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The Two-Step Anger

by Nathan Chua

“Let’s slow down here for a moment.”  These are some words you would often hear me say to my clients.  It sounds like a weird request.  I can almost hear the client mumbling inside, “What does slowing down have anything to do with counseling?  I am here to get some kind of resolution to my concerns and I only have just under an hour to talk about it!”

A big part of mindfulness-based therapies like ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is developing the capacity to slow things down.  If we follow the news, we’d see how fast our minds work and how critical it is to slow down.  We might have been witness to some incidents where a cop who has had a spotless record, all of a sudden commits a violent crime that upends a lifetime’s work and dedication.  How does this happen?  Well, I guess a more apt question to ask is “How quickly does this happen?”  It’s a split second between our thoughts and actions.  Unfortunately, without the functional understanding of what mindfulness is all about, it is easy to equate our feelings with bad behavior.  I use bad behavior here because growing up, we normally get messages like, “Don’t get angry at your sister!”  The statement implies that anger is something that inevitably leads to harmful results.  In other words, anger predetermines hurtful behaviors.  If put this way, it begins to sound a bit silly right?  We cannot be exonerated for hurting someone physically simply by saying, “I just couldn’t help it.  My feelings took over me.”      

The problem with treating anger as if it were a bad emotion is it often ends up with a paradoxical effect of actually making us even more victimized by our own emotions.  How many times have you and I heard statements like, “Won’t you do the same thing if you had to deal with such a stupid person?”  Our minds love to give us reasons for what we do because without the ability to reason, we would not be able to solve our day-to-day problems.  For example, reasoning can tell us that if we stay long enough under the sun in sweltering conditions, it can cause us to suffer a heat stroke.  That reasoning ability is useful in that context.  Unfortunately, if we use it with our anger, we can draw a conclusion that our anger can cause us to “feel bad” (like being baked under the sun) and consequently make moves to remove the anger from our system by hitting someone or yelling and screaming.  Causation is logical and can be helpful for us to know how we can avoid external threats, but when applied to internal threats like emotions and thoughts, it can cause us to do things that do not match our deepest aspirations for ourselves.  

So how do we handle our emotions of anger?  Doesn’t spewing it out or running away from the contexts that produce our anger make sense?  Yes, it does work at times.  We can remove ourselves from the company of people who hurt us.  But sometimes the very same people who can hurt us, are the same ones we care about deeply.  And although we can say that staying away from such people who instigate our anger can be effective, there will always be situations when we meet other people who remind us of the same people we try to avoid.  There is that old ACT saying that goes, “Where are you gonna go, where your thoughts don’t go.”  

So here’s my tip for dealing with anger, think of it as a two-step process.  There is that familiar feeling of anger, and that split second reaction that we do in the face of anger.  If we can slow down and notice what just happened to trigger our anger, what we do in the presence of our anger, and the consequences of such, then we have had a mindful moment.  Another mindful practice is to just notice the anger for what it is.  It is something that we experience, not what we are.  

Then we go on to noticing or minding what is important for us in those moments.  What do we want to be about in those challenging moments?  Are we going to do what our minds tell us will get us out of the angry feelings, or are we going to stay with the anger and still be what we set out to be in those moments?  In other words, we as humans are capable of long-term thinking and seeing the bigger picture.  If something or someone truly matters to us, then all else can fade into the background.  We can stay grounded and be kind to the people that we love, who can also be the very people who can make us feel angry.  Mindfulness of values tells us that there’s something more important here than just trying to get rid of the angry feelings we have.  Like maybe your most cherished relationship is on the line…and it’s all worth the pain of anger.  Pause, slow down, stay with it, and be kind.

Should you ask intimate details about an affair?

by Nathan Chua

One of the most common questions that couples ask on their road to recovery from an affair is whether it is helpful for a hurt partner to inquire about intimate details.  This is quite expected and an understandable reaction.  However, couples need to be sensitive to the results of such inquiries.  It is also not surprising to see the participating partner feel uncomfortable sharing sexual details about the affair.  

There are some experts who say that the best advice a therapist can give to a couple is to refrain from going into the sexual or graphic details of the affair.  Although this may sound like good advice to many and could probably work for a majority of couples, it has the potential to backfire.  The thing that I like about the work of Drs. Andrew Christensen, Brian Doss, and Neil Jacobson, is its focus on functional rather than formal rules of engagement between couples.  Formal rules usually involve teaching couples to follow a rule based on what it says alone with less consideration of the unique contexts that surround each couple.  It’s like following a rule just because.  Functional rules are more sensitive to contexts as well as the consequences that occur when they are adapted by the couple.  

