Purification of Anger

In Purification of the Heart it says:

 

As for the swelling ocean of all of these diseases, I mean anger; if you come to its shore, you’ll see great astonishments.

 

Its waves and everything else about it are overflowing. So say of it what you will without constraint.

 

It has two treatments: one of them removes it altogether without trace. The other suppresses it should it manifest itself.

 

To be adorned with the ornament of its cure, remember the extensive praise lavished upon forbearance and humility in Sacred Law, as well as in the poetry and prose of the wise. Indeed, remember that all of the prophets have been depicted as having both qualities.

 

Repel [anger] by perceiving at its onset that there is no one doing anything in reality except the Almighty; also by performing ablution with cold water, keeping silent, lying down (if one is sitting) and sitting (if one is standing). It will pass by doing these things, and also by seeking refuge in Allah as was mentioned in the tradition.

 

In realizing that dealing with this situation that there is a lot of anger involved, I must first realize that I get angry in this situation because I feel violated of my rights as a husband. The first and most obvious reality is that I have no rights on her. The Iddat period has passed so in essence she is free to do whatever she wants to do and I have no right to get upset about it. I have no right to get upset about it and in fact she had asked me to divorce her long before this, but we were still inside of the Iddat period so in essence I have NO right to be upset about any of her actions at all, with the exception of a two week period.

 

Similarly she is in the same boat. She has no rights on me either so by the same token I am free to do whatever I want as well. The only thing that continues to be a ball and chain in this situation and prolonging the whole thing is the STATE and the slow-behind divorce process. So I believe that once we allow that to set in we can begin to decide how we want to move forward either together or separately.

 

It was posed by a good friend that we go forward with the amnesia effect, meaning that this entire Bahrain period should just be forgotten and I believe that it could have been had there not been further transgressions. I have no problem with the transgressions that happened before we came to an agreement of trust; it is the ones that I was assaulted with after that agreement that cause me such anguish. So if we were to get back together we will have to open the book and see what is present before us and then analyze if we indeed truly want to go forward.