5 Ways Anger Erodes Relationships

 It only takes one glance at a canyon to realize the power of erosion.  Areas that were once closely connected now experience great distance.  Have you ever experienced erosion in a relationship?  A friendship goes from supportive to distant.  A spouse no longer seems to be the safe place they once were.  You begin feeling increasingly more alone as time goes on.  You’re left asking, “Why are my relationships so difficult?” or “What did I do wrong?” The danger in erosion is that you often don’t know the damage that it’s doing until it is too late.  One of the biggest culprits for erosion in relationships is ANGER.  It’s a normal emotion that everyone feels at some point, but left unchecked it can rob relationships of the foundation they need to keep growing in connection.  Here are 5 ways anger could be eroding your relationships.  1. Distracted Presence Presence is your ability to be fully awake and alive to what’s occurring at the moment without distraction.  Extended anger will take away your ability to be able to have a clear understanding of how other people are experiencing a situation.  Relationships feed on the connection that comes from common understanding.  If anger is running rampant in your life and relationships, then clarity about what is actually happening will always be challenging.Do you find yourself experiencing extreme conflict over small disagreements that come up?  It may be that anger has eroded your ability to be present in a relationship and connect on what matters.  Try putting yourself in the other person’s shoes.  Try listing all the ways you think the other person is feeling and share what you think they might be going through if you were them.  2. Clouded Awareness Awareness is your ability to fully live in your body and acknowledge your sensations, feelings, and perceptions.  Humans will always have emotions.  We rarely can control what we experience or how we feel, but we do control how we respond.  The way we respond over time develops patterns in our brain to the way we handle situations.  Anger is a secondary emotion, which means it is often a response to another emotion a person feels.  It is very easy to develop the pattern of going to anger with nearly every emotion.  This clouds awareness from the other emotions a person could experience and prevents them from being aware of their surroundings.  Imagine trying to be blindfolded and having to navigate through a room you’re not familiar with.  It would create a lot of painful moments.  Anger can cloud your relational awareness to the point of making it almost impossible to navigate what is happening.  Try journaling every day for a week.  Ask yourself, “Why am I so angry?”  See what keeps coming up regularly and what causes those feelings to be there.  Share it with a friend and let them carry the emotion that comes before anger.  3. Jaded PerspectivePerspective is your ability to “see” and understand your unique outlook and to take others’ views as well.  Maybe you’ve heard the proverb, “If you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”  Anger over time enforces the perspective that you’re the only one who is right.  It locks you into a way of seeing problems in a very limited way.Life is complex and it takes multiple different tools to experience meaningful relationships.  If you go through life looking at every conflict as a nail your relationships will devolve into feeling drained and neglected.  Try keeping a record of things you’re grateful for about other people.  Trading a jaded perspective for one of gratitude gives your relationships a firm foundation to resist the erosion of anger.  4. Attention to the NegativeThe action of your life flows from your attention.  If you’re riding a bike and all you pay attention to is the huge tree you’re trying to avoid, it’s easier to hit the tree than stay on the path where you want to go.  Action follows attention.  Attention implies not just your ability to act but also to attend fully to what is needed at this moment in your life: it calls for your ability to act with intention, responsibility, and focus.  Staying in anger keeps your attention focused on the negative and leaves you out of control.  Dealing with your anger gives you awareness of danger out there, and it transforms the negative emotion into positive progress.  It’s amazing what we miss when we’re not paying attention.  Counting the things you think you’re supposed to be counting can make you miss so much good in life. It’s healthy to get angry at times but to stay angry means that you’re letting negative emotions erode a potentially healthy relationship.  Take that list of things that you’re grateful for and share it with as many people as possible.  Helping to enforce the good that you do see will help to lessen the erosion from anger and replace it with positive thinking.  5. Defensive Positioning A distracted presence, clouded awareness, jaded perspective, and attention to the negative lead to a life that has no option but to be defensive in relationships.  Staying in anger leads people to believe that being correct is more important than other people’s emotions.  Being defensive feels like the right thing to do for survival but it is one of the most powerful ways anger erodes a relationship.  Think about someone who struggles with swimming.  Instincts suggest their body swing their arms and legs all over the place.  If someone were to go save the one drowning it would seem like their ATTACKING the person trying to do the rescuing.  The only way to overcome this challenge in swimming is to have the training to realize failing around is an instinct that is counterproductive for survival.  Defensiveness from anger works the same way.  Many people in your life want to help you and see you live your best life.  You don’t have to be stuck letting anger repel meaningful relationships that greatly benefit you.  Try going 3 whole days without ever defending yourself in a conversation.  Observe how your conversations change and what you’re able to learn about how others are feeling without having to defend yourself.  Fighting the erosion from anger in relationships is not an easy battle, but you don’t have to do it alone.  It starts with small steps in the right direction that over time create a momentum of positivity in life.  We have a team of certified guides who have helped other people navigate taming the erosion of anger in their relationships and we could help you take the next step on your journey. CLICK HERE to schedule your free 10-minute consultation and begin finding the peace you deserve.