The Wrathful Marriage

Most couples struggle with anger at some time in their relationship. Anger is a universal human feeling that arises from a sense of injury. In any relationship, many experiences will provoke our anger. Christian theology has historically made a distinction between anger and wrath—the latter being a serious and destructive sin. It’s useful to make this distinction in order to differentiate between your feelings of anger, and the activity of wrath.

 

Anger can be a good thing in a marriage. An angry outburst spontaneously caused by hurt feelings, may clear the air, leading to apologies and commitment to work harder together.

 

But when anger leads you to deliberately seek to hurt your spouse--to deliberately belittle them, or to hurt them because they hurt you, it becomes wrath. Such painful words, once uttered, cannot be easily apologized for, and even when forgiven may leave emotional scars and bruises that surface again and again later in the relationship.

 

Worse, as a marriage becomes mired in more and more destructiveness, the individuals find themselves constantly bickering without any understanding of how to fix the growing breach between them.

 

When the partners in a marriage start trying to prove that they are in the right or superior to their partner, marital relations can quickly degenerate into a vicious game with only one winner and a loser. Some spouses even have battle plans laid out before the argument begins, or spend no time listening because they are planning their retorts. Such individuals do not listen to one another, and cannot even hear one another, and definitely are not empathizing with one another. 

 

Wrathful spouses blame their partners for their own angry responses, and may even insist that their hurtful retorts are the only possible response they can make. But while their damaging words may be the only responses they see as available to them, this is only because they want to satisfy their desire for vengeance and inflict a harsher injury than the one they themselves received.

 

A classic example of the wrath-filled marriage is that of George and Martha from Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

 

The play takes place after a dinner party when George and Martha, who have been married for more than twenty years, invite another couple for a drink. George and Martha have an angry, volatile relationship into which they seek to enmesh their guests. In the play, each of the two main characters is playing to both the audience and the other couple, Nick and Honey, in an attempt to persuade them that they are the victim in the relationship rather than an aggressor.

 

Over the years many critics have viewed Martha's more actively aggressive style as evidence that she is the initiator. But within the therapeutic community, it is often observed how George's passively aggressive style perpetuates the conflict and feeds the escalation to a point at which they can no longer return to that earlier time in their marriage when they fell in love and decided to build a lifelong marriage based on mutual vision of the future (it is implied that their vision included children, as well as greater literary success by George, and their failure to achieve these things has made them bitter).

 

George hurts Martha by patronizing and correcting her, telling her she doesn't say nice things to guests, and reminding her that she is six years older than him, and that she will always be...old. Martha reminds George that he never lived up to his professional potential, attempts to dominate him by demanding kisses, insisting that he make her a drink, and ordering him to answer the door. 

 

As Paul Watzlawick states in his book Pragmatics of Human Communication,"their respective tactics interlock neatly. Martha is crass, overtly insulting, and very directly, almost physically, aggressive." George, in contrast, "adroitly sets traps, using passivity, indirectness, and civilized restraint as weapons...he insults her articulately...but more often making certain her behavior in insulting him does not go unnoticed."

 

Deeply involved in their rivalry they become more and more callous toward one another and focused on the goal of outdoing their spouse. Each grasps at any means to get at the other. Even sexuality appears as just another means to fight.

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For example, when Martha says, "Hello. C'mon over here and give your Mommy a big sloppy kiss," George evades obeying her command by replying sarcastically, "Well, dear, if I kissed you I'd get all excited...I'd get beside myself, and I'd take you, by force, right here on the living room rug..."

 

There is no tenderness in the narrow range of responses available to this wrath-filled couple; even the intimate act of lovemaking becomes a weapon with which to impale the other.

 

George: (Barely contained anger now): You can sit there in that chair of yours, you can sit there with the gin running out of your mouth, and you can humiliate me, you can tear me apart...ALL NIGHT...and that's perfectly all right...that's O.K....

Martha: YOU CAN STAND IT!

George: I CANNOT STAND IT!

Martha: YOU CAN STAND IT!! YOU MARRIED ME FOR IT!! (A silence)

George: (Quietly) That is a desperately sick lie.

Martha: DON'T YOU KNOW IT, EVEN YET?

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Martha has been married for over 20 years to George and recognizes in him the same need she shares, that is her need to express her wrath. She attempts to use her insight to connect while also besting him by showing off how much better she knows him than he knows himself. But George cannot let her "win" that small victory and lose face, even as it might form a liaison between them, a connection over what they are seeking in marriage.

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George: (Shaking his head) Oh...Martha.

Martha: My arm has gotten tired whipping you.

George: (Stares at her in disbelief) You're mad.

Martha: For twenty-three years!

 

He denies her insight because it paints him as the aggressor, a role he adroitly keeps her in while portraying himself as the victim and victor of their repartee.  And so he escalates each interaction by turning tables on her and accuses her of being the one who is "insane". Predictably, Martha is enraged at being outdone by George.

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George: You're deluded...Martha, you're deluded.

Martha: IT'S NOT WHAT I'VE WANTED.

George: I thought at least you were...on to yourself. I didn't know. I...didn't know.

Martha: (Anger taking over) I'm on to myself.

George: (As if she were some sort of a bug) No...no...you're...sick.

Martha: (Rises -- screams) I'LL SHOW YOU WHO'S SICK!  [pp 152-153]

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Within this passage the audience is able to see how each partner believes they are responding in the only means left within their marriage -- Martha as serving George's need to be a whipping boy and George as the victim parrying Martha's attacks. Each sees him or herself as responding to the other but is blind to their role as a stimulus to the other's actions. The competition to be the victim, the misunderstood and unfortunate spouse who stands by their “sick” partner becomes clear to the audience but not to either partner.

