Male Anger: Counting to 10 is a Band-aid 

Counting to 10 isn’t a substitute for identifying and eliminating the source of a man’s pain that makes him rage. This dubious folk wisdom merely allows anger to simmer in a man’s psyche, and while it may be temporarily knocked down after a 10 count, it won’t stay down for the count because its cause hasn’t been identified. Counting to 10 is a band-aid at best, and at worst can prevent men from learning to move beyond anger.

There are a myriad of sources of male anger. A short list would include: an abusive father, an abusive mother, being abandoned, and neglect. While there are other sources of male anger such as clinical mental disorders, these are the most prevalent issues I noticed in 15 years working with men. The biggest source of anger I routinely confronted traced back to dysfunctional father/son relationships. Those early life damaging emotional hits just keep on coming in later life and men often become lone wolves because they don’t know how to effectively cope with their pain. They withdraw from situations that might actually help them, like the companionship of concerned men practiced at helping each other heal.

Somatic body experience is not a simple or quick method to learn. It requires that a man tune into exactly how he is feeling in his body right before blowing up and identifying what he was thinking about right before he raged. It took decades before I learned about somatic experience after which I began to notice the feelings that came up right before exploding. The source of my anger was never the woman I was in relationship with at the time and her proximity made her a convenient target.

Since women are powerless when confronting angry men it would seem appropriate to address their options. A man committed to working on his anger in a men’s group is worth staying with in a relationship because he will find support for the work he needs to do but he will not find support for his anger because it is unsupportable by conscious men. He can discuss somatic experience with other men to learn how they pinpointed the sources of their anger. A man who is willing to hear other men’s experiences that helped them understand and overcome their anger and who can embrace their successes and incorporate them into his own life can benefit. Alternatively, a woman who finds herself with an angry man who refuses to dig deep and confront his anger should consider leaving him because he will never resolve his anger on his own. A woman who stays in a relationship with an angry man who refuses to work on his issue becomes his enabler and co-dependent. She is also his easy target to rage against.

Men need to wake up to their anger issues if they ever hope to be in a successful relationship and women can help put them on a good path by encouraging them to work through their anger with other men. A woman’s love can give a man the encouragement he needs to continue his work and overcome his demons.