Male Anger

Over the last 5 years I have been seeing an increasing number of men who all come with a variation of the same issue: When I am angry about something my spouse has said or done (to me), I usually choose not to voice that anger. I swallow my pride. I don't want to trigger her anger. If I say something, things will get worse. These responses are becoming common-place among many of the men I see in my practice daily. My concern is how many men seem to rationalize their own silence. They seem to do one of two things: Either they simply assume a stoic attitude towards their own anger and decide that they shouldn't voice it (perhaps because they believe that men's should be able to keep their mouths shut); or some of them even assume an attitude of superiority by thinking they are the better person (better than their spouse) for not voicing their anger.

Consider a few snippets from counseling sessions with such men:

A. has been a client for two years. He and his partner are not married, have a young child and currently live together. Their relationship is highly conflictual. A often slips into an aquiescent role in order to avoid escalations with his partner.

A: I was annoyed when I got up this morning to find she had left so many things in the kitchen undone after she was finished. It would be so easy to put lids on things and to put them away. But she doesn't. It makes me angry and I want to tell her. But I know she will just use that against me, may even attack me right back. It is not safe to be angry, because she'll retaliate quickly.

M: You mean you would like to have the space and time to articulate your anger about something without feeling you have to worry your partner will hold your anger against you?

A: Yes, that's exactly right. It just feels like I am not allowed to have those feelings.


Consider T. He and his partner have been married for 10 years. Both have good jobs and their fights often revolve around child-care issues and responsibilities for home and family.

T: I feel like these attacks are coming out of the blue. We may just have a great evening and the next morning she will accuse me of being the worst husband, of not doing anything, of being a bad father, of leaving it all for her. If I fight, that is, if I get angry back, because I feel accused unjustly, she will push me away even more and likely threaten divorce.

M: So it feels like you don't have an opportunity to voice your perspective on the issues she is bringing up?

T: No, I don't have that space. If I do, I am tacitly or openly labeled as anti-feminist if not as a misogynist.

And one last example, S. He and his partner have been married for about two years. They have had a complicated dating period prior to their marriage involving lots of family of origin issues on both sides.

S: I am angry that she is not seeing how much I do for our relationship, for her comfort. I make a lot of money, enough for both of us. I work on the house. But she keeps not being content with things. I am afraid of really voicing these things, because she would get quite angry with me and accuse me of not really wanting to do anything for her.

M: So, essentially what you are hearing is that you're not good enough?

S: Yes, that's how it feels at least. I wish I could say that to her, but I feel strongly that it would only make things worse.


These are just three out of whole slew of male voices I have heard in the past years. I am concerned because what I keep hearing is that men feel defenseless when their spouses attack them (emotionally and physically), flame them on e-mail, bully them, threaten them and belittle them. It concerns me because I don't really believe that men are defenseless. But their sense of not wanting/not being able to fight back is increasing their anger at their spouses and might, in the end, lead to worse explosions.

I have a suspicion about what might be going on here and I want to voice it, even though it might be perceived as highly politically incorrect. Over the course of the last 40 years men have been told that the only emotion they express really well is anger. However, they were also told that their anger is destructive, dangerous and self-centered. They, therefore, were asked to reform their emotional lives, become better at expressing other emotions and, finally, to be less angry. This goal of reducing their anger was especially important for the relationships between men and women. An increasing number of women refused to deal with angry men. Connections were made between a man's anger, domestic violence, rape and even murder. If men wanted to avoid falling in the category of the suspected batterer, etc they did well not to even let on they might be angry at their partner. To top this all off, men were told they had to drop their anger and begin to listen to women.

What we see now is a generation of men who have absorbed these lessons. They choose not to show their anger, not even to let it be known they might be angry. They listen (though they come to their limit quickly) and many of them are tremendously resentful of their partners and the sense of enslavement they feel as they try to make it in their relationships.

It seems so clear now: In all our concern for women and for their enslavement (which helped launch the feminist revolution) in and through patriarchy, we forgot to remind them they, too, had to listen to their male spouses. We forgt to remind them that, though men have in the past often been seen as synonymous with patriarchy, that they are indeed not. In our concern for women we gave them a card blanche for expressing themselves and for having every right to expect their partner will listen to them, will tolerate their anger, their outbursts and threats, and hold still. As a result we have an increasing number of men who are keenly aware of their spouses need for them to listen. But those very same men are keely unaware of their own need to speak about themselves and their concomittant need for their spouse to listen. What they are aware of is the increasing power of their anger over them.

So, while I believe in the continued need for men to learn more about expressing their feelings in a whole and non-threatening way. I believe that it is also high-time for women to learn how to listen. It is too easy to dismiss a man's feelings, particularly his feelings of anger, panic and general crisis as relics from an ancient male past which we believe the cultured male should have overcome by now. It is even easier to label those feelings as dangerous and risky and to outlaw them from our daily discursive interactions with each other.

Can we do this differently? Can we envision first and then implement a culture of mutual respect and awareness of each others' emotional expressiveness. Can we spread the word of a culture of mutual respect, tolerance and acceptance, especially also when it comes to our respective feelings. Women, I believe, have a lot to learn in this respect. And, perhaps, men themselves have to learn how to trust and believe in their feelings rather than estranging themselves from them.

As I am writing this I find myself hoping intensely that my sons will find women who are willing to listen to them, even when they're angry. These women could be friends, spouses, bosses, co-workers, etc. I hope for them that they will not feel they have to check their feelings at the door before they talk to a female.