When Counselors and Pastors Fear Women's Wrath

Saturday, August 24th, 2024

When Jane would be upset, she'd burst in the room in her husband John, it unleash.

No context, no attempt to clarify.

Angry tones, accusations, and insults.

When with the pastor, she'd do the same thing.

And the pastor would either say, "It looks like things are triggering your, so what do you want to not discuss."

In this case, Jane said she didn't want to discuss the finance or the situation that started the conflict, her response to his employment question and contribution, from his perspective, to it.

And that was that.

Three years later, they still haven't discussed it; yet it pops up because John is planning on his own to avoid the mistakes made from her reaction to financial discussions.

Either he just lets things lie, and they lost millions; or when he wants to take things into his own hand so at least his retirement can be covered, jeopardized by the employment issue the pastor has sanctioned to not discuss again, he's vilified.

The problem should be apparent: there is no way to arrive at a shared understanding and agreement if the foundation of the disagreement cannot be revealed.

What is the source of the anger?

Is it justified?

What are the options available for the husband?

Do these feel reasonable for what he sees as the goals and needs for himself and the family?

But, when placed in a conversation, the wife bursts into tears, or tears into the husband, or often some combination of reaction to drilling into the uncomfortable things till there's rage.

Spin it around.

Jane says that Jack has expressed anger at the situation, alot of it due to the fact no one is acknowledging that he is burdening all the outcomes of the loss of the job and the burden has not been properlly addressed on how to move forward.

In response, the pastor spends the next fifteen minutes with the wife: were you physical hurt, were you in physical danger, were you.....

Man's wrath is easily handled and addressed. It's just wrong, and the legal system is over sensitized to it. Even the appearance of anger, even if not directed at the wife, is often weaponized by the church and the therapeutic institutions.

This is not to say that, when there is in fact legitimate harm that something shouldn't be done; that's obvious, and yet to question this reactivity is often placed in the same camp as sanctioning.

It isn't.

Why would saying that something is misplaced, in this case a reaction to anger, be the same as sanctioning the subset of behaviors that lead to actual violence?

The key word is "subset": there's a discomfort to permit a subset, because underlying the ideology is all is bad.

The converse is true: no anger by a woman towards as man can be bad.

Yet, the statistics are coming to light that the opposite is becoming true.

The underlying issue, though, is why do pastors and counselors support at worse or turn the other cheek at best when the woman yells, screams, insults, demands?

This is a misappropriation of the concept in Peter of the woman being the weaker vessel.

They should be treated as such when they are, in fact, weaker.

But, woman are now given a free reign to lash out because no man can resort to physical violence; but the tongue lashing is not seen as violence.

It's just "communicating."

This is the reason why the Communication Facilitation is a flawed and dangerous model for improving relationships.

The basis for angry women, however, largely puts men at a disadvantage in counselors or pastoral contexts for the following reasons.

First, most pastors are men.

By now, anything seen to resist a woman's expression of fear which is the surface justification for wrath is bad. The implicit power dynamics are there, so they must capitulate.

When a woman is in the room to, ostensibly, be the Peacemaker, there's an implicit case of "well, if she's this emotional, she must be right" -- it's very hard for a woman to place another woman who is berating someone else, because it's interpreted as a woman's fear and hurt, rather than a man being attacked.

That self-protective instinct is often in play socially: a common example is when women praise another woman, even if the woman doesn't deserve praise. The self-protectiveness protects themselves, because they need the tribal support and they see themselves in other women.

Consider that the Bible provides warnings in terms of relationships in two very broad buckets for men. Avoid women who are argumentative; and avoid women who are temptresses.

Warnings are there because consequences are bad; but also because they are hard to resist.

So consider the case of temptresses: the consequences of sexual immorality is bad; but it's also worthy of warning because it can be easy for men to be seduced.

What about the case of a quarrelsome wife?

The outcomes are also bad: the marriage will fail and the man leave tattered and torn.

But, also, the resistance must be hard. Meaning, it's hard for a man to reverse the situation, or to weather the storm in an equanimous way. That's why there's a warning to avoid the situation in the first place.

Let's now drill down in terms of what this will mean in real time in a pastor's or counselor's office.

Because of the underlying incentives and dynamics, the moment a woman goes into anger mode, whether in the office or as the topic of conversation (which will trigger the anger mode again), all bets are off. No one will advocate for the man or for the sake of "fighting fair" to restore things, get to a time-out, or get the woman to reason through the situation so that other people can understand.

This will be seen as a lack of empathy on behalf of the counselor.

And since women are making the decisions to stay or go to a given counselor, that ends the relationship.

Counselors, therapists, and pastors are motivated to maintain the relationship, so there's no good incentive for them to press into the foundational problem -- the woman's anger. Which means there is a free-for-all, and this puts men into a defensive situation.

If they attend, the behavior will be supported or at least overlooked.

Perhaps if he takes the initiative he can call a time-out on the bad behavior; but if the primary mode is "Communication Facilitation," the therapist will turn to the wife and ask, "How do you feel about what your husband said about your behavior?"

Guess what the result will be?

More anger, emotion, and protests.

The cycle of fear and the misalignment means that women's wrath will lead to their advantage.

Someone can argue that the wrath is justified, right? Anger is the expression or something else going on, likely a deep hurt.

I would argue that this is true; and this is one tactic that could be taken by a counselor.

The problem is that even if it becomes a deep hurt, the foundation of this still can miss the woman's contribution; it just becomes the man's fault.

This will be the case, even if the man is largely not at fault.

To see why, read further Splitting the Baby in Half.