Women are just as scary when mad!

Are you scary when angry? From physical to verbal abuse, from nasty tricks to humiliating scenes, is your temper getting the better of you? Men talk about women and women about themselves when anger in their lives threatened to destroy it all. By Smita Singh

Angry Women = Scary Women
When Supriya started to realize she had a temper she was 12, when she decided she liked her aggression, she was 26 and climbing the work ladder fast, when she realized she had hit her daughter almost everyday during the summer vacations, she was 32 and her daughter was 4.

“Both my parents had a lot of latent as well as overt aggression and that seeped into me very early. I was also bullied in school as a kid, so in my work place I turned it all out and the sense of power and confidence it gave me was exhilarating.” By the time her husband, understanding to a large extent and usually capable of keeping her in good humor, realized the child had no such defense or guile, Supriya was ready to listen.

“Motherhood took a toll on me. I felt frustrated, incapable of controlling a situation, a baby for god’s sake! I would yell so loudly, erupt in such dramatic ways that both my husband and child started to keep a distance, of course that aggravated me more.” Supriya remembers pinching her daughter hard while watching a movie in the theatre to keep the child from complaining. “Back home at night when I was changing her clothes, I noticed so many places on her arm that had turned red and blue. I was inconsolable for days.”

Supriya has since attended seminars, yoga sessions and little by little worked her anger out in different ways, although she admits there’s a long way to go.

You duck when things come flying, and it’s not funny
Suraj was 3 years into his marriage when he felt desperate enough to leave his job and move to another city to get away. ‘She does not work, so I send her money instead. We had an arranged marriage and I think there will be too many questions if I decided to walk out formally. I once share with a friend and all I got was ‘You are scared of your wife?’ It’s very hard to explain.’ Suraj had been struggling from the first six months of their marriage in which he had witnessed more scenes than in his entire lifetime. “It’s not funny when someone goes completely nuts, looking deranged and sets out to break everything you own. If I ever attempted to over power her in any way it would get worse and it was always my fault that I got her this mad.”

Suraj himself acknowledges his shortcomings- unhappy with the match he was negligent, infuriatingly obstinate and sarcastic when they sat down to discuss their problems. “But none of it, at least in my eyes justifies her behavior because she destroyed my reputation where we lived, I became a laughing stock in office because my colleague shared the same apartment complex. She would threaten to cut herself up with a knife if I so much as touched her - in anger, or to walk out at one in the morning and wake the neighbors if we had a disagreement or I refused to give in on things big and small.” It would eventually build up in such a messy situation that he would drive off, leave her alone to cool down and come back to pick up the pieces later.

“It was not a difficult decision for me to move away, honestly. I was sick of never being able to relax in my own house, always waiting for some ticking bomb to explode.” Suraj has found a temporary haven away from his marriage, but he knows its not going to last forever.

Silence bigger than violence?
Rahul and Pooja hold very different opinions on what breaks a marriage- is it the cold aloofness that he emanated every time they had an argument or the passionate and well, a little aggressive reactions from her side that were inexplicably threatening to him?

“His response to every disagreement was to take on this stoic, hurt demeanor and shut all forms of communication. So while I do realize that my responses went out of hand and I do have a problem in the way I deal with my temper, he was no help in relieving the symptoms. He felt it would belittle him in some way to make a little room,” says Pooja. While she feels it was his cold indifference and vengeful silence that did their relationship in, Rahul believes adults should be accountable for their actions.

He argues, “How can I reach out to a person who wouldn’t give me my time or space to come around and would instead start to bang on doors swearing at me loudly? Sometimes she provoked me deliberately to bring me down to her level, said horrible things about my family and me.”

Pooja of course has a different account of things. “I didn’t need to seek help since we both had too many differences and there was no point in opening up and making myself vulnerable for this person I am not even sure I want to be with. Perhaps it’s something I need to do at my own pace at my own time.”

Whether it was his deliberate attempts to bring out the worst in her, or her temper tantrums themselves, they are no longer together and neither one regrets the break up.