Boruch and his wife Suri had been arguing over whom the mess belonged to. Suri claimed that Boruch was responsible for the pile of unopened bills and other mail that decorated the end of the dining room table. Boruch insisted that more than half the pile belonged to Suri and he was tired of her blaming him for everything. Suri said that she’d look through it and take her stuff out and she wanted Boruch to attend to whatever was left. Boruch leaned toward his wife pointing his finger firmly between her eyes and in a slow deliberate growling voice uttered “You better take care of it.” Suri called a marriage counselor.

What It Felt Like to Me

Suri had read all about abusive men and she (rightfully) wanted no part of a dysfunctional marital relationship. She didn’t know whether Boruch was abusive or not but what she did know is that she would not be talked to like that. And she wanted Boruch to know that too.

At their first counseling session the therapist asked Boruch to recall what he was feeling when he pointed his finger at his wife. Boruch found the question easy to answer: “An enormous amount of frustration! We’ve had these talks before and Suri says she’ll take care of things but then she doesn’t. I can’t tell you how maddening this is! I knew when she said she’d look through that pile of papers that this wasn’t going to be happening in my lifetime. All those previous times she ignored me came rising up inside and I just felt furious.”

Suri acknowledged that she did have a problem carrying through sometimes but she felt that this was no excuse for Boruch’s behavior. “You can still speak to me like a mentsch” she said. “You never once told me how much my behavior bothered you. If you had told me nicely I would have done something about it. ” The therapist asked Suri what she felt when Boruch had pointed the finger in her face. “I was scared!” Suri replied. “He had an awful look in his eyes and he sounded like he was going to kill me.”

Boruch laughed out loud. “Kill you? You’re kidding right? You know I’d never hurt a fly let alone kill somebody!”

“Actually” replied Suri “I don’t know that at all. You don’t know what you looked like in that moment. You looked like a monster and honestly I didn’t know what you might be capable of.”

Body Language

It was true that Boruch didn’t know how he came across in the moment of his anger. He saw himself as a nice guy someone who loved and protected his wife. Suri’s image of him as a potential murderer sounded outrageous to his ears.

In fact men are often astounded to hear that their wives and children feel afraid of them. They see themselves as harmless people who just get angry once in awhile. They fail to see how they look and sound in those angry moments and generally have no idea how their body language is conveying a serious threat. Moreover even if someone shows them what they look and sound like in their anger they still don’t necessarily comprehend what is so threatening about all that.

A therapist can offer some insight: “Well imagine that someone who weighs a hundred pounds more than you and is a foot taller than you is making a grimace like that glaring into your eyes in that way pointing a finger in your face roaring some kind of threat into your ears. How do you think you would feel?” With that image in mind men can sometimes suddenly understand the problem. Without it men often fail to take into account the aspect of physical intimidation that always accompanies large angry people.

Some Solutions

While some men purposely use intimidation to get their way in marriage and parenting many do not even realize what they are doing. These good men need someone to hold up a mirror to them and they need to be shown how to communicate in a language that women and children will respond positively to.

A gentle man — a gentleman — will find that his real power lies in harnessing his strength. He needs to lower the voice soften the look pull the body back to a normal position and just say what he wants to say in a normal way. If his message isn’t getting through when it is expressed politely he must refuse to become a monster — the results are too disastrous for the family. Instead he can call the counselor. Maybe his wife needs to learn how to hear what he is saying.