RELATIONSHIPS
When Adults Have Temper Tantrums
His angry outbursts destroyed our marriage
Maybe it started with my mother. Normally even-tempered, she’d occasionally erupt in fits of anger over something seemingly trivial. As my sister and I looked on wide-eyed, she’d scream and clutch her hair then let forth a torrent of cursing that quickly cowed her daughters into submission.
Years later, married and living in the States, I watched in shock as my husband exploded in uncontrolled and disproportionate rage. While I barely remember what prompted my mother’s outbursts, my husband’s tantrums are easier to recall.
His rage, if I’d confessed to a steamy affair with the next-door neighbour, could not have been more explosive than it was the day I told him to turn left instead of right. Or when I bought the wrong brand of marmalade at the supermarket or overcooked a pizza. Listening to him bellow, I once thought I should have just had the affair.
At no time — with my mother or my husband — did I ever feel physically threatened or in danger — it was just the verbal volatility that I found so alarming. That and the triviality of whatever set it off.
And as hard as it was to understand the degree of anger, it was still harder to accept that five or ten minutes…
