“You sound ann-gree.”

This was a quote one of my clients was always sure to include whenever she recalled the invariable reaction of a fellow participant to seemingly any story she’d share about her divorce in a support group she’d attended with him in California. If this was the first time hearing her, you’d be inclined to think that “angry” was actually two words.

She also said this in the voice of Goofy, Mickey Mouse’s dog.

“He made it sound like I was bad to be angry about anything I was going through,” she’d continue. “I always felt like I had to say I wasn’t angry when he said that. But what I really wanted to say was, ‘even if I wasn’t angry before, I am now — at you, for judging me.’”

As a pastoral counselor, I think anger gets a bad rap. Especially in divorce. It’s like Pit Bulls, which my wife, as a professional dog trainer, says are unjustly maligned as a breed. A “Pitt Bull” is neither inherently good nor bad; it’s what the owner and training makes of it.

It’s the same with anger.

You may note that Scripture does not prohibit anger, but it does instruct at Psalm 4:4, “Don’t sin by letting anger control you…” [emphasis added].

Within Biblical parameters such as this, I would have hoped that the divorce workshop facilitator or counselor who was charged with guiding my client’s group in California would have reigned-in the Goofy-fellow. Anger is part-and-parcel of divorce. It makes no sense to shame, criticize, or otherwise cast it in the direction of pink elephant status though threat of litigation.

“Perhaps it is easier to part when one is angry?” wrote jkbepp in a comment to my November 9 column here on AnnArbor.com (“Who on earth needs an apology?”). Critical assessments agree with jkbepp, and it’s not just an aid for the detaching spouses.

Quoting the late Dr. Neil Kalter of the University of Michigan, Center for the Child and the Family, here’s what I wrote in my Blog almost exactly 5 years ago.

“A moderate level of conflict between parents is surprisingly helpful to youngsters as they begin the task of coming to terms with the reality and finality of their parents’ divorce,” Dr. Kalter wrote in his book, Growing Up With Divorce. That’s what I’d call “good anger.”

Current research published in the November 2009 Journal of Marketing readily applies. “When Customer Love Turns into Lasting Hate: The Effects of Relationship Strength and Time on Customer Revenge and Avoidance,” analyzes breakdowns in business partnerships between suppliers and their long-term customers, and the ways in which consequent anger plays out.

Sounds a lot like marriage and divorce to me.

Even at its most extreme, anger that manifests as a desire for revenge naturally decreases over time. Study authors Yany Grégoire, Thomas M. Tripp, and Renaud Legoux note that “retaliatory behaviors become too costly to maintain,” that they need to overcome an increasing awareness that they are efforts made “without any promise of material gains,” and that public complaining has “a potentially ‘quenching’ effect” that allows the person who feels slighted to make a cost-benefit consideration in favor of then moving on.

Ironically, this gravitational encouragement to let go is slower when the initial relationship quality starts out higher. “Relationship quality” can be consists of three key elements.

• Trust— confidence that the partner is “dependable and can be relied upon.”
• Commitment— “a willingness to maintain” that partnership.
• Social benefits— “perception of a ‘one-to-one’ connection,” something personal, something unique.

As a divorce pastor, I need to look back in time, beyond the person or couple that’s come to my office in marital distress. I ask myself how these factors would more accurately be assessed from the vantage point of 6 months ago? A year ago? Three years ago?

It’s also important to consider each attribute in terms of how long the couple as been together and under what circumstances. A five-year long-distance relationship is not the same as one in the same community; partners that say they know each other well based on Internet chats are very different from those who attended a mid-sized college together for the same length of time.

Consider relationships in the Bible against the Grégoire / Tripp / Legoux relationship quality metrics. Beginning at Genesis 11:29, track the marriage of Abram and Sarai, high versus low. Look at Sampson and Delilah in Judges 16:4 and following, vis-à-vis trust, commitment, and social benefits.

Examining relationships two months after compromise, the Journal of Marketing writers here found that at two weeks out, the injured parties in high-quality relationships were approximately 6% less desirous of revenge than their low-quality counterparts. But their rate of diminishing interest followed a slower path. At week four, the high- and low-quality relationships were virtually identical in their desire for revenge. Eight weeks out, injured parties in high-quality relationships were over 13% more interested in revenge than those coming out of low-quality relationships.

Interventions have been found successful in business contract schisms, these researches have further found. So there is good news here.

“Recent evidence suggests that high-relationship-quality customers can be especially receptive to any recovery attempt, regardless of its size or economic value…” [emphasis added]. “For relationship-focused customers, ‘the perceived sincerity of an apology and the admission of wrongdoing’ are more important than a ‘restitution or product replacement’ ….” The kicker is that this desire for revenge is only measurably reduced when the recovery effort comes within a limited period following complaint.

I strongly believe that these findings can tell us a lot about family dynamics after divorce. Anger, as an early indicator of chronic conflict to come post-Judgment, can serve as an alert to clergy, therapists and the legal system. If the window of opportunity here, too, is limited, those of us who care and are in a position of influence must be prepared to act quickly as well as properly.

As we are reminded by Jesus’ brother in James 5:16, confession is a powerful step on the path to healing. Thus it’s important that anger not be carelessly, ignorantly stigmatized as never a good thing, and portending some great jeopardy to the person who courageously reveals this very common divorce emotion.

Meantime, I’m told that our own Humane Society of Huron Valley has 5 Pit Bulls available for adoption, including “Lenny,” who’s pictured above. He may be just what the doctor ordered for your heart and home.

I can’t image Goofy labeling this dog bad.

Dell Deaton is a divorce pastoral counselor, independently practicing since 1983. He can be reached through www.divorcepastor.wordpress.com or on (734) 668-2001 in Saline. Also check out /divorcepastor to Follow me on Twitter.