Breaking a Woman's Angry Spirit

I'm amazed at how well some men get women and others have no clue at all.  There seems to never be anything in between.  I myself rarely get upset, but when I do get upset I don't usually stay mad that long.  There's no fun in staying mad, and it takes too much energy.  But if men just followed biblical principles such as,

Ephesians 5:33 "Husband love your wives.  Wives respect your husbands" or 


Proverbs 15:1 "A kind answer soothes angry feelings, but harsh words stir them up." 

then they'd see how easy it is to break that spirit of anger.  When a woman criticizes or is angry, it's really her response to hurt and need for love.  It reminds me of this stranger walking behind me yesterday on the pier talking to his girl on the phone.  She was apparently very angry on the other end, and his tone of voice was angry, rapid, and definately not soothing.  I had to laugh when he shouted back on the phone to her, "I MISS YOU TOO!"  I was convinced.  Or not.  lol!
There have been a few men that know the secret code with me.  It actually kind of irks me off.  They know exactly what to do so I can't be mad anymore. Sometimes I feel like I haven't been mad long enough to prove my point, so I'll cantankerously be mad.  Then the next time I get mad at them I always think I'm NOT letting them off the hook that easily this time, but I always do.  Like I said it irks me off!  How do they do it?

Let me tell you about Nhoj.  Nhoj was my best friend during a season of my life, because he was truly the person in my life at the time that understood me like no other.  I trusted him beyond trust.  Still do.  One of the reasons I trusted him was because he was sooo predictable, and I could even predict how he was going to respond to me if I got mad at him.  I got mad at him for 9 days once. I had told him something in confidence and heard it back through our mutual friend at the time.  He was working the front door, so one night I yelled at him from the balcony my lack of appreciation and got on the elevator.  He could've yelled back at me insults and disgust, but he sat quietly.  When I'd go through the lobby which I tried to avoid he'd remain quiet.  Then one day I couldn't avoid him.  I had a package and I had to go through him, as he helped me he said, "I've been praying and I just wanted to say I'm sorry!"  How could I be mad?  I believed him when he said it.  It made me feel guilty that I had been mad, but I didn't say anything.  A couple days later I had been hurt physically (btw not raped incase you were thinking that) by our mutual friend and I didn't know of one other person on the planet I could share it with.  I tried to act like I had everything together, but as soon as I saw him I broke down crying.  It was essential to have one person on this planet that I trusted that much to share that experience with otherwise I would have been all alone.  To this day no one else knows the details of that ordeal.  Knowing how to handle me in time of conflict had much to do with my ability to have such a trusting relationship.

My other friend Cephas I had become extremely upset with once.  So entirely frustrated.  Once again he didn't react to my reactivity.  He wasn't harsh, but was always a gentle spirit.  One day I called him up on the phone and said, "I'm sorry.  I still love you."  He never held it against me.  He was very silent about it, and wasn't mad that I was mad.  As soon as I called him on the phone infact he acted surprised, and after my apology we talked like we always did.  Once again it made me feel bad that I was even mad to begin with.  To this day is one of my lifelong friends.  When you can trust someone to accept you through thick and thin then you know you have a true friend.  Some friends you can bicker with, some you can't.
Last weekend once again I showed my disgust towards someone's actions towards me.  They apologized, but I wasn't done with putting them through hoops.  Before I could even put him through hoops he did that kind word thing AGAIN, "So how was your day?"  Really can these guys stop breaking my angry spirit with kind words?  lol

At the end of the day this ties into a woman's need of security and loyalty.  If a man is unable to accept you through thick and thin or make you feel like he's given you ANOTHER chance, or that you are on your last straw then that trust will probably never be there.  My last "official" boyfriend became angry with me, because he thought I was angry with him I think (but I wasn't).  He didn't want to talk to me anymore (perhaps because he didn't know how to solve the problem).  If we talked it was superficial conversation.  When I saw him and was trying to be touchy, he was like "Look at you!"  As women we desire to be loved in conflict and quickly resume the closeness we once had.  That level of closeness is equivalent to the level of previous closeness.  So if it was a friendship then maybe it's words.  If it's a relationship then maybe it's a hug or cuddling.  If it's marriage then maybe it's making love.  It should be restored to the completion of the highest level of intimacy that relationship had before the conflict.  Forgiveness doesn't impose boundaries after the conflict.

The 5 Language of Apology

One of the best books I have read lately is called, The Five Languages of Apology by the same author who wrote The Five Love Languages.  It put together my thoughts in a way I could never explain to anybody.  I always have thought that people so casually say, "I forgive you," but their actions never seem to reflect that.  I mean if you have truly forgiven shouldn't you be able to carry on with that person as if nothing ever happened.  Seems like people only repair those relationships when it requires them, such as working in the office together, being in the same circle of friends, going to the same church, but what if you never have to see that person again?  It's real easy to walk away isn't it?  I have always thought of it this way.......

