> I do not feel it is healthy at all to bottle your anger, you need to learn how to *constructively express *how you are feeling to your wife...with some well thought out *consequences* to what you will allow and frankly --no longer tolerate in the marraige.
> 
> She has a right to know all of this is bubbling under the surface.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry, but I don't think calling his wife pathetic is constructive criticism. You have NO IDEA why his wife isn't interested in sex, but based on what little info the op has given us you have decided she is a no good wife and pathetic for not putting out.


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## DangerousCurves (Jul 18, 2012)

Has your wife explained why she has such a low sex drive? Or does she even know herself?

Does your wife know you wander the streets at all hours of the night? If my husband did that every night, I would suspect him of having an affair.


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## sanslife (Sep 7, 2012)

Thank you for your replies. Writing about it does seem to help a little bit.

*Dangerous Curves:*

_Has your wife explained why she has such a low sex drive? Or does she even know herself?_​
No and No. She just has no interest in sex and it seems to run in her family. Her older sister never has never any kind of sexual relationship at all and her parents were sleeping in separate rooms for at least the last 25 years of their marriage. 

_Does your wife know you wander the streets at all hours of the night? If my husband did that every night, I would suspect him of having an affair. _​
Point taken. A husband who has not had sex in over a year wandering the streets at night may very well be having an affair. * I'm not. * I just can't sleep. 

*
Toffer and Mavash:*

You're both absolutely right. Thank you.


*SimplyAmorous*

Thank you for the kind words. 


On the homeless man: Bicyclists are not pedestrians. Striking a pedestrian on a sidewalk with a bicycle is vehicular battery. It doesn't justify what I did this morning though...


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

Normally when the anger builds up enough I just stop giving a crap, and start ramming to my wife's delight. Then we resume our fight about 15 minutes into our after-sex talk.


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## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Thirty-one years is a very long time. Things have become entrenched and if they are to be improved it’ll need a massive almost surgical interpenetration. Bit like a heart replacement or triple bypass surgery.

The thing is you can’t do this by yourself. It’s an impossible to operate, intervene in your own marriage.

What may work is a total “new look”. Ask your wife to join you on The Marriage Course - Explore the Marriage Course | Alpha USA. Take a look at the modules at Alpha USA : Find Out More About the Course.


Your wife must be an active participant in helping to improve your marriage. If she wont join you on the course then that will at least tell you all you need to know even though you wont want to hear it. That is the marriage you have now is the marriage it will be, in fact it will more likely get worse, until you leave or come to the end of your days.


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## sanslife (Sep 7, 2012)

I've opened up about this to a good friend. He pointed out that I need to be tested for HIV now. I had not thought of that, but he's right. 

I've reached the conclusion that she is simply asexual. 

Thanks to all who responded.

Bye.


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## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

Sanslife,
It might help to put things into perspective. There are lots of really miserable couples who have frequent sex. Apart from the low sex aspect, sounds like you've got the ideal wife for you. I would think it'd be a lot easier to tweak a 90% great partnership than it would be to scrap it and hope against hope to somehow find or create a 100% great partnership. Honestly, what do you miss most from sex? In my case, it's the intimacy; the closeness, the feeling of being loved and desired. That's probably 98% of my frustration due to infrequent sex. The other 2% would be whatever sexual pleasure I derive from it. If the problem is approached as a desire to increase intimacy, your wife probably craves the same and would likely be more compliant. You might try that approach without even mentioning actual sex. Cuddling, kissing, massages, etc (though it shouldn't be your obvious intent) frequently end up as sex.


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