Men losing their tempers?
Submitted June 17, 2020, 3:34 a.m. by ThrowRAnewmommyHow normal/acceptable is it? Me and my baby's dad (ex boyfriend) got in a huge fight the night we broke up. I fought with him too so it's partially my fault but he yelled at me and lost his temper in a way I've never seen before. Honestly I was freaked out. I've never seen him so loud and mad, he's normally just quiet and reserved. It was also scary because he's over a foot taller than me and he picked me up and carried me and tried to hold me to keep me from leaving. He didn't hurt me but I was still freaked out.
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This is abusive and controlling. This is not normal behavior at all.
That's not normal or acceptable behavior and good on you for making him an ex.
Even my Nigel has a temper and an expectation when thwarted to throw a tantrum. Male socialization trains men to use violence or aggression as the first response to any negative emotion.
That's the thing, he'd never done anything like that before. He's really not an angry aggressive guy, even when he's upset normally he just turns it in on himself and gets quiet. Are most guys that aggressive all the time?
Depression is just anger turned inward. I have found most people are deeply angry and frustrated. But men in particular have been told they have dominion over the earth and all its inhabitants and so when natural law doesnât conform to their expectations or their first instinct is to lash out at the world. This mind set unfortunately also actively delays moral and ego development and differentiation. It seems to me that men are socially constrained to stage 1-4 of ego development and itâs the rare man who can get to stage 5. Sorry for the lazy reference.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loevinger%27s_stages_of_ego_development
He was probably holding that in for awhile, and that's why it was so bad when it finally came out. Bottling up feelings is a common issue especially among men. They really aren't taught emotional regulation enough. But especially the conservative men, are taught to repress instead.
This is a myth, one that helps abusers and hurt women. Please reconsider.
Specifically, #4 under the section MYTH OF ABUSERS of the Bancroft book Why Does He Do That? inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
"My colleagues and I refer to this belief as âThe Boiler Theory of Men.â The idea is that a person can only tolerate so much accumulated pain and frustration. If it doesnât get vented periodicallyâkind of like a pressure cookerâthen thereâs bound to be a serious accident. This myth has the ring of truth to it because we are all aware of how many men keep too much emotion pent up side. Since most abusers are male, it seems to add up.
But it doesnât, and hereâs why: Most of my clients are not usually repressed. In fact, many of them express their feelings more than some nonabusive men. Rather than trapping everything inside, they actually tend to do the opposite: They have an exaggerated idea of how important their feelings are, and they talk about their feelingsâand act them outâall the time, until their partners and children are exhausted from hearing about it all. An abuserâs emotions are as likely to be too big as too small. They can fill up the whole house. When he feels bad, he thinks that life should stop for everyone else in the family until someone fixes his discomfort. His partnerâs life crises, the childrenâs sicknesses, meals, birthdaysânothing else matters as much as his feelings.
It is not his feelings the abuser is too distant from; it is his partnerâs feelings and his childrenâs feelings. Those are the emotions that he knows so little about and that he needs to âget in touch with.â My job as an abuse counselor often involves steering the discussion away from how my clients feel and toward how they think (including their attitudes toward their partnerâs feelings). My clients keep trying to drive the ball back into the court that is familiar and comfortable to them, where their inner world is the only thing that matters."
Thank you!
For anyone who needs it:Full text of "Lundy Why Does He Do That"
https://archive.org/stream/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/Lundy_Why-does-he-do-that_djvu.txt
Sounds like this isn't what OP's husband does though.
There are legitimately males and females that do often internalize/repress emotions, but they still come out in sideways outbursts at some point.
Both your comment (people who externalize their emotions) and the one you're replying to (people who often repress and internalize their anger and emotions) are both actual ways people try to cope.
To be clear, I'm not condoning either type of behavior as healthy or acceptable.
How would OP know about him supposedly turning it inwards if he actually was? When we say internalised/repressed, we mean it, we don't mean passive-aggression. That's externalised. That's often very threatening!
It sounds exactly like him.
Exactly! The core issue is entitlement and dehumanization (of the woman). He feels ENTITLED to erupt in abusive anger because sheâs not an equal person and her feelings donât matter.
My husband never loses his temper with me. We've been together 15 years and we disagree occasionally but he's never raised his voice or his hand, even when he's frustrated. He self-sooths and we talk it out.
I have told him several times that I will leave immediately if he ever expresses violence around me, and he says he believes me. It comes up sometimes when we talk about other people or see something on the news .
Well, for comparison, when the men I know get really angry... they talk in an angry voice and say how upset they are... They might raise their voices somewhat, as does anyone in an argument, but they don't shout. Not once. Nor have they ever attempted to physically restrain me.
lol well you said you were provoking him, what did u expect? u also didnt even mention what the fight was about
The fight was about our relationship. He told me that he didn't want a kid even though he told me he did and that he didn't like what our relationship was now that we have a baby. I was mad at him because I did most of the work and chores and took care of him and the baby and didn't get any support during and after my pregnancy. I started packing my stuff and the baby's stuff to leave because I couldn't be with him if he doesn't want my baby and that's when he got really upset and tried to stop me.
wow, yikes. so when you got pregnant, did you discuss the option of abortion with him? if that wasnt an option, that could have been why he said he wants the baby. but that sounds really sad and messed up, especially since he didnt support you during and after pregnancy.
i guess you were right to leave, cause thats not fair to you. he couldve stepped up and manned up but he chose not to cause its easier that way.
I was clear to him that I wasn't going to terminate the baby and that he had the option to leave. Obviously our baby wasn't planned, so naturally I knew that he might not think the same way about being a dad. So I understand him when he says that. But what I'm upset about now is that he insisted he did want to be a dad to our baby and continued on that way until this fight. For me, my anger was about how I felt almost led on by him because he spent over a year still telling me he was going to be a dad and my boyfriend all while I believed that and so was willing to pick up after him and excuse his bad behavior. I guess I am naive because I thought he was going to change even though his actions said different things than his words did.
Well, if he was willing to change he should have actually done something about it. his loss. you did the right thing leaving him.
If his actions did not match his words, at best, he has poor self awareness, at worst he was intentionally lying and manipulating you because he still wanted access to you for xyz reason.
Throw the whole man out.
In my experience it is normal but not acceptable. All the guys I know yell, throw things, and destroy property when they get mad. Many harm animals, several harm people.
Not normal behaviour.
Itâs very common, but not acceptable.
I feel like a grown man should be able to control himself well enough not to shout. it's ok to feel upset about things but when you raise your voice to somebody- especially the person you're supposed to love, care for and cherish- that's very alarming to me. I don't remember the last time I shouted at somebody and it would be a huge red flag to me if somebody shouted at me. It's a very foreign concept to me now in adulthood that somebody would shout at me and it's completely unacceptable to me in any context.
You are right to be freaked out.
What concerns me most us that he physically restrained you and picked you up âto keep you from leavingâ. My dad did the same shit to me as a kid. Itâs fucked up and its abuse.
Men express anger more than women, so I'd consider it more common for them to lose their tempers. Especially when you look to other countries and see the awful things they do to women that are almost common place there. Then look at all these angry male movements against feminism and women having rights. When you look past their bs, you see the "women are more emotional than men" lie is just that. A lie. A projection. Men are very emotional creatures and they express much of this through anger. I wouldn't say losing their temper the way your ex did is common (unless you're from one of those countries where it actually is) but among the general male population, yes. Some places don't expect them to control themselves, and we're seen as play things to be treated however they see fit. That's where it's the most common. Where men are not taught that they need to control their emotions. So really, how acceptable depends on where you're from and you're culture.