Relationships aren’t just love, connection, and good times. Successful couples also need to be able to navigate difficult emotions. Two of the most challenging are anger and resentment.
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A wife who’s married to an angry man is acutely aware of it. Often, however, she’s reluctant to admit it.
Angry, aggressive behavior by a partner is usually kept secret because it’s embarrassing, shameful, and generally occurs when others aren't around.
Being married to a man with anger issues takes a big toll on a wife, their family, and the angry man in question. Fortunately, there are options that can help each of them.
So, what is it like to be married to an angry man?
Let's take a look.
This story of one wife's experience with her husband's anger is on the mark. The following excerpts are from With This Rage, I Thee Wed, by Kim Barnes (The Oprah Magazine, October 2009).
Given that no person and no marriage is perfect, if you could pick your mate's flaw -- the one flaw you could live with -- what would it be? Nothing so slight as socks on the floor or a residual jones for Pac-Man. I mean the things we keep hidden from even our closest confidants, the things that can prove fatal to a marriage: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, and pride.
"I want a husband like yours," she told me... To Lacey, it seemed a storybook romance. What she didn't know was how close I had come to leaving the marriage she idealized. I'd never told her the flaw I'd chosen -- that Bob was a wrathful man.
And soon after we moved in together, I got my first glimpse of his rage... The lawn sprinkler that failed to oscillate? Bob beat it into the ground, gaskets flying. The chain saw that wouldn't run, he pitched against a tree until it snapped into pieces.
But one afternoon the summer we married, Bob and I were driving back from the store when we found ourselves behind an elderly woman at a traffic light. She hesitated, not sure if she wanted to turn left or right. Bob grimly rode her bumper. "Get off the road, you old bag!" As we roared by, he flipped her off;> on her face was a mix of befuddlement and fear... I sat stunned. Outraged. Speechless. Silently fuming.
Over the next year, Bob's outbursts became more frequent, until one morning, in the middle of an argument whose subject neither of us remembers, he picked up the wooden table at which we were eating breakfast and brought it down so hard it shattered. I backed to the wall. Mouth twisted, Bob grabbed my arms. "Why are you making me do this?" he said through clenched teeth. I shook my head, unable to make sense of the question, afraid to attempt an answer.
Does any of this sound familiar?
If you're married to an angry man some of these words and sentiments likely sound familiar.
These are common descriptions of men who have a hard time controlling their anger. I regularly hear descriptions of:
I also often hear that these behaviors seem focused on one person in particular – the wife of the angry man.
Sadly, anger and abusive behavior often go hand-in-hand.
Anger can quickly rise to the level of abuse if it goes unchecked. Verbal abuse and emotional abuse are most common, but mental and even physical abuse are a risk as well.
Probably one of the most damaging things about the man above, Bob, is the blame he places on his wife, Kim, for his bad behavior.
Why are you making me do this?"
This is a common rationalization in abusive anger and other forms of abuse.
Blaming others is part of the mind games people play to avoid responsibility and uncomfortable feelings, like guilt and shame.
Surely I had enough objectivity, enough perspective, to know that busting out a window with your bare knuckles -- or kicking a hole in a wall, or denting the car hood with your fist -- wasn't standard behavior. And I was beginning to fear that he might turn his rage on me.
Waiting in line at a McDonald's drive-through made Bob furious. His rage was like a sudden squall -- I spent my energy keeping his anger from swamping us all.
Torn between self-doubt and shame, I kept on keeping my secret, though I still longed for someone to tell me: How would I know when it had gone too far?
The answer came one day as Bob and I were driving down the highway to the hardware store. I was fretting, imagining the minor mishap that would turn our little jaunt into hell on wheels (a flat tire, someone's badly parked car, an inept clerk), and wondering aloud if I should have just stayed home. I had become that little old woman at the light, unsure of which way to turn.
Back home, I gave him an ultimatum: See a counselor, or our marriage was over... And maybe this is the difference between a flaw and a fatal flaw. Even though it meant exposing his failures, Bob chose to keep our marriage alive. We made appointments separately and together.
I've come to realize that you never know the secrets of someone else's marriage -- but that when it comes to your own, it's better to break the silence before the silence breaks you. I couldn't hear the truth until I gave it voice, and neither could Bob. By reaching out for help, we chose to leave the isolated island of shame and blame and hitch ourselves to something truer than a perfect marriage: a union defined by our desire to grow beyond our flaws... Today Bob's rages are a thing of the past.
When Lacey turned the tables on me, "What flaw would you choose?", I didn't give it a second thought... "Anything but wrath." And then I told her why. What I saw in her face was disappointment and relief: My marriage wasn't so perfect after all, yet somehow it had survived. Could she, should she allow her soon-to-be ex a chance to redeem himself?
As Kim's story shows, being married to an angry man is really, really hard.
Yes, angry men can change, and they need to.
An angry man will damage or even destroy his relationships, lose friendships, and harm his health if he doesn’t.
