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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Gary Smalley 
 
 
Question: 
 
My husband is an angry person. What can I do? 
 
Answer:   
 
I know it’s not easy to live with an angry person. You walk on eggs, 
You don’t know when he’s going to explode. That’s difficult. It’s really 
hurtful. You feel disconnected when he’s angry. You want to run. You 
wonder if you’re at fault. Or maybe you do say or do something and he 
explodes on you. You’re never quite sure what’s going to happen. Your 
kids are affected by it. You’re really saddened. You want to see it end. 
 
I want to say two very important things to you: One is, there is a way 
to potentially—it’s one of the best ways I’ve ever found—to help a 
person see what they’re doing and the damage they’re doing, and 
actually want to change with the least amount of reaction to you. It’s 
called emotional word pictures. 
 
Secondly, while it’s happening, and if it continues to happen, and you 
want to stay with him for the sake of the children or because you love 
him, and it’s not all the time, there is something you can do very 
specifically, for yourself and for your kids.  
 
I want to start with the second one first. If you are living under those 
conditions, where it’s hurtful from time to time, remember that all of 
our difficulties, and, quote, “bad times” that we have together—and 
it’s certainly a bad time, and difficult, living with an angry person—
those experiences actually help you become a more loving person. It’s 
helpful to know that you’re not helpless in this situation or you’re a 
victim. You’re not a victim. You can actually benefit from his anger. I 
 
 
know that’s hard to believe, but I’ve watched my own life and the life 
of people I counsel learn the skill of “treasure hunting.” Treasure 
hunting basically is, taking a difficult situation, and asking yourself the 
simple question, “How am I becoming more loving because of this 
difficult situation?” It’s really simple. Just start looking at your life and 
seeing, how are you? Are you more sensitive? Are you more 
empathetic, are you more aware, are you more compassionate? Do 
you ever find yourself wanting to hug your girlfriend down the street 
that is going through similar difficulties because you now have more 
compassion? That’s all love. You will be amazed at how many qualities 
of love you can get from being in bad situations. 
 
So, that’s one side of it. The other side is a method I call “emotional 
word pictures.” This is grabbing your husband by the left side of his 
brain and the right side at the same time. You’re giving him logic, 
which men love to have, and you’re giving him emotions at the same 
time. 
 
We have found from research, if you tap a person’s feeling while 
you’re trying to explain difficulties you’re having with them, or 
difficulties they’re making for your family or your life, somehow it goes 
around their mental roadblocks—they don’t react—if you deal with 
feelings.  
 
Let me give you an example. Real simple. My wife thought I was too 
permissive as a parent. I said, “Yeah, if you want to date in the third 
grade, go ahead. I did.” I didn’t really care. You’re fine. But she 
thought, no, that’s probably not a good idea. She was raised with a 
few more rules and little more structure to life than I was.  
 
So, anyway, she came to me one day with a word picture. She said, “I 
feel”—so, it’s feelings—“that I’m a mother bird up in a tree, and I’ve 
got these three little birds that I’m getting food for, and you’re even 
helping get food from time to time, but, you’re always coming into the 
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nest and saying, ‘Come on! Try your wings! There’s a whole world out 
there! Have fun! Get going!’ And they’re twenty feet up in the air. I’m 
with them every day, all day long, and I know when they can fly. And 
they can’t fly right now. So, it would mean so much to me if you would 
just ask me, ‘Is it a good idea to recommend that they do whatever I 
recommend they do at their young age?’”  
 
That really made sense to me. It’s so fascinating. That was probably 
twenty-five years ago. I still remember it. Men tend to remember an 
emotional word picture longer than you can imagine.  
 
Let me give you an example with your husband: Let’s say your 
husband’s a carpenter. So, you want to take your feelings of feeling 
unsafe at home and you’re fearful, and you’re discouraged by the 
whole experience of him coming home and raging from time to time.  
 
So, let’s say he’s a carpenter and frames homes. What would cause 
him to be fearful and discouraged at his work? Well, he’s just framed a 
home, and one of those cylinder blowers blows heat for the wintertime 
is left in this room. And the guy that leaves it there tells him, “Make 
sure you don’t leave this overnight, in case some kid comes in here 
and starts it up and burns the place down.”  
 
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it, nobody ever comes around here.”  
 
But, one of the times he does show up, that thing’s on, or sees 
evidence that it had been on, burns down all four sides of the framing 
he did—he was just ready to put the roof up. What would he feel? He’d 
feel discouraged and he’d feel fearful to even have this guy around any 
more.  
 
What you have to do is things like this: “Honey, how would it make 
you feel if you showed up and all the framing was burned down, and 
there was evidence that this thing did it, and you’d asked the guy not 
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to leave it there. Wouldn’t you feel discouraged? You still have the 
cement slab, but you have to start all over again. Wouldn’t that make 
you feel discouraged, honey?”  
 
“Yes, it would, I’d hate that.” You’ve got to get his emotional juices 
flowing. “Yeah, I’d really hate that, no, no way. If that happened that 
guy won’t work for me!”  
 
Say, “Honey, I know you aren’t aware of this, because you’re a hard 
worker and a great provider, but for our three kids and me, when you 
come home—you don’t do it very often—and you’re really angry and 
you’re going off on us, we feel like you’re that hot cylinder heat 
blowing on us, and we feel like we’re burning down to nothing. We feel 
fearful and disconnected and discouraged when we’re with you. I don’t 
know if that makes sense”—you could say to him—“but that’s how we 
feel.” 
 
You see, feelings are just feelings, they’re not right or wrong. It’s 
really interesting how men respond to that, because they can see it 
logically. There are thousands of these things: Like “zero to ten” is a 
word picture. If you have a headache, “My head’s exploding.” All those 
are word pictures. You use them all the time anyway. Use them to 
communicate with your husband the best you can. 
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