Anger is honest but slow. By the time it arrives, the moment it belonged to has already closed. This is why angry people so often say the right thing at the wrong time, or the wrong thing at exactly the worst time.
The instruction is not to be a person who never gets angry. That person does not exist and would be poor company if they did. The instruction is to widen the gap between the arrival of anger and the use of your mouth. Three breaths is usually enough. Three breaths is nothing, and it is the whole difference between a difficult afternoon and a difficult decade.
Anger is a message that arrives after the meeting has ended. What to do with mail that comes too late.
Notice also what anger is protecting. Underneath it there is almost always something softer and less flattering: fear of being dismissed, of being replaced, of not mattering. Address that and the anger has nothing left to do.
A relationship does not break from conflict. It breaks from conflict that never finishes. Finish them.
