The Angry Man in Your House

"If you grow up with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house"

This statement has caused plenty of controversy online, people say its a statement that blames victims while also undermining those who break traumatic cycles to form health relationships... but if I'm honest now that I'm in my 30s it makes more sense to me than ever, and I'd argue that its not just about fathers and uncles.

You see, I did not have an angry man in my house in childhood. I was raised by grandmothers, aunts, and the odd uncle. None of them were angry people, but it wouldn't be unfair to say that my dad, absent most of the time, was an angry man. I knew he had a temper; I knew some of his girlfriends, and my mum, were scared of him from time to time, but I never saw it. And so the first time I heard that statement it meant nothing to me. Nothing but words that made me feel sorry for people who seemed to be trapped by it.

Then I met Colin (not his real name, for obvious reasons) and for the first time in my life I had a stable, long term male presence in my life. And Colin did grow up with an angry man in his home - the kind of Angry Man that you read about in newspapers. Bobby (again, not his real name) had been violently abusive to Colin's mother, his sisters, and previous girlfriends. He got into fights, he'd been stabbed more than once in his life and his temperament was so unpleasant sometimes that people generally reckoned he probably deserved it for one reason or another.

If you think I'm exaggerating here, consider the fact that Bobby is now in prison for historic domestic abuse charges... as well as other, far less pleasant things.

By the time I met Colin, though, his dad had mellowed a little. He never hit anyone that I heard about or saw in my ten year relationship with Colin, but he was still an an angry man, and his wife, Colins mum, never seemed to be able to shake him off. I don't blame her; I don't think anyone should. The things that tie us to abusive or toxic relationships are complex and varied. I know that. They would have screaming arguments, Colin would have to call the police, and I, unused to this kind of conflict at home would lie in bed wishing I could leave in the middle of the night without causing a scene.

"If you grow up with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house-"

In those moments I thought I understood that statement; Colin would always have an angry man at home because his mum, Rita, for reasons of her own, wouldn't get rid of Bobby. I felt for her, but it seemed to me that the simplest answer for Colin, and me, was to take him out of that house. We would get our own home and there would be no angry man. No screaming. No late nights listening to arguments.

And that's what we did, we got a two bedroom flat, scrimped and saved to buy beds and chairs and got our couch from the second hand shop. I loved that flat; we painted the living room plum and terracotta, and our bathroom aqua blue. We had Star Wars wall paper in the spare room, set up as a game room, and a nice big kitchen. It was in a shitty area, but our neighbours were nice and the front door locked... and in my haste to fix the problem I had overlooked the arguments Colin and I had.

Not like the ones his parents had, for sure; I didn't shout back. I didn't have his mums backbone, and shouting, real, window shaking volume, scared me. I didn't shout back; I cried and in return I was told that I was doing it to 'make him feel bad' so I could win the argument. So i tried not to cry.

Then I tried not to annoy him.

Then I just tried to be perfect. If I could cook the right food and make enough money and give the right gifts, I thought, it would be fine. I didn't see the walls closing in. Not when he lied about where he was, not when he deliberately drove at breakneck speed to scare me, not when he told me I was fat. Not when I hurt my back moving a fridge I had asked him to help with and he got angry with me for being hurt.

I took my antidepressants, I kept trying, and when I got upset about the way he talked about other women or leered at my friends he told me I was crazy. Jealous. A burden. I didn't see my feet landing in the footsteps Rita had left behind; I didn't leave. I just stopped trying, hoping he would leave.

I was not brave... thankfully for me, and unfortunately for someone else, my lethargic, depressed, spiky nature put him off. First he said Id changed, then he said I needed to up my medication. Then he stopped trying to, and we bought his parents home because Bobby had finally left and his mum wanted to go back to where she grew up... and I realized I was in the Angry Mans house and nothing had changed.

"If you grow up with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house-"

People misunderstand that statement; it's not saying that victims of angry, abusive men are doomed to never leave them or repetitively seek out the same kind of relationships (though that can be true for some people). Colin didn't know how to live in a house without an angry man, so he became one. He was the Angry Man in our house, probably because peace and quiet felt too alien to him.

When he left me for a woman he worked with I felt numb. Really; I felt nothing. Nothing I could describe, anyway. A strange mix of anger and hurt and bone deep relief. Terror at suddenly starting again, excitement at a life without walking on eggshells... white hot anger at the sneaky way he used my credit score to get a mortgage before kicking me out for another, skinnier model... and all that came together in to a sensation of numbness.

My family and friends told me I was better off. Finally free. I could go on with my life and never look back but that's the funny thing isn't it; re-read that statement,

"If you grow up with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house"

It's not just the men who raise us, or refuse to, its the men we grow up around. From fifteen to twenty four, give or take, I was with Colin. I was in the house with the original Angry Man, Bobby, and I lived with the angry person Colin became when we moved in together. And I was so young; barely twenty when we moved into our flat, just turned twenty four when we bought the house. I grew up with Colin... and when the numbness lifted, I became the angry man.

I developed a hair trigger temper I had never had before, a prickly personality. I lashed out at friends and family and I felt like I was watching myself do it without any control. I was a wounded animal after so long bending my life to someone that was never happy no matter what I did everything felt like an imposition. The slightest constraint or pushback felt like a threat; like it would send me back to that state of nervous, self loathing submission. So I snarled and spat and prickled and I watched myself hurt people until I couldn't bear it anymore.

I went quiet. I withdrew, hunkered down inside myself, fled the country, drank too much, slept too much.

I wish I could tell you how I got the angry man out of my house, but I can't; it passed over time. Maybe having such a peaceful childhood made it easier to shake off, maybe my friends and family just wouldn't give up. Maybe I just started to hate being angry more than I was scared of ending up trapped, or perhaps I finally stopped feeling worthless, but I'm glad I've found equilibrium again. I'm glad I don't hurt people just because they love me too well. I thank the gods every day I can be held without causing pain now...

But I think about that statement now and then, and I wonder how many people are miserable, like I was, because they don't realize that they are the angry person in their own home or they haven't found a way to beat the rage yet.