Letting Go of "Anger"

We are married. We won’t always agree. We are going to get angry at each other. How long are you going to be angry at me?

This is something that I always try to avoid if at all possible…anger within my household. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable. If someone has developed a solution on avoiding this, please share it with us. Being that husband and wife are almost guaranteed to get mad at each other, what must we do to ensure this anger does not last? I know the Bible says not to let the day end with anger on your heart (my interpretation of Ephesians 4:26), but is it not hard to let go when the person you are angry with is lying next to you? Honestly, I tend not to let my anger go into the next day. How? I normally pray, and pray hard, shortly after the anger has truly set in. Normally it may take a couple of hours for me to realize I need to pray about the situation. I normally realize this when I can’t concentrate on anything else I am suppose to be doing…especially when I am at work. By the time I lay my head down, I am good and I can wake up the next morning ready to give my wife a loving, honest kiss and move on with my day. I know I have only been married 3 years, but I hope this practice that I have will not change over the years to come.

There are some other motivations that help me let go of anger. I tend to ask myself, what if I don’t wake up the next morning? Would I want to leave my wife on a bad note? Or what if on my way to work, I am in an accident and God decides it’s my time to join Him…or I am injured where I can’t speak anymore? These are all possible things that very well could happen because we are not promised the next day. Then I think about what it is I am angry about and is it even worth the effort of being angry…especially for a long period of time. Now for some people anger may just be something that is a part of their life…as though they enjoy being angry. For those people, I don’t know what to say…I'll pray for you :)

I tend to think that time will keep ticking and time will be wasted with my spouse if we continue to stay angry at each other for days at a time. I know I am talking days of anger, but there may be couples out there working on months of anger with each other. I would say that you need to communicate with each other to determine what the heck the problem is that led to this long term anger. You want to determine this cause before anger becomes the cause of something else in your marriage to go astray (my interpretation of Ephesians 4:27). Once you determine the cause, learn from it…learn how to avoid or prevent the situation in the future so that the anger will not creep back into your marriage.

I know I am not getting deep into this subject...just want to scratch the surface. I hope this will cause some to start thinking about the small things as well as the big things that have caused anger to creep into your marriage. For those small things, don't let stubbornness keep you angry for no reason. Let it go and move on. For the big things, take the time to figure it out. Bring in another couple that you trust to serve as a mediator...someone you both can vent to and they won't be bias one way or another. Talking it out may be just the medicine needed to get past the situation.


Be blessed and talk to you later.