12-steps 101
Reading them doesn't help. Doing them helps, and you can't do them alone. You need a group.
Our acting out is a symptom, we are trying to release our pain and frustration. We just as easily, and maybe as often, use other escapes as well. That could be smashing something, or just plain wasting time.
We need a release because we are full of restlessness, irritibility, and discontent. RID. Why do we have this?
Because of our EGO. We want everything in the world to go OUR way. But, it doesn't. So, everything disappoints us and makes us resentful or afraid.
When you can put down your ego, when you can accept life on G-d's terms, then you stop having so much RID. It's a process, and doesn't go away all at once. Little by littler, it gets better. But noticably so. We act out less. We start feeling overall more content and satisfied with life. More patient.
When you don't have so much RID, you don't act out so much anymore either.
And, by the way, you're wife can't make you angry. It is in our power to choose a different response. We can choose to accept life, on G-d's terms. And, remember, your wife is only a reflection of yourself. She's a magnifying mirror, so that we have some hopes of notiing our own faults as we go through life, and fixing them.
--Eye.