A Word About Context:

When I say context, it doesn’t only mean the physical environment of the couple.  Context can involve the very thoughts, feelings, and memories that each partner has going into the relationship as well as within the relationship.  What mindfulness teaches us about this is that we learn to see things from each other’s context or perspective.  This is rather hard to see when couples have narrowed their options to survival strategies like fight, flight, or freeze!  That would take a whole set of blog posts to discuss!  So let me leave it at that.

In therapy, I allow couples to engage in their conversations about an affair with a difference.  That difference is to learn how to do them better.  How is this done when it comes to discussing sexual details?

These questions are obviously mostly going to come from the hurt partner.  Again I don’t want to give formal rules about this, so please be sensitive to what works in your relationship and what doesn’t.  If what you’re doing helps you to move on in the healing or renewing process of your relationship, then go ahead and keep it up.  However, formal rules can end up frustrating both parties.  The couple makes a turn for the worse when these questions are asked devoid of context from the injured partner.  When they turn into demands without reasons or, just because the injured partner is angry and the participating partner must pay, conversations can become fraught with anger.  At times they can become rhetorical and sarcastic.  Interrogation has become a way to make accusations.  And for most of us who have not learned what context sensitivity means, couples can go about doing what they’re doing because sometimes they do end up getting what they want.  As human beings, we have a tendency to keep doing what we’re doing even if the success rates go down on our attempts to remove difficult thoughts and feelings.  Minor, short term successes can obscure long term consequences.  And for couples who have experienced infidelity, the injured partner believes the participating partner is responsible for removing these thoughts and feelings.  This is an impossible task for anyone who’s a human being, let alone a partner who is also experiencing difficult emotions like anxiety and fear about possibly losing the relationship, and guilt about having had an affair.  The injured partner can get rewarded sporadically when the participating partner grudgingly surrenders to the demands.  Unfortunately, such enduring, surrendering, or survival moves by the participating partner more often only last for a short while before the pattern of giving in to keep the peace becomes unbearable.  Thus, an explosion of pent up feelings occurs and the couple escalates. 

The key here is for the injured partner to be more noticing of the softer emotions inside and able to enunciate them with less criticism and accusations.  Focus on asking for information and telling the partner why that is important to know.  Usually, the questions involve some kind of insecurity or a wound that informs the participating partner that such questions come from images or memories of past sexual hurts or rejections, if these are out in the open.  There could be strong feelings of insecurity about the injured partner’s attractiveness.  These types of revelations are more likely to induce compassion rather than defensiveness or withdrawal from the participating partner and allow for a more compassionate response to happen.  

So let me get back to what I mentioned earlier in this article.  In the counseling room, we are not attempting to help you end your difficult conversations.  We are there to help make better conversations, because like it or not, there will be conflicts in your relationship as your contexts change from situation to situation.  Learning the skills to make better exchanges in conflict situations can mean that these conflicts lead you to a richer closeness rather than rip you apart.    

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What to do after an affair

by Nathan Chua

This is intended to be a first aid kit for those who are going through a difficult discovery of an affair.  Please note that this is not a substitute for seeking professional help.  Affairs are situations that would likely require trained assistance.  Some who have taken such events lightly or have let these incidents slip by, often end up having to deal with it later with loads of pent up emotions that make it even harder to recover from. 

I am not sure if I ever had a blog post that enumerates a list of do’s and don’ts when it comes to dealing with cheating in committed relationships, particularly because applying such rules can at times do more harm to an already struggling relationship.  Let me emphasize to you, my audience, that I am listing them here not because I want to give you easy answers to your situation.  It is exactly that your situations are unique that I want you to take these tips with a grain of salt.  I am showing you a list of rules that can generally apply to most cases of betrayal without having the paradoxical effect of the couple ending up fighting about the rules instead of facing the problems affecting the relationship.  

Tip 1:  Know where responsibility lies

  • It is often that the hurt partner puts the full blame of the affair on the participating partner.  Yes, that is a fact that the affair or the recourse to an affair is the sole responsibility of the participating partner.  There is no excuse for an affair even as there are major problems in the relationship.  However, the difficulties in the relationship is the responsibility of both the partners.  We all have reasons for our behavior but they are not to be considered excuses.  Providing excuses can lead to the participating partner to blame the relationship for the affair, and for the hurt partner to justify their past behaviors in the relationship.  Reasons are different from excuses or justifications for either partner.   

Tip 2:  Problem-solve in the immediate aftermath

  • You and your partner may decide to live separately for the meantime if situations at home become too difficult to handle.  This could either be because you have a tendency to escalate or are afraid of how your escalations can affect your children.
  • You may want to get yourselves checked for possible sexually transmitted diseases.  
  • Couples are free to decide if the relationship is worth keeping but making a decision in an emotionally charged state may not be in their best interest.  Delay such decisions until you have returned to calmer emotional states.
  • Withhold conversations about the affair until you are in therapy.  Early on, it may be too much of a stretch for couples to know how to handle the problem without escalating.  Remember, what we want is for couples to move forward in their relationship rather than take steps that bring them to even more hurtful conversations.  Bring these conversations to the counseling room with your therapist.

