by evilgenius » Fri 13 Oct 2017, 13:07:27
Many years ago I was watching this guy on a cable access channel. He was talking about men who abuse women. His contention was that those men largely cannot defend themselves verbally against their women. After the situation becomes too built up, they use physical force to speak for them. It makes for kind of a release, as usually those men are so nice to their women during the time immediately after they have hit them that their women become so taken with that behavior over that period and pine for it. What they see in their men during that time causes them to care so much for them that they don't leave them, or stay too long once things get bad again.
Stepping quickly aside from whether it is appropriate for a man to stay in a relationship with a woman who can't appreciate a communicative man, but wants one who worships her the way a penitent man does, we can take a look at this. Those men repeat this cycle. They don't learn to express themselves. They don't learn to communicate what they want. They don't learn how to compromise. Instead, they court anger. Anger dissipates with physical exertion. It doesn't entirely go away, though. If you don't get rid of the reasons for its existence it will come back. It can come back again, too, simply because of buttons, if you will, being pushed. When something that has grown to stand for what makes a person angry is raised or transpires that can be all it takes to get back into full blown anger, without the prior need for continued build up.
It can be tough to realize what traps a person into a cycle. As the cable access guy said, it can be an inability to participate. Sometimes, for me, it can arise because I have given my word and find that it is impossible for me to keep it. If I give my word I don't consider that extenuating circumstances let me out of it. It can be like HAL from 2001 a Space Odyssey. As a result, I don't often give my word. But, getting away from myself and extrapolating this towards others, it is possible for a person to find themselves trapped in situations where they have sort of given an easement, where they have to accept the same sort of situation exists as if they had given their word. People may renege on their word, but they might not upon these situations, resulting in anger. People around them rely upon them so much that they can't be their self, or they feel committed to something when they never had the chance to formally do so. I don't think that anger always expresses itself through outright violence. It can express itself in other destructive ways. It can underlie certain pathological behaviors. At its root it probably wants us to stand up for ourselves, but it can, strangely, direct its force at us as well, in order to try and get that done.