On Honesty and Hypocrisy.

If not for my experiences with God, you would never be reading these words. Glory to God in the highest!

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My wife and I had a productive conversation yesterday about anger.

There was a lot of disagreement. It was not necessarily a fun or happy conversation, at least not at first. We talked about many things that made us angry, some from the past and some from the present.

She was telling me about some things that were going on with someone, and I expressed my anger about it.

She said, “That’s really hypocritical that you’re mad about [X, Y, and Z] because those are all things you’ve done.”

I realized the truth of the matter. “I don’t care. I know that it’s hypocritical. But I am mad about it.”

Later, after learning that my wife was reconciling with this person, I expressed that it would take me a while to accept that, because I was still resentful toward them, and I was actually looking forward to cutting them off.

She said, “That’s really selfish.”

To which I responded, “I know it is. But that’s the truth. I wanted to cut them off; it would have been easier. But I’ll come around. I’ll just need to talk to them and clear the air for myself.”

This is not being quoted verbatim; I just want you, reader, to get the gist of what was expressed.

The emotions we feel are not always comfortable. They are not always fair, and they often are far from it. But they are ours, and we have a right to them.

The second part of my discussion with my wife came when the word “wrong” entered the conversation. I had something that I wanted very strongly to express to someone regarding the past, something about which I harbor a great deal of resentment and pain.

She said, “You need to clarify what you mean by resentment. When you used that word toward me for the first time, I thought it meant ‘hate,’ that you hated me.”

I said, “I’ll clarify what I mean. I’ll clarify that I don’t blame [person]. But I am angry at them.”

I don’t totally recall how the idea of “wrong” came in, but I believe it had something to do with me being angry at someone for something that was out of their control.

I said, “I don’t care. I know it isn’t fair. But I have a lot of anger, and it’s all directed at them.”

We talked about the extent, the magnitude of our anger. The way she expressed it, having anger was okay, up to a certain magnitude. Let’s say, for instance, you got so angry at someone that you wanted to literally take a baseball bat to their car. That would be “wrong,” is what my wife said.

I saw it differently. I separated the feeling from the action. I argued that the action of doing that would be wrong, the action of screaming in someone’s face, threatening them or laying hands on them would be wrong, but feeling that much anger was not wrong. It was real.

If that much anger is indeed experienced, then maybe it shows the depth of the hurt, the depth of the pain caused by that person. And maybe it’s not just over that one event, maybe it’s a lifetime of resentment, always pent up behind a release valve that’s been stopped up for too long.

This is why people who never express their anger go off like atomic bombs over little things. When you learn to express your anger regularly and in the moment, it eventually becomes like a grenade, or even a tiny firecracker (credit to Radical Honesty, by Brad Blanton for this metaphor).

But my point is, it’s okay to feel anger that makes you want to do violent things. It’s okay to feel rage. THAT DOES NOT JUSTIFY VIOLENT ACTION. It does not justify swearing and screaming at someone, making threats, or hitting them.

So my wife and I were having this discussion, and we disagreed. I told her that; I said that I don’t think it’s wrong to feel the way I feel.

She asked, “Well, what does ‘wrong’ mean to you?”

For some reason, it hit me all at once. “It’s not wrong!” I shouted into the phone, my voice rapidly raising. “I’ve been fighting against that my whole life! I don’t care if it’s not fair! I don’t care! It’s not their fault but I don’t fucking care! I’m so fucking angry, and it’s not wrong! It’s not wrong!”

I was raging. I was screaming and slamming my palm on the steering wheel. In the midst of my tirade I uttered something that surprised me, because I don’t think these words had ever come out of my mouth:

“I didn’t deserve it! Goddammit, I didn’t fucking deserve it!”

I broke down into violent sobs and tortured wails. Another layer of pain slowly peeled back from the onion that is my life.

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It is incredibly hypocritical of me to say this based on how I’ve been in the past, but no one, no human being deserves to have their emotions silenced. Nobody. I say this with no qualification or exception.

How you express your emotions is a different story, and it’s not okay to harm people because you’re angry or hurt by them. But you, reader, and everyone else… no one deserves to have their emotions silenced.

I realize that this has been a problem for me in the past, and to everyone whose emotions I’ve tried to dismiss or invalidate, I apologize. To my wife, I apologize.

I spent so long bottling up my emotions for the sake of “keeping the peace” that I resented people who didn’t. Those words surprise me, even as I write them, but they resonate with truth. I resented people for having emotions, because I was never allowed. Why couldn’t everyone just bottle their shit up, like I did? Why couldn’t we all live happy little fake fucking lives, never stirring the pot.

I don’t know if this is a gender thing, but I suspect it is. I suspect that men dismiss the emotionality of women for the same or similar reasons that I did.

“Why can’t you just be logical?” we say or imply, while we let anger build up and influence every area of our lives. Maybe it’s because we don’t even necessarily see anger as an “emotion” but as a reaction. I don’t know where all this comes from.

Men in this country don’t start off withholding their emotions. Boys cry, until a certain age where they’re taught that it is no longer okay. I guess I never had it beaten out of me. But even though I had releases for certain things, I still was quiet about everything else.

I never expressed disappointment or anger toward people. I’m still working on it now. In order to deal with the cognitive dissonance that comes with being angry or disappointed but wanting to keep the peace, I put people on pedestals and dug myself into a hole. I let my emotions eat me up from the inside for the sake of maintaining the status quo.

It’s a miserable feeling. I don’t ever want to do it again. But it’s a process.

I’m making a habit of telling the truth. I’m making a habit out of being emotionally honest. It’s going to take time before I get good at it, before it becomes second nature. But it is worth it.

I dream of a world where people can be honest with one another, where women can be angry and where men can cry. Where you can recognize that maybe your emotions aren’t fair, and that’s okay. Where we give each other time to process our pain and sadness, where we’re willing to listen, to a man or a woman, about what they’re going through, and to just… accept it.

This is my dream. I’ll sit here and build what I can in my corner of the world and try to reach out. I’m not a man of infinite patience; I can tell you that now. I will fail, and I will come up short. But for God’s sake, if you need to talk, talk. If you have something against me, tell me. Even if I can only listen and validate one person’s feelings, I’ll do it. Hopefully my wife would tell you I’m getting better at this.

I don’t know what else I want to say. Your feelings are valid, and I’ve been part of a system that tells us (and teaches us to tell each other) that they aren’t.

I’m dreaming of a new world, a new reality. Jesus, in Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” He speaks about the truth, and about being the truth (John 14:6). So let’s make a little substitution:

“Come to the truth, all you who are weary and burdened, and the truth will give you rest.”

Maybe that seems like a bit of a stretch to you, but not to me. Part of what I mean by “truth” is what I’ve been talking about this whole time: emotional honesty. This requires a lot of work. Many are going to have to make changes in order to bring about what amounts to nothing less than a cultural shift. Not everyone will want to be a part of it, but for those that do, come on down.

Let’s grow together.

Amen.