I have 2 sisters.  We fought like cats and dogs growing up.  We'd have our fights then 5 minutes later it would be as if the fight never happened.  No grudges held.  It was a natural part of my life when I lived at home.  I remember some things they had said or done, but they don't stick in my mind as if they should be something I should reflect, ponder, and hold onto.  I could care less what they have done to me.  But in today's society, people seem to have such low self-esteem that they can't get it out of their minds as if another person has the correct analysis of who you are and you believe them.  They can only hurt you if you believe there was some truth to what they said and that's another story.  What if it were your mom, dad, sister, brother, grandma, grandpa, aunt, or uncle?  I know there are some families today that are divided, people don't speak to their parents ever again, but most of the time this isn't the case.  Do we need to have blood to link us together, because technically we all come from Adam and Eve.  We aren't considered related after 4th cousins, it doesn't count anymore, but I hear the furthest we go up to in the world is 42nd cousins.  I still think we are all closely related.  We don't go to church and call ourselves "brothers and sisters" for nothing.  Why don't we act like it?  Why do we make excuses as to why they can't be in our lives anymore?  Is it really that big?   I have no problem being mad at someone, being like "I don't like your coat now where do you want to go for lunch?"  My ability to forgive so quickly has perhaps got me into a lot of trouble, but it's an expenditure of energy that I don't have.  I rarely drop people from my life.  They have to have done something to me that is super harmful to my wellbeing and spirit.  To walk circles around people, be in a room with them where its all awkward, having anger or animosity raging inside is pathetic.  I'm glad Gary Chapman has presented it in such a way that I believe Jesus would agree with me:

Please try to do the reading in my photo on Can you forgive without an apology?  Enlarge the picture if you have to because it is really good.

In these times we are living divorce is on the rise especially in the United States.  I can't speak for other girls, because I've never been in a romantic relationship with a girl, but I can speak what I see in the men.  I see lack of leadership!  Men so often end relationships without saying what has upset them.  They don't come to you and say, "You really hurt me when you said....."  That's leadership when a Christian man can come to a woman and express his feelings and try to figure out what the breakdown of communication was.  Instead men can get very prideful, pompous, snippy snappy, arrogant, with a chip on their shoulder and not express what their issues are leaving us women to guess.  When we can't figure it out it brews and brews inside of them and they quit.  I think Woodrow Wilson said it best,

 "The way we generally strive for rights is by getting our fighting blood up; and I venture to say that is the long way and not the short way. If you come at me with your fists doubled, I think I can promise you that mine will double as fast as yours; but if you come to me and say, “Let us sit down and take counsel together, and, if we differ from one another, understand why it is that we differ from one another, just what the points at issue are,” we will presently find that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and the candor and the desire to get together, we will get together."

I honestly don't believe most people seek to hurt others.  I think when someone is hurt by anothers words or actions, it was either misperceived or the other person had other thoughts in mind.  Perhaps it was a person's own personal opinion that has nothing to do with you.  We are all entitled to have our own beliefs.  The only time I think we seek to hurt others is when they have hurt us and we are firing back or if we just can't forgive them for something they did to us in the past.  Everything else is bridge under the water.  We need to seek communication, and find our common areas of agreeance.  I recently was joking and laughing with a person, everything was okay.  I wasn't mad at them, nor seeking to hurt their feelings in any way but they were gone without a trace.

That leads me to another point.......if you are going to be going around preaching Jesus, love, and no judgment then don't be a hipocrite about it.  How many Christians have I seen on Facebook putting up all of their Jesus pictures, bible quotes, etc but then they end that friendship by deleting the person as a buddy.  Matthew 18 says that if you have an issue with a brother (or sister) than go to them.  Don't delete them on Facebook.  Don't text message them.  Don't have someone else tell them that you are mad at them.  Don't avoid them.  Go to them in a relational way face to face and if you can't do that then at the very least the phone or Skype.  7% of communication is words.  You can't possibly be certain of what a person means by Facebook, Twitter, or text messaging.  We aren't even allowed to the altar while there is tension with another, so solve things and solve them quickly.  I have approached friends and its especially important with non believers.  She called me one day and asked if I wanted to go to lunch.  I didn't accuse her of anything.  I said so and so told me that you said XYZ about me, is that true?  She said, "No and I'm going to have to have a talk with that person!"  I had got stuck in the crossfire between 2 others.  I could have had an ended friendship over a rumor had I not handled it maturely and wisely.

We all have conflict in our lives it's part of growing in character.  I highly highly recommend reading this book.