 

George: Once a month, Martha! I’ve grown used to it…once a month and we get Misunderstood Martha, the good-hearted girl underneath the barnacles, the little Miss that the touch of kindness’d bring to bloom again. And I’ve believed it more times that I want to remember, because I don’t want to think I’m that much of a sucker. I don’t believe you…I just don’t believe you. There is no moment… there is no moment anymore when we could…come together.

 

George almost taunts Martha with his knowledge of what he realizes she needs and that he is too afraid of her gaining the upper hand to let her have.

 

Martha: (Alarmed again): Well, maybe you're right, baby. You can't come together with nothing, and you're nothing! SNAP! It went snap tonight at Daddy's party. (Dripping contempt, but there is fury and loss underneath it) I sat there at Daddy's party, and I watched you...I watched you sitting there, and I watched the younger men around you, the men who were going to go somewhere. And I sat there and I watched you, and you weren't there! And it snapped! It finally snapped! And I'm going to howl it out, and I'm not going to give a damn what I do, and I'm going to make the damned biggest explosion you ever heard.

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Martha makes sure that George suffers for his intimate knowledge of what she needs -- kindness and understanding -- by retaliating in a precise way to inflict more injury than she'd received when he'd thrown her need back at her.

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George: (Very pointedly) You try it and I'll beat you at your own game.

Martha: (Hopefully) Is that a threat, George? Hunh?

George: That's a threat, Martha.

Martha: (Fake spits at him) You're going to get it, baby.

George: Be careful, Martha...I'll rip you to pieces.

Martha: You aren't man enough...you haven't got the guts.

George: Total war?

Martha: Total. (Silence.  They both seem relieved...elated)

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So their verbal battle continues to escalate. For many wrath-filled couples it might end there for the time being. On the other hand they may continue to fuel the battle each round becoming more and more violent until physical aggression takes place.

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Martha    (Tenderly, moves in to touch him) Please, George, no more games; I...

George    (Slapping her moving hand with vehemence) Don't you touch me! You keep your paws clean for the undergraduates!

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George doesn't trust effort at Martha's tenderness. They have established no forum for coming together, so there is no way of knowing if Martha's intentions were honorable or another means of "getting" George.

 

Martha: (A cry of alarm, but faint)

George: (Grabbing her hair, pulling her head back) Now, you listen to me, Martha; you
have had quite an evening...quite a night for yourself, and you can't just cut it off whenever you've got enough blood in your mouth.  We are going on, and I'm going to have at you, and it's going to make your performance tonight look like an Easter pageant.

 

Interestingly George brings up Easter, the Christian initiated holiday reenacted annually on the recognition of the one who did lay down his life to take up the sins of all others. This is something he is not willing to accept from Martha nor do himself. But rather he insists she keep battling with him until he is clearly the victor.

 

George: Now I want you to get yourself a little alert. (Slaps her lightly with his free hand) I want a little life in you, baby. (Again)

Martha: (Struggling) Stop it!

George: (Again) Pull yourself together! (Again) I want you on your feet and slugging, sweetheart, because I'm going to knock you around, and I want you up for it. (Again; he pulls away, releases her; she rises)

Martha: All right, George. What do you want, George?

George:  An equal battle, baby; that's all.

Martha:  You'll get it!

George:  I want you mad.

Martha:  I'M MAD!!

George:  Get madder!

Martha:  DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT!

George:  Good for you, girl; now, we're going to play this one to the death.

Martha:  Yours!

George:  You'd be surprised.

 

Sadly, over my years as a therapist I have seen several couples caught up in the sin of wrath within their marriage. George's comment, "play this one to the death" is the ultimate danger if one is not jailed first. So often it is impossible to separate these couples and get them to remove themselves from the battle even to preserve their own lives.

 

This marriage has given in to wrath — uncontrollable, and unjust anger expressed by one or both of the spouses. As always, sin is about how you act—toward yourself and others—not how you feel. In other words, it’s not wrong to feel anger, but it is wrong to express it in ways that hurt yourself or others.

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Wrath occurs when

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• your of anger is all out of proportion to the situation

• you seek vengeance rather than justice

• you seek to inflict a greater injury on the person toward whom your anger is directed than whatever injury they inflicted upon you.

 

In wrathful marriages, the causes of excessive anger often have little to do with the spouse at whom they are directed. Something the spouse does triggers a tremendous reaction that may have its roots in emotional wounds suffered by their partner in the past.

 

But wrath is not always about uncontrolled expressions of rage. Wrath can be hot and “in your face” but it can also be cold and distant, nursing emotional wounds and quietly planning revenge. Either way, its defining characteristic is the inflicting of pain, whether physical or emotional.  Wrathful husbands and wives find themselves nursing their injuries and rejoicing in the setbacks and injuries suffered by their spouses.

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The wrathful often feel motivated by a sense of injustice. But wrath is never motivated by the justice of God. It is part of the tit-for-tat “justice” that is part of humanity’s fallen nature. It is the same "justice" of Cain’s descendant Lamech, who threatens that if anyone harm one of his family, he will harm seven of theirs (regardless, note, of their individual guilt or innocence).

 

An especially disturbing form of wrath is domestic violence, or intimate partner violence, which affects millions of women and men each year. It may include physical abuse, sexual abuse, threat of physical or sexual abuse, and emotional abuse. The results of such abuse are devastating, not only to the abused person(s) but also to non-abused children who grow up in such homes. The results can also be deadly—it is estimated that around the world, 4,000 women die annually due to domestic violence.