When Men Are Mad

Many men are prone to mood swings. So are women but at least we have hormones to blame. And there’s probably some scientific explanation for male tantrums but I’m not interested to explore the causation or the processes involved. I want to understand how to react to those sudden changes in the mood that come out of nowhere and pass as abruptly. It seems like trying to prevent them is useless: sometimes the most harmless comment or action of mine provoke the undesired reaction – he stops talking and acts like he is so offended. Yet frequently, upon digging deeper, I discovered I wasn’t really the cause. I was more of an excuse to vent, the last drop so to say, because something bad happened at work and he was trying to cope but it only took a spark for all the stressing-out to come exploding to the surface.

My dad is very moody, so is my husband; and I notice a sprout of bad-mood-caused-meanness in my son, especially when he is tired or had a bad day at school. I have more patience for my son because he is yet to learn to deal with stress without taking it out on others. I let my mom deal with my dad because his “silent days” affect her more than anyone else. It’s my husband who I have to deal with, but do I?

When I first encountered his mood swings it bothered me a lot. I had to deal with them, I had to do something. And I did try a number of things: asking questions (that only annoyed him more), being all nice and supportive (I didn’t last too long if I saw no reaction from him), confronting him (always ended in a fight yet he barely ever gave out his true reasons so it was a fight about nothing). What made the whole situation worse was that I felt guilty – no matter how many times I would tell myself I did nothing wrong, I still felt like I did. And I wanted to fix it but I didn’t understand what it was that required fixing. That and his contagious glum would make me irritable and at times very miserable.

And then I watched my mom trying “to fix” a similar problem. I saw how her questions “Is something wrong? Did I upset you? Has something happened?” annoyed the crap out of my dad. But I also noticed certain satisfaction: it does feel good to sulk when someone is helping you to feel all righteous about your bad mood by acting guilty.

So I trained myself to withdraw at the first sign of my husband’s mood shift. It can mean shutting up in the middle of a sentence or having dinner in my room all by myself. I leave him alone to sort out whatever it is that’s causing his bad mood. I choose not to be involved, not even think about it - it’s like I go on vacation even though physically I’m still in the house. I don’t engage in guessing what’s going on, or sorting out my recent actions or words. I protect myself because I did nothing wrong to provoke it and even if I did, there’s always a civil way to talk about it.

I think my lack of reaction annoyed him at first: he wanted me to say something so that he could “act out”. But I refused to be a detonator of the forthcoming fight. And he had no choice but to wait till his internal storm subsided and he was back to his true calm self. Then he would talk to me nicely and might even mention why he was so down the previous couple of days. Or he might not and just let it all pass. I leave the choice to him just like I choose not to be a participant or the victim of the mood swings, which, even if it seems like it, have nothing to do with me.