Once you’ve got used to exercising your anger muscle, you use it more often. Photo / AP
Once you’ve got used to exercising your anger muscle, you use it more often. Photo / AP
Female anger is a hot topic. And it’s just got hotter since Gwyneth Paltrow — serene wellness celebrity — outed herself as someone who hits things with a plastic bat to release anger.
Surprised? Certainly not if you’re a woman born before 1970. It’s true things lookpretty rosy in Paltrow world — not least Paltrow herself, who could pass for 40 when she’s 51 — but therein lies the clue. Paltrow is somewhere on the pre, during, post-menopausal journey. She’s officially in the Angry Years and there’s no telling when she’s going to come out of them.
One thing we do know is that anger does not get better with age. It gets a lot worse for a long time before normal anger levels are resumed, but then there’s evidence (my experience) that once you’ve got used to exercising your anger muscle, you use it more often and care less.
On top of that, anger triggers change with age. You get angry about things you would have shrugged off 20 years ago because now they symbolise bigger things, or you just cannot believe that after all this time no one is listening, or you’ve developed (let’s be honest) some weird sensitivities.
Here are some of the midlife anger triggers Gwyneth will be familiar with (sort of):
Someone (your partner) not getting precisely what you asked them to get on the shopping list
This is angering on one level because you have been co-shopping for decades and in that time they have not committed to memory your preferred yoghurt brand. Also (worse), you are not a tight team like a bomb disposal unit/fighter pilots and increasingly, life feels very much as if you need to be in a relationship similar to the chaps in the flying fortresses in Masters of the Air. (Note: There are always two contributory factors — the actual offence and the underlying anxiety.)
Someone (your partner) getting you a drink you don’t want at a crowded bar (no hope of getting back in there)
In the old days, you would have chugged back any old grog, but these days you are a lot pickier, you haven’t had a drink all week, and do you have to do everything yourself? More importantly, being on the receiving end of a giant glass of warm sauvignon blanc feels a lot like you are not being seen.
Does anyone understand how angry you are? Photo / Getty Images
Someone (probably your partner) saying something innocuous along the lines of ‘Your hair looks nice when you have it blow-dried’ — which automatically enrages you
No easy explanation: in this life stage you get easily offended and that’s just what’s happening here. On top of that appeasement (the automatic male defence) is an aggravator past a certain age. It works well for years and then suddenly it feels like you are being managed, patronised, calm-down-deared, or similar. You feel more and more like the old huffing bag if anyone tries to soothe your lightning-bad mood.
Anything could trigger this: rummaging in your mouldy makeup bag; looking at old photographs; trying on a jumpsuit and discovering you look like a serial killer. Getting a quote for the kitchen and realising you’re going to live with the damp instead. You’re angry because how did you let all those hot-pants years slip by without taking advantage of them? Why didn’t you live in New York when you could have? And what’s going to happen down the line? Fear will make you angry.
Someone shares their problems with you
This used to be part of the friends-and-family deal, but you’re no longer receptive to the non-life-and-death stuff. The crisis of Little Julie not getting the halls of residence she longed for/the builders taking ages is triggering (especially in light of your cancelled kitchen). Also, are you out of sync with the world? Do you need new friends? Does anyone understand how angry you are?
