How do you handle a partner with a temper?

‘How can you be so stupid?’‘Why should you forget something so important?’ I thought he was shouting at the cashier but it turned out he was referring to his partner with so much aggression and un-controlled temper. The lady on the order hand just kept quiet and her face was expressionless, she showed no emotion. […]

‘How can you be so stupid?’‘Why should you forget something so important?’ I thought he was shouting at the cashier but it turned out he was referring to his partner with so much aggression and un-controlled temper. The lady on the order hand just kept quiet and her face was expressionless, she showed no emotion. This got me thinking. How will you handle a temperamental partner? Can you date a partner who has an un-controlled temper?  
The Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary defines a temperamental person as “someone liable to unreasonable changes of mood.” The Urban Dictionary also defines a temperamental person as “a person that can explode at any given moment, one minute everything can be super-duper and their company that of something wonderful and the next they are loathsome. They are very volatile and often the hothead.” This week Life extra spoke with a cross section of people to get their views on how to handle a partner with a temper.
Bright Ojumah, a student of Mass Communication at the Federal Polytechnic Auchi, Edo State, says she cannot stand a temperamental partner: “I as an individual can’t date a guy who cannot curtail his temper because I feel that at a point he might choose to raise his fist at me just to express how he feels. Sincerely, I don’t have the heart for it because I have had a personal experience and it didn’t go well with me. Each time the guy shouted at me, it made me lose my confidence, I started developing inferiority complex. I have summed up that a guy who has temper issues would take the grace of God to change.”
Charles Ike, a banker, says that: “Tempers come in different forms. Some express theirs while some just contain theirs. But in relation to me dating someone with temperamental issues and the story you related to me, I can’t, because I can’t stand being yelled at. It is barbaric. We are humans who at times get angry but your ability to control your emotions is what counts. I get temperamental sometimes but I control myself by just being quiet so as not to say or do something drastic which I would end up regretting. So when I am most quiet is when am angry.”
Love is patient, and only the patient can survive the dark side of love, says Joseph Ine, a research analyst: “A partner with uncontrolled temper has a problem that only prayer and patience can solve. But I as an individual can’t date a temperamental person because I am not patient. My advice to someone in such a situation is to pray patiently or move on if you don’t have the strength to pray or the time to be patient.”
For Oshofa Ifeoma, a student of Office Technology Management at the Federal Polytechnic Auchi: “It depends on the individual. Some girls can be very patient; some think that they can change a guy. Well, for me, I can’t date someone who cannot control his temper, thereby shouting at me when he deems it fit, not minding who is listening or where we are. If am to find myself in such a situation, I would walk away, but when it becomes consistent or part of his character, then I would just call it quits. As people commonly say, ‘it is better to be out of a broken relationship than to experience divorce.’”
Clement Aghedo opines that: “Dating someone that cannot control his temper issues, especially towards someone you love is no! No! An attribute of maturity is self-control, especially towards a spouse or partner. If you claim you love someone and you react without thought of what can be the eventual outcome of the action you have taken, then such an individual is not ready for a relationship and should go and work seriously on the problem. In some cases the person may be lucky to get someone who can be patient with the temper, but ordinarily, it is not cool.”
Another undergraduate, Vincent Iselebor, advises that: “The best way to handle an angry partner is to observe and study the supposed partner to know what triggers his anger and avoid the issues. If you can’t avoid them, then you should learn to keep quite when he or she is angry. This will make the temperamental individual wallow in the mystery of why the person they are venting their anger on is not saying a word to aggravate the situation. The best way is to walk out from the scene when such a person’s temper escalates. When you come back don’t say a word concerning the issue yet. Instead revisit it in three or four days’ time with another approach which won’t stir up anger like before.”
The Business Administration student adds that: “I am not that patient to stand people who shout at me at will and not to talk of in public, I can’t because shouting affects me emotionally especially in public.”
Life extra also sought the opinion of a marriage counselor, Uche Okoro, on the vexatious issue.
“Some people are generally temperamental and sometimes incapable of controlling themselves. This doesn’t mean they can’t be lived with. What should be done when a partner is seen to be temperamental is: when he or she is hot, you be cold, when he/she is flaring like fire, you remain calm as still water. In all, patience is just the virtue needed to handle such an individual,” Okoro advised.