You say that by the time women reach their 30’s many have become bitter and hardened. Is the damage irreversible? If not, how can you spot the ones that can bloom again?
Gene O’Roark, Nashville
Bitterness is what long term resentment turns into. Resentment is what unexpressed anger turns into. Anger is what one feels when one is hurt or indignant. Anger is a survival emotion, as normal and natural as crying or joy.
When you step on your female cat’s tail by accident, she does not, grit her teeth and maintain an image of feminine decorum, now does she. She gets angry, hisses, bares her teeth ready to fight and kill, sticks out her claws and whacks you on the leg.
She expresses her anger from the hurt you caused her. Her anger made you stop hurting her. Survival! So, in only a matter of minutes, the relationship you have with your cat goes right back to healthy and normal.
Question 1: Is the damage irreversible?
Answer 1: First you have to know what caused the damage to see if it can be reversed. Here’s how women become bitter and hard.
In our culture, women are indoctrinated against expressing anger when they are hurt or feel indignant. Instead, when they are hurt they are taught to cry. To compound the neurosis our culture induces, men are indoctrinated to never cry when they feel sadness, helplessness or pain. In fact, to never cry under any circumstances, even death. Instead they are taught that the only emotion permitted is anger.
So, a typical young couple marries. The man never cries. The woman never gets angry. Rather, the woman sits on her anger for three or four years, then in one defining moment she loses her temper and goes on a wild rampage of destruction, both physical and verbal.
A few weeks after it’s over she is shocked by her behavior and vows to never get angry again because she hurt her children, her husband and her parents as well as embarrassing herself completely. Her humiliation is caused by what she sincerely believes a female is supposed to be like and behave like.
The man in this situation is stunned by the ferocity of her anger. He had no idea she was angry. He had no idea he was irritating her every day by leaving the wet towel on the floor, forgetting to shop, ridiculing her mother and on and on because she did not express her anger so he kept on hurting her.
She begins to resent him about the second year and deeply after their first child. I could go on with the dynamics of how a marriage dies, but you only need to know that this is the fate of couples who do not know how to express their feelings, especially negative emotions. Which couples are those? All of them.
So, they divorce. She is 28 with custody of two kids, has no job skills and has to work at an entry level job. She’s tired every night. Her parents lay guilt trips on her. Her ex-husband hassles her. Her children become burdens, not joys.
Every time she meets a guy, she has to chase around for baby sitters so he soon disappears. The only guys who will date her are divorced men who also have children. That’s not much fun. She wants to go back and be young again, to live, to enjoy life and sex and men.
Every attempt at getting her needs met ends in hurt at the hands of a man who does not want to “get too involved.†He uses her and drops her. She is frustrated at every turn. She is disappointed in life and love. She is hurt and disillusioned. She is lonely and horny. This is the state she lives in for years on end with no relief in sight.
Now you know how she feels and you know why. Can she stop being this way and become a new, different, happy human being?
As a Humanistic psychologist, I say, of course she can. I have worked with many women in this predicament and seen them stick with it until they recover their joy for life go on to live happily ever after. I have also seen women in this plight come into therapy and quit after only six weeks. Why some stick with it and why some don’t is explained by the somewhat circular argument, “To change, the client has to really want to change.â€ÂÂ
On the way to mental health, the client goes through a process of self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-assertiveness and accepting personal responsibility for her life. That is the pathway back to being an integrated, whole human being.
To travel this road, the woman must be brave (must want to change) above all else. She must go back in her life and relive the pain and sorrow and fear, and even terror, as well as moments of horrible trauma. She must be aware of how she avoids these feelings today.
She must accept that these things happened to her and that she alone is responsible for accepting what it means to her and her future.
She must assert herself and change how she behaves and reacts toward her parents, children, ex-husband, boss, female friends and even service people. She must accept full, complete and total responsibility for her life from this moment forward.
Implied Question: Are there very many women who can overcome their bitterness.
Answer: No, not many. Most women fester there until after menopause. About seven years later, many women are able to accept that the world is the way it is and that they were operating on a faulty set of principles. These women are also able to see that their parents and society are, and were, wrong to teach them that they would only be a success if they became a “good wife and mother.†The rest are grumpy, angry, bitter old ladies.
Question 2: If not, how can you spot the ones that can bloom again?
Answer 2: To spot one who has potential, look for a woman who has already decided what the post menopausal women above decide.
WARNING: Don’t try to change anybody! She is what she chooses to be, just as you are what you choose to be. We are what we do, or do not do. Doing or not doing is a choice.
