Being angry can feel good. And when we’re in a relationship, it is often our partner who is the focus of our anger. Much like the Dark Side of the Force, anger can be appealing and seductive, but ultimately painful and self-destructive, only without the cool glowing space swords. Being angry feels especially good when we feel we are justified. If we have a clear, objective reason for being angry, we can eliminate ourselves as part of the problem, and see ourselves simply as responding to an external situation that happened to us, when in reality we are often the ones who create these opportunities for anger. We do this by setting anger traps.

An anger trap is when we create a situation that we can react to with anger and feel justified in doing so. Some examples of anger traps:

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? If so, you might be an anger trapper. Just like the French fur traders who........

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