Grief is Not a 4-Letter Word!

You find yourself losing your cool more often than you'd like to admit. Just getting out of the house each morning with the kids can be an epic battle, one that you have to win. You find yourself cajoling, corralling, and finally yelling so that you can get the kids to school and you can get to work on time. The drive there is silent, sullen even; not how you pictured yourself raising your kids. When you do get to work, another project is waiting for you, piled up on all of the other projects you're already working on. It feels never ending. Your wife gets on you for being irritable all the time but honestly, you don't know how else to be. The anger is always simmering just below the surface. This is not how it was supposed to go; it feels unfair...you've done everything right, haven't you? You got educated, got a good job. You've been faithful to your wife and the best father you know how to be. And yet, it feels like something is missing, like somehow you missed the mark. People are constantly asking things of you and while you used to love helping out, it now feels more like a burden and a chore than anything else.

This constant feeling of anger is starting to scare you. You remember your father being this way, maybe to a greater degree, but still, you told yourself you would never end up like him. You reflect back on what it was like for you as a kid, having to deal with his temper and constantly walking on eggshells and that is definitely something you don't want for your own kids. It's hard to put your finger on exactly what you're feeling but what you do know is that things just aren't clicking and you can't understand why. Sometimes the anger gets so bad that you forget what you did or said; maybe you exploded on your kids one morning for not getting out of the house sooner or you let your co-worker have it for a comment that he swears wasn't directed at you. You know you can't go on popping off like this but you it also feels like you don't have any other outlet.

Oftentimes for men, grief can manifest as anger. As we mentioned last week, grief isn't just about the death of a loved one or the loss of a relationship. It can be about unrealized dreams or expectations. You might have thought you'd be somewhere else in your life right now, whether financially, in your career, or even in pursuing other hobbies or activities. For many men, anger feels like a more acceptable emotion than other ones, like grief. You might associate being sad or disappointed as weakness and that's surely not something you have time for right now. The thing is, the irritability and the anger continue to come out and you can see how it's starting to affect your wife and kids. There is another way to deal with these feelings and if you're willing, we at Harper Therapy can help you. As part of the therapeutic process, we'll help you identify and feel other emotions and learn how to express them in an appropriate way so that it does not have to build up into anger or even rage that comes out on your family. We can help you and your significant other learn to better communicate with each other so that you can support each other rather than drag each other down. If any of what has been written so far resonates with you, or if you have hopes for a different better future, please give us a call at 813-434-3639.