Taking things out on the wrong people

First, you were right to be angry on this occasion. You let your wife know you were popping out, she presumably went back to sleep, and a two-year-old was left unsupervised for 45 minutes. Instead of marking the walls your daughter could have been chowing down on cleaning products under the kitchen sink or discovering pencils would fit up her nose, so let's be thankful she found a more creative way of passing the time.

When I read about your anger at noisy neighbours I immediately thought of PTSD -- because I too am maddened by neighbour noise and my official diagnosis is C-PTSD. Other symptoms:
* Buried anger -- "moody, irritable and passive agressive"
* Avoidance -- "my preference to bury myself in a book or the internet to discussion"
* Rumination -- " I am the one who worries endlessly"
* Lost creativity -- "the things I used to be passionate about and enjoy"

so I suggest you take an online test for PTSD, and if the cap fits take the results to your doctor and ask to be referred for treatment. PTSD is a hard nut to crack and at best can only be 'managed', but has a way of getting worse over time, so you really have no choice. And don't be put off if you see stuff about "life-threatening trauma", because PTSD has a history:
1) shell shock and combat fatigue, first seen in the military
2) the same symptoms seen in civilians, in cases of armed robbery, rape, etc.
3) the same symptoms in adults physically or emotionally abused as children.

All three are potentially life-threatening, because where infants and small children feel unloved, they intuit that they must placate their caregivers ... or risk abandonment and death. This leads to the "freeze or fawn" response, now often cited alongside "fight or flight". Freezers and fawners can never trust their own judgment, are incredibly hard on themselves, and are therefore vulnerable to abuse and mistreatment from all directions.

It's perfectly understandable that you should feel resentful towards a wife who leaves you to do all the worrying about "housing, bills and planning for the future", to say nothing of neglecting her toddler for dangerous amounts of time. These are joint responsibilities and it isn't fair that you should be carrying the whole load. That being said, people with similar histories have a way of finding each other -- a match made in hell, you might say -- and it's likely your wife is parenting the way she herself was parented. IOW, left to get on with it.

It's significant that you're aware of "taking things out on the wrong people", because I suspect you also had to be the caregiver and worrier in your family of origin.

That's my take on what you've told us so far: that other people "controlling my life and having a negative effect on me" started when you were very young. Expressing buried feelings in a safe environment and having them validated by someone else will indeed take a lot of the weight off your shoulders.

Riffraff wrote:I suppose I realise I have always had an issue with anger, at times I have become fixated with anger about noisey neighbours and other people who I feel are controlling my life and having a negative effect on me. I'm a quiet and caring person on the outside, to friends and work colleagues, but I've realised to my family I am moody, irritable and passive agressive. I have been married to my wife for 5 years. We wernt a match made in heaven, we have few things in common but both met each other at a time when wanted to settle down. We now are lucky enough to have a 2 year daughter who we both adore. Through my marriage I have felt resentful at times towards my wife, about the things I used to be passionate about and enjoy doing which got buried because my wife didnt share the interest and over the last 2 years, feel irrationally irritable that I am the one who worries endlessly about housing, bills and planning for the future while she concentrates on being the best mum possible. I've thought many times that she must pick up on my irritation, my preference to bury myself in a book or the internet to discussion, and my pointed enthusiasm for the things i am doing socially in which she is not included. Along the way I've picked up what I probably mistakenly perceived as the same hostility towards me. Yesterday though I did something for which I'm ashamed. I went to the supermarket to get some household shopping and let my wife know that our daughter was watching TV - my wife being in the bedroom. When I came back 45 minutes later I found my wife still in the bedroom and my daughter decorating the walls of our rented flat with different coloured marker pen. I exploded, shouted and swore at my wife in front of my daughter and reduced both to tears. I shocked myself but at the same time felt like almost a weight had been lifted from me to be able to express my frustration - that is the thing that worries me most. I dont know if anyone has experienced the same feelings, I hope someone can help or point me in the direction of some help?

Dear Riffraff,

It is totally understandable what you feel. After all, what real man with any substantial hopes and dreams would not feel frustrated and upset with the advent of a situation which casts them entirely in the roll of nursemaid, babysitter and Second String ‘Wife’. Of course! You would hate it! And no matter how much self control, and resolve that you would make the Best of the Worst Mistake You Made in Your Life – to put yourself under that power and control of Women and Children, well, of course there would be the time where you would simply could no longer tolerate the intolerable, and you would act out.

Now, this is probably not the advice you are looking for, BUT, have you considered Walking Out? Get a divorce. You can do your duty as a Father by paying child support, and you can exercise your visitation rights. That is what I did, and NOW my daughter is a PHD who started making more money than I ever earned! My Support from afar worked fine. My Personal Relationship…. Because I was always able to Truly Focus on her during my visits, was better than any gruff and patchy relationship we would have had if I had stayed some dissatisfied permanent fixture.

No real man is meant to be barracked with women and children. Get out of it! You won’t be the First…. You won’t even be the 200red Millioneth! Your own happiness counts too. And, as I have said, they would be better off without you.

“Run! Run! Run for your Life… and don’t look back”… well, visit… but free yourself from all this needless and ultimately unappreciated anxiety. Believe me, your Wife will love the Check you send more than she loves you.

It's so good to get an OP thumbs-up on an intuitive post like this one. Thank you for taking the time, Riffraff.