“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

-Martin Congreve in The Mourning Bride (1697)

People have known about the smoldering anger that a woman can keep inside for centuries, maybe even millennial. Honestly, this probably goes back to the beginning of history.

But there’s another stereotype about women – that they often hide their anger rather than letting it out directly. Is it true that women behave this way?

As with most stereotypes, this is only true for some women and definitely not for others. But if you’re concerned about a woman in your life who seems prone to swallow her anger, it can be really hard to know if she’s really upset with you or not.

This is a good time to turn to psychology to find out what the experts know about the phenomenon they call anger suppression. This means that a woman is keeping her feelings of anger inside rather than expressing them, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there!

To help you figure out if you’re in her bad books, here are six signs a woman is upset with you but won’t admit it, according to psychology

1) She seems depressed.

Is she leaking?

Salty drops almost always indicate that something is wrong and that doesn’t always mean that a woman is angry with you.

But it certainly can be the case, especially when she refuses to talk to you about it.

Crying in response to anger has been seen since childhood. Girls are more likely than boys to cry when they’re angry, while boys are more likely to hit people or throw things.

This continues into adult life as well. 

Women who suppress their anger not only cry as a response but have actually been shown to demonstrate symptoms of depression. These symptoms can include low mood, feelings of hopelessness, low self-esteem, lack of motivation, difficulty making decisions, and of course, feeling tearful.

It seems to be common for women to hide their feelings of anger, and it’s often expected in societies around the world. Women can be expected to keep calm and positive and also be selfless, thinking more about others’ happiness than their own.

When they suppress their upset feelings, they may do it to smooth situations over or to maintain harmony, but this has negative consequences for them. They employ anxiety, guilt, and shame to keep themselves from expressing their true emotions.

This can attack their self-confidence, and that starts a downward spiral into depression that may have started from simply not admitting that she’s upset.

2) She avoids intimacy.

Expressing anger is one of the best defenses a woman has to protect herself from feeling anxious, guilty, or ashamed. However, if a woman chooses not to show up when she’s upset, these feelings can grow and make her feel awful and trigger depression, as we’ve already seen.

This can make her lose self-confidence and feel unwanted or undesirable, and this can make her avoid intimacy with her partner.

If a woman does express her anger to help her hold onto her dignity and power in a relationship, however, this anger can push her partner away and also reduce intimacy in the relationship. 

In addition, women themselves generally view anger suppression as a better strategy for dealing with anger. So when they do express their anger, they can feel inappropriate and again undesirable. This can also make her shrink away from intimacy with her partner.

Either way, expressed or suppressed, anger and intimacy are unlikely bedfellows. 

3) She makes emotional posts.

So much of people’s behavior has moved into online expressions these days. So if you’re wondering if a woman is secretly upset with you, her online behavior might be a great place to look for clues.

While expressing anger and hurt directly may not be her style, a woman might be much more inclined to express herself through social media. She might post something ambiguous or non-specific, like “People are so frustrating!!!!!!” to let some of her anger out.

Unfortunately, if this is directed at you, you might not know because it’s so vague.

However, research shows that people in general, not just women, have a certain behavior that they express when they’re angry. 

A recent study from 2023 found that people are far more likely to tweet and re-tweet emotionally charged material when they’re angry. (Yes, we all know it’s called X now and not Twitter, but how do you X something?)

If they’re feeling both angry and anxious, they share emotional content even more.

So if a woman is sharing things that are heavy on feelings like sadness, pity, or nostalgia, this could be a good clue that she’s angry. And it could be with you. 

4) Your relationship is unhappy.

A lot of research has shown that expressing anger, at least in an appropriate and controlled way, has a lot of positive consequences. 

One of the most important, especially for people in close relationships, is that this opens up the possibility for someone who has angered you to say sorry. That gives you the possibility to forgive them.

In general, these acts of apology and forgiveness can bring people closer together. They foster understanding and learning among friends or couples, and this can really benefit their relationships.

So what happens when that anger is suppressed instead?

If a woman is upset with you and she doesn’t express that, it’s hard to know that you’ve done something to hurt or anