Speak harshly to no one, or the words will be thrown right back at you.

Quarreling talk is painful, for you get struck by rods in return.

If, like a flattened metal pot you don’t resound, you’ve attained a little nirvana; in you there’s found no quarrel.

The Buddha; Dhammapada 133–134

Probably nothing is more destructive, when marital conflict strikes, then anger and reactivity.

As soon as it’s given into the chances of reaching mutual understanding, of restoring connection, or finding a resolution plunge. In tandem, the likelihood of escalating suffering, of saying or hearing hurtful things, and even of giving or receiving a damaging emotional injury which could maim or even kill the relationship increases with shocking rapidity. Whatever the problem, anger won’t help.

In the absence of anger things may still hurt. They may not even be resolved. But at least the one who don’t get angry keeps their self-respect and can sleep knowing they didn’t create any more damage, burn bridges or close off opportunities.

Before sharing a few tips on how to actually let go of anger in the moment, we should note that there is a powerful mythos in our culture which runs contrary to all of what I’ve argued here: the myth of redemptive violence.

This myth, which is repeated endlessly in Hollywood movies and enacted every millisecond somewhere in a cutting Twitter jab- tells us that if we hit hard enough- strike with a sharp enough witticism- hurt with enough shock- we will wake the person from the wrong path we believe they’re on.

We are too angry to properly assess where they’re actually at, of course, but leave that aside for now. If we hit them just right we’ll get our way. Or justice will be done. Or something like that. All evidence to the contrary.

We see this myth play out uncountable times a day in ways that accomplish nothing, in calls for blood in the news media or talk radio, and even, arguably, in our whole punishment-based justice system, but let’s not get too far afield.