Tiffany, you really should reconsider your life choices if you are considering getting married so soon." The fact that my response, delivered on the eve of my marriage, would forever taint my future relationship with Tatia did not register. I just continued packing for the weekend. We had a perfectly lovely and traditional ceremony in our backyard, with our friends and relatives all playing their designated roles. After our traditional exchange of vows, we cut our cake, kissed, and congratulated each other. Then my mother handed me a small package wrapped in white paper with a silver ribbon. I hesitantly opened it, and an antique diamond wedding ring fell into my hands. In the back of my mind I had decided to take Tatia's engagement ring. I was just not prepared for the flood of anger that followed. I shouted at my mother, "why would you give this to me now?!" There were no tears, no explanations, just blind, uncontrollable rage. My mother, equally stunned by my behavior, had no immediate answer for me. We exchanged a few more words, the veneer of civility slowly peeling away until I was screaming at her again. She looked at me forlornly, and with a gentle "no" walked away, tears streaming down her face. Tatia was stunned, not comprehending why his parents were consoling her. I was still yelling at my mother, my father trying to pull me away from her. He made one last attempt to calm me, and I struck him in the face. Tatia had been sobbing by now, her head buried in my sister's shoulder. I tried to find her, but no matter where I turned, Tatia was behind me. She followed me into my room and was trying to hold my hand. I pushed her away and told her she should go back to her room. I had the sinking feeling I was going to lose her, and I had no idea how to deal with this. I lay on my bed, tears streaming down my face as Tatia held my hand. My mother broke my sister in two, as my father had broken my mother in two. I was filled with rage and despair, and I hated both of them. I hated them for giving me this horrible, useless emotion. I don't think I even had time to think about the ring my mother had given me, and Tatia had given me. I was in pain, and at some level I realized this was something more than just an anger problem, and that things would be different from this day forward. To my parents, she never said why her anger was so irrational, why she would lash out and make herself feel worse in the process. I suppose some people would consider her behavior immature, maybe even childish. To me it was justified, and the best way to describe my rage is to say it was out of pure pain. A pain that is felt by a young girl when she sees a man kiss her best friend, a man who is not her boyfriend, yet. A pain that is felt by a young girl whose boyfriend treats her poorly, who has his arm around another girl who is his best friend, and who is now engaged to someone else. A pain that is felt by a young woman who sees her father, her best friend, the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with, sitting on a couch comforting the man who will be her husband, as if that one act can erase the pain of not being with the man she has been with. I was in so much pain, and no one ever did anything to relieve it. I was left to learn how to deal with my pain, and learn to live with myself. I did not know that this pain would define my life until now. It's an interesting question. I don't think it's about my anger. I was angry in a number of previous relationships (of which she was well aware, but she didn't care). This was the first relationship in which I felt as if I were completely in control. She never, ever made me feel that way. It seems to me that for the first time I was free to be true to myself, and it made me very angry because I wasn't getting to be myself, I was getting to be who she wanted me to be, who she felt I should be. I was learning to be a whole new person to try to get her approval, and she didn't like that. It seems that most anger is about not having the right to be yourself. Obviously, there's a lot of anger that stems from being rejected, because you have a right to be rejected if the person rejects you. But most anger stems from feeling that you have a right to be yourself, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe that's because we are taught to be someone other than who we are, and when we don't get the approval of that person that we are and weren't, we become angry at that person, and at ourselves. I am definitely angry at myself, because I believed that this was how she wanted me to be. But I don't think anger is what it's about. I think it's more about frustration, and feeling restricted. The problem with a lot of the explanations is that they seem very exaggerated, but I can easily see how they might not be. I'm not so much angry at you, because you seem like a decent person, and I hope you won't take any offense if I say this, but sometimes I have had a really hard time understanding how people think or how people behave. I find it extremely difficult to understand the rationale behind some of the things people do, and the way they think about things. I mean, I see some logic in it, I can see the sense in what they say, but at the same time, I don't understand it at all. And in a way, I don't think I'm supposed to. I think I have to admit that I am a little shocked, and feel sorry for myself because I have really screwed up. I guess what I'm saying is that if I understand a person, if I understand why they are the way they are, and they explain it to me, and it all makes sense, then I see a certain logic behind it, and perhaps then I can accept the situation, or the person's way of looking at things. If I do accept the person's way of looking at things, I can be "nice", I can be "decent" and act as if I have given up. And I am angry that I cannot understand how people feel or think. The frustration, the anger is because I want to understand why they feel or think the way they do, so that I can be better at dealing with them. And because I can't understand it, it's as if they were saying "sucks to be you", and "it's not my problem, it's your problem". And of course that is a complete turn off. So I guess what I'm saying is that if I understand someone, if I have a really good reason for the way they think or behave, and it's all logical, I feel as if I can accept it, even if I have trouble understanding it. Then I don't see it as my problem, because it's just part of who they are, and I don't have to question them or ask them to be different. I can just accept who they are. I can accept that you like girls who wear lipstick, and have a lot of shoes, and drink wine. (I know, I know, I'm sorry for the last one.) I have no reason for why you like all that, I can't even understand it, but I accept it. I don't think I understand why it is important to you to see if I'm wearing lipstick and having a lot of shoes and drinking wine. You are not trying to change my behavior,