Cancer Support

I know the social meme about gender roles, but my wife is a therapist, and would argue the point. The subject has come up in conversation between us more than once, and she says that the emotional tool of using anger as a cover for depression, grief/sorrow, and fear is very common and is at least as common in women as men, if not more so.

It is extremely common for families to have internal fights when a central member of the family dies, to fight over the estate for instance. It is easier to experience anger about various family issues than it is to address the grief of loss.

Couples who suffer death of a child wind up in divorce about 80% of the time. Again, anger becomes easier to experience then the pain of their loss, and wives fall prey more often than the husbands do.

As a case in point, my wife is even more prone to using that particular tool than I am. Makes things a little sticky at times when I recognize what she is doing and she doesn't. Vice versa too, of course.