Change is crucial – just ask Bob.
Unfortunately, it's very easy to pretend the anger is,
But it inevitably does, again and again.
Most angry men have become so accustomed to anger that they assume it’s just part of their personality. And they may have also grown up in an environment where anger was just a normal part of communicating.
All of these factors can make them blind to seeing that their angry responses aren’t normal or reasonable, which makes getting them to see it as a problem that needs to change really tough.
Real change for anger issues almost always requires assistance. Assistance can take many forms. For instance –
I've worked with a lot wives who can vividly relate to these experiences.
If you could be an angry man with an anger management problem, I hope you'll follow Bob's example and get some counseling help through anger management classes.
If you're a wife like Kim, married to an angry man, do what she did:
Can you relate to any parts of this story? Married to an Angry Man? Please share your experience with others in a comment below.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published December 19, 2009, updated on October 25, 2017, April 19, 2022, and has been updated again with new information for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Relationships aren’t just love, connection, and good times. Successful couples also need to be able to navigate difficult emotions. Two of the most challenging are anger and resentment.
Emotions are tricky things. They can flare up in an instant or slowly build over time, reshaping how we perceive ourselves and the people closest to us. Find out more.
Got a stubborn husband?I know what that’s like. I work with them every day (I used to be one).
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This isn't anger - it is ABUSE. Leave him.
WOMEN
Don’t consent to victimization.
You are obviously more intelligent than the man you are with.
Use your brains, you have them and can use them. YOU CAN
Empower yourself. Get counseling if you need.
There are some people you can't fix, they are broken too broke to repair.
Work on fixing yourself and doing what you need to do.
Repair your wounds (emotional and physical), and protect your children.
Deep down you know what you need to do.
I know, I've been there.
I see this post goes back to 2015 so hope its still going. I have been married for 39 years over the last 12 years my husband has turned so nasty and insulting, i dont look right, my hair is a mess, i dont say the right things, i am not right in the head, i am a fat b*&*h i look like sh*%, my cooking is sh*%, nothing i wear is nice, i cant drive properly, this is just a small amount of what i put up with, he is always right, his language is foul to me, everytime we are out in a car he shouts and swears at everyone on the road which only i can hear his foul language at others. We now sleep in separate bedrooms, we don't sit or walk close to one another, he is always miles ahead. Each day is the same and i really have had enough now, but its not easy to break away on my own, i have no one to talk to about this, my 2 sons are not interested at all both are over run by their wives. I would say he has always been controlling over me and used to tell me how to dress, but over the last few years ive had enough of him and how he feels about me so i deliberately dont follow his rules which he now doesn't like and says i am mental. He is a nasty person and in the beginning would hit me. He has not attempted that for years now. He often speaks of him leaving but he don't go, in the past he has left but comes back a few hours later. I feel like i actually hate him, and am very unhappy, i have been on anti depressants for many years now, but also like the last comment feel trapped, i have been with him since i was 16, i can never tell him how i feel or my day just gets much worse. It is good that i can write this on here without him knowing
Sue my husband in 1987 actuyaly filed for a divorce and pushed me on a bus to my mothers in Virginia for 2 years because as he put it I was incapable of keeping my word to him as my husband. I had promised him the prior month that If he did not insist on going to Rome as he had planned and let a 21 year old Girl and her Fiance' go instead, Neither had near my 33 year old husbands seniority at work That any time, any way, and any where he wanted his vacation I would go and live up to my wedding vows From 7 years before, Be a sex partner and Travel companion without complaint. Even though he had not had a day off since before our wedding even six years later I could not let him do as he wanted about time off the day we landed from Rome. Just so many could have had their plans ruined from their vacations if we had let him have his way to leave that same day for a western road trip, I was begging him to consider taking a vacation after the holiday shutdown instead that winter when most of the plant had no need for a winter vacation with kids, with family plans over holidays, nobody needed him to think he could do as he pleased even though the UAW contract he worked under allowed it. Everyone needed him to consider all points of view first. I was praying he would find a way to go to a tropical beach for a romantic three weeks out of a midwest winter. He had however researched anything like what i had hoped for. He Had found the first picks I suggested Hawaii, Barbadoes, the Caymans , Bahamas , Jamaca all were booked solid, So We started suggested places we could drive to like Vegas, Texas, Florida or even Southern California, He said why should he Ice skate across country and hope to not get caught in a winter storm on the drive. just to go to Something like Vegas Or a place like Florida he had learned to detest and the rest he was not interested in even trying.
I think my story is so similar to yours. I'm married to a pastor, and he seemed a good person in the beginning, but then things changed after marriage.He gets angry very soon Whenever he gets angry, he use to hit me and calls me bad names. Sometimes he tells me that I'm an ugly person and I have nothing good in me. He doesn't trust me and always chick my messages and emails. He have problems with my parents and siblings. I don't know what to do.