A Ticking Time Bomb

Hal shouts easily when he does not get his way. He is cranky or critical much of the time. Sometimes he can appear friendly, but even then his wife, Linda, wonders when the storm will hit. He cannot go more than a few days without having a temper flare-up. Over the years, Linda has become a shell of her real self. She has changed from being an optimistic, outgoing woman and has now become more unsure of herself. She is more moody than ever before, vacillating between depression and fretting and apathy. Linda says she wants to get out of the rut she is in, but doesn’t know how. She fears that any attempt to claim her freedom will ignite another of Hal’s outbursts.

How Would You Respond?

Sounds to me like Linda has been spending so much time worrying about how Hal is going to respond that she has forgotten who she is, if she ever knew in the first place. I'd tell Linda to take initiatives with her friends and have a life. If Hal continues to rage, maybe she needs to rethink why she's married to him in the first place. Life is too short to life in perpetual fear. He sounds like a very insecure man, and I wouldn't want to let such a person be in charge of my security.

Linda needs to stop defending herself or at least feeling like she should somehow say the right thing to keep him happy. Instead she needs to be decisive about all sorts of small things and if he can't agree with her decisions, maybe she should just stick to her principles anyway. This isn't just stubbornness, but decisiveness.

I used to be married to a man like that and I finally decided that when I made a decision I wasn't going to let him bully me into submission. He'd rant about how I was "insubordinate" and it made me realize that he honestly felt he was supposed to lord over me. When I would let him know that I was going to stand my ground, he couldn't handle it. He finally walked and I sure didn't beg him to stay.