Dear Auntie, I am 22 and got engaged this year. My engagement was arranged by our families and my fiancé is a very nice person who loves me. I am very happy with him. But there is one problem. He is nice and sweet most of the time, but sometimes he loses his temper which is very scary. When he is angry he is not in his senses and he screams and yells a lot. 

Since I am only engaged I don’t think I can interfere and stop him. I feel like I can’t do anything to calm him down. In his family no one says anything when he loses his temper. No one stops him. I am really scared about what will happen when we get married.  Scared

Dear Calm, You say that no one in his family stops him or makes an attempt to calm him down. Unfortunately his family’s ‘strategy’ of dealing with his temper has made the problem worse. It may have prevented him from possibly recognising that he has a problem. It is also possible that he has seen such displays of anger in his house and thinks screaming and yelling when you are angry is normal. If his behaviour, when he is angry, scares you today — when you are not living in the same house and meet only sometimes — it is likely that the problem has deeper roots and could be worse than it seems to you who are an outsider right now. 

Sit your fiancé down and tell him that his anger scares you. Insist that he seek help for it. Help him by looking up resources on anger management and reading up on the problem. Also research and find the best professional help that your fiancé could work with. Insist that he make a serious attempt to seek help. If he resists seeking help, say that you won’t marry him till he does and you see some improvement in how he manages his anger.   Dear Auntie, I never even thought that I would be writing to you. But my life looks like an endless chase. I met a guy in my school and we were really good friends for a year. Throughout that time he used to give me every possible hint to let me know he was interested in me in other ways too. I knew that too, but waited for him to say it clearly for once. Then suddenly he told me one day that he has a girlfriend. I was shocked. Seriously. This went on for another year. 

Then on April 1, 2015, we were talking normally and suddenly he confessed that he used to love me previously, but couldn’t gather the courage to say so. I asked him afterwards if he is now ready to be in a relationship with me (because he’s having a disastrous relationship with his girlfriend and she is not serious about him at all), but he said no as he can’t leave his girlfriend. This literally killed me inside and I ended each and every contact with him. After two months he contacted me again and said sorry. He said that he couldn’t live without me. He said he missed me a lot blah blah blah and to be honest I used to miss him too. We had spent two years of our lives together and that’s a lot of time. Now the problem is that I have allowed him to be in my life again, but he’s still in a relationship with his girlfriend and friends with me. Now please help me and let me know what I should do? I really, really need your help. 

Confused

Dear You-know, You said it! The problem is that you have allowed him to be in your life again. This supposed ‘friend’ of yours has shown you who he is in the past. He has made you play second fiddle to his girlfriend earlier. And he is doing the same thing again. Deep down you know that the pattern is repeating, but you are hoping that he doesn’t do it again. You are hoping that he has changed. You are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. 

This man is a player and you are an easy target. When you say that his relationship with his girlfriend is disastrous, who is your source for this information? Him, right? That piece of information tells me only one thing: that this man knows you better than you know yourself. And Auntie means that in a bad sense. He knows your weak spot. He knows you like him and are willing to lend him an ear. He knows that if he calls you, you will take the call and listen to him complaining about the disastrous relationship with his girlfriend. He knows he can keep you waiting for him. Please don’t get played. You want a commitment, whereas he just wants to have two girls in his life. He did it in the past and he is doing it again. The answer is right before your eyes. Respect yourself (because no one will respect you till you do) and get out today.

Auntie will not reply privately to any query. Please send concise queries to:auntieagni@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, August 2nd, 2015

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