After a spouse dies, you can expect emotional turmoil. Sadness over having lost the most significant relationship in your life. Maybe shock because of the timing or the manner in which the death occurred. And fear is reasonable, as the questions pop into your mind: How will I make ends meet? Who’s going to take care of those tasks I haven’t touched for years? What about the parenting I have left to do? While you can find happiness again, for now loneliness will be a part of life as you adjust to not having your partner there to talk to, laugh with, and share what’s important to you.
But sometimes grief over a spouse’s death also comes with anger. Perhaps you can identify with Dave:
I was mad at her for hiding her illness from me. I mean, she could have gone to the doctor. She could have stuck to her medication. She could have stuck to her diet, and everything would have been fine. She had a very treatable medical condition.
Or Marion:
I was angry with him because he was a noncompliant diabetic, and he kind of did things his way. And I was always trying to get him to eat right, not to drink alcohol—things just to improve his health. He wouldn’t listen to me. So that’s the part I was angry about.
Or Whitney:
When I first lost David, I was very angry. My anger was with David because David made the decision to end his life. About a month after he passed, I couldn’t take looking at our wedding photos on the wall. I couldn’t take looking at his face, smiling, knowing what he did. So I took them all down.
Marriage is a profoundly close relationship. After the loss of a spouse, poor choices leading to death are like a thorn lodged underneath the skin of your finger. Pain pulsates with each movement. You’re continually reminded of it—until you can extract it so that the wound can heal.
The thorn of anger in grief
It’s not hard to understand why anger can be a part of grief. If you think your spouse’s death was connected to unwise choices or irresponsibility, that can raise questions about if your spouse considered how those choices might affect you. The burden, especially if it hits you suddenly, can seem so unfair. Anger is triggered in situations that you feel are unjust or unfair and that challenge the way you think the world should operate.
Anger can take different forms, which results in the rich vocabulary we have for it. Sometimes the anger is obvious, and we might describe it as:
- “Going ballistic”
- “Exploding”
- “Losing control”
Sometimes it is more subtle. It’s still there, and it’s destructive, but it takes longer to detect. We might describe it as:
- “Seething”
- “Simmering”
- “Corrosive”
- “Eroding”
This more subtle form of anger is called resentment or bitterness, and it’s the form you experience if you’re angry with your deceased spouse.
With resentment, you’ll tend to think about the irritating things your spouse did, especially those that you associate with the death. As these thoughts are churning in your mind, you might feel yourself getting tense, hot, or fidgety. In this state, you might quickly snap at people who have questions to ask you. Or you might want to be alone, so you avoid people altogether. Sarcasm and cynicism will probably shade your perspective on life. For all these reasons, unresolved resentment toward your deceased spouse will make moving forward with life much more difficult and stagnate the grieving process.
In addition, sustained resentment is a stressor on your body, leading to physical effects alongside the emotional ones. It has been associated with high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, and even a weakened immune system, making you more vulnerable to infections.
So, for a variety of reasons, you should listen to Whitney’s advice: “When it comes to anger and grief, don’t let it overwhelm you. Don’t let it take over because if you let the anger take over, you’re going to get stuck in your grief.”
Removing the thorn of resentment
Your spouse is not available to talk about your disappointments and irritations, but removing the thorn of resentment is still possible. Although your resentment might have been triggered by what happened in your relationship, it’s still a personal issue, rooted in what your mind dwells on. The more you focus on what was irksome about your spouse, or blame your spouse for the actions you feel led to the death, the deeper the thorn will get embedded.
Rather than simply rehearsing your spouse’s faults and allowing the resentment to fester, you can try to view your situation from a different point of view. For example, you could ask yourself:
- What was particularly irksome or hurtful about my spouse’s behavior? To answer this question, you might consider:
- What was lost, or at least threatened, by this behavior?
- Why were the losses so important to me?
- What did I think should have happened but didn’t?
- Could there have been any misunderstanding on the part of my spouse that might have contributed to the behavior?
- Did I do anything to contribute to my spouse’s hurtful or bothersome behavior? Was it a response to any of my behavior?
- What impact has rehearsing my spouse’s faults actually had in my life? What do I have to gain by continuing to rehearse them?
Take a moment to think about these questions and write your answers down on a piece of paper or in a journal.
Notice the direction these questions take you. Anger is about what you perceive to be an unfair or unjust response to you that you think should not have occurred in your relationship. It has a way of narrowing your focus on faults. By working through these questions, you can broaden your perspective. For example, you might realize that your expectation could have been unclear to your spouse. Misunderstanding is so common because we can’t read one another’s minds, and we’re not always 100 percent clear in expressing what we want or need.
Broadening your perspective can occur if you realize that you contributed in some way to the irritating behavior. For example: Did you miscommunicate with, overreact to, or ignore your spouse? These types of behaviors typically spark negative responses. Your spouse was not perfect, but neither are you. No one is.
Finally, broadening your perspective can occur by honestly considering the impact of rehearsing your spouse’s poor choices in your mind. Ruminating on the fault (mulling it over in your mind) is a source of stress that does not accomplish any good purpose. It will only wear you down emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
After going through this exercise, you will probably be in a better position to begin the process of forgiving your spouse. Forgiveness isn’t the first thing you think of when you’re angry. But it’s the final step in removing the thorn of resentment, so it’s important to understand what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is simply a commitment not to hold someone’s offenses against him or her. This doesn’t mean excusing the offenses. Or even not feeling disappointed in the outcomes. Rather, it has to do with recognizing two key truths:
- All of us are imperfect and are in need of grace at times. Forgiveness is an act of grace (being shown mercy when it wouldn’t be expected). Granting forgiveness is one way we employ the “Golden Rule” taught in the Bible: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12a).
- The one Perfect Judge, God, will deal with injustices in His time. We cannot assume His role as Judge. And we are unable to see the big picture like He does. Furthermore, we can trust however He chooses to deal with injustices in His time.
Forgiveness removes the thorn of resentment. It promotes the healing of your soul. And it’s a reminder of the type of grace God offers to us all.
Dealing with anger and resentment, as well as the many other aspects of grief, is not easy. And it helps to process the feelings, questions, and concerns with others who have gone through it and who are currently going through it. You can find such a group online or in person HERE.