Tip 3:  What questions to ask and how for the hurt partner

  • It is understandable that the injured partner will resort to questions fraught with accusations and harsh criticisms towards the participating partner.  Focus on what you want to know and tell your partner why that is important to you.  Let your partner know that this is part of the process of moving on rather than a way of punishing your partner.  There are tendencies for the injured partner to ask rhetorical and often sarcastic questions to their partners.  It is advisable that you make factual disclosures and revelations of your underlying softer emotions of fear and anxiety towards the possibility that this could happen again. 

This will be all for now.  For part two of this post, I will be discussing what the participating partner can say or do that can help in the moving on process.  It will also involve how partners can deal with future challenges that can happen if the participating partner is still able to remain in touch with the affair partner.  Another common question is, “Is it okay for the hurt partner to confront the affair partner?”  See you in the next blog!

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How to create lasting change in your relationship: Video!

How to create lasting change in your relationship

by Nathan Chua

There was a time in my practice as a counselor that I thought working on a relationship only required learning skills of communication that anyone can practice.  Well, nothing has changed until this very day except for the realization that the skills have to come with a motivation that creates lasting rather than fleeting change.  In my continuing search for what truly works for my clients, I have always been watchful of signs that tell me if what I do works or otherwise.  From my over-a-decade’s experience dealing with couples, I have gone through multiple approaches that I thought were the holy grail of couples therapy.  They all seemed to make sense.  One of the approaches involved highly emotionally charged sessions that got into the deepest feelings that have thus far remained unseen by the couple.  The other approaches involved learning skills on how to communicate better and keep couples from spiraling into their usual patterns of unending arguments.

It turns out that I would find both of these approaches to make sense but also knew that there were areas that needed to be addressed.  It was only until I found a way to marry these two approaches that I sensed an end to my search.  Well, at least until a time comes when a better approach is discovered.  While digging into deeper emotions was important, constantly employing this approach can prove rather exhausting for the couple as well as the counselor.  Realistically, people don’t get into heavy conversations about their deeper emotions on a day-to-day basis.  

On the other hand, with the skills training approach, couples can be very imprecise with their ways of handling conflicts.  It is hard to always be accurately following rules of engagement.  Moreover, this technique coming from an expert can mean that couples are motivated more by complying with what the therapist is telling them to do or following rules outside of context sometimes, and end up fighting about these rules.  

I found an approach that blends these two rather seamlessly.  Something that has to do with exposing the deeper emotions that are difficult to show, and at the same time developing skills that can be practiced not just because that is what the couple learns from therapy but rather because they feel empathy towards each other. 

It is about guiding the couple rather than following an imprimatur from the therapist.  It is allowing them to discover what they can adapt as their own, because let’s face it, not every interaction that a couple does ends up in a wreck.  They would have had at least a few conversations that worked in the past without any instructions from therapy.  The rule only requires that couples be more observant of these successful instances in the past that don’t get noticed, repeated, and turned into habits of course.  

So rather than teaching couples about what to say or do, it is more a process of discovery or trial and error.  In addition to this, couples learn how to make disclosures that create empathy rather than defensiveness.  It is part of our nature as social beings to have a sense of empathy towards another if only the words or gestures exchanged create room for safety and bonding.  It is one thing to say that your partner is insensitive to your needs and another to say that you feel hurt when your partner behaves in a certain way in a given situation.  Disclosing your vulnerable feelings over attacking your partner will usually influence your partner to feel empathic and act accordingly. 

Lasting change usually happens when the motivations for change are not just about what couples learned from their therapist in the counseling room, or what they read in some self-help articles or books, lasting change comes from caring.  That’s the part that happens when couples learn to feel safe enough to share their deeper, softer feelings.  A metaphor that I often use for couples is that of a child who rants and throws a fit in order to get its way.  Parents would then panic and address the fit rather than what it is that was causing the fit in the first place.  A child, though, that learns to speak about its fears rather than its frustrations, would more likely have that fear addressed by a compassionate attentive parent.  A pouting child would normally get a defensive reaction, while a fearful child would probably get attention.  The former would usually end up being, at best, disciplined, and at worst coerced by the adult parents into behaving properly, while the latter would likely end up with getting assurance and affirmation.  In summary, lasting change comes not just from learning skills, but more so from caring for the other.  The other half of it is becoming more aware of what approaches you do with your partner that evoke caring and which ones lead you back to square one. 

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