my strange relationship with anger

I am coming to realize that I have a very odd relationship with anger.

On one hand, I don't mind being angry myself. I experience the emotion, get it out of my system by screaming or venting or punching a pillow (I know, tough girl, right?) or crying. I'm not afraid to get angry. Anger is an emotion I'm able to experience that helps me process through things I'm going through.

However, when someone else is angry, I've realized that their anger brings up a fear in me that is almost paralyzing. It's odd that I've only recently come to see this about myself. I always thought of myself as someone that welcomes conflict and debate. But, maybe I told myself that as a way to cope with lots of people in my life over the years that haven't controlled their anger very well.

Across several key relationships in my life, others' anger has caused me a great deal of pain, a deep sense of worthlessness and a fear of abandonment. Here's what I was conditioned to believe: If someone gets angry, it's probably my fault. If they get angry enough with me, they will probably give up on me and decide that I'm not worth staying in relationship with me. It's probably my fault anyway...I made him angry...if only I'd done "this" or not done "that"...

Anger and manipulation were never too far away from each other throughout most of my life. So, for many, many years, I've walked on eggshells in most of the relationships I've been in -- with anyone. Always afraid that I might make someone angry, and they'd write me off.

Recently this hit home in a new way...

I had been having a hard time with one of my kids. He was being disrespectful and, well, angry, fairly often and about often seemingly irrational things. He'd lash out with his words and his disrespectful attitude of blame; playing the victim and pointing fingers.

Now, I've come far enough in this journey to recognize the pattern of manipulation and verbal abuse that accompanies it, and I know that I need to set boundaries and hold him accountable with consequences for his behavior.

But, as I was disciplining him and setting the boundaries and explaining the consequences, and I could see his anger increasing, I could feel myself starting to back off...to take responsibility for his actions myself -- I was afraid that he'd get angry and decide that he just didn't love his mom anymore...

I felt stuck...trapped by my own fear of being rejected and the knowledge that I needed to teach him to be accountable and responsible. There was no way I could have both -- I'd have to risk either letting him be angry with me, or passing up the teaching moment (worst, teaching him that he could treat me in a disrespectful and manipulative way and that it was okay!).

In the end, I stuck to my convictions. I held him to the consequences and let him stomp loudly up to his room, slam the door and punch his pillow (heredity, huh?).

Honestly, I felt like crap about it though...until one of those friends (remember the ones that kick my ass regularly) reminded me that sometimes, as a parent, your kids are going to be angry with you. I know this is completely common sense for most of you, and I know this is true myself, but my default behavior doesn't reflect this as truth.

So, this is going to be a tough one for me...but I'm realizing that if I'm ever going to have real, intimate relationships that go deep, I'm going to have to bravely deal with anger and trust that the person who's angry will handle it in a healthy way...all part of this recovering coward's journey into her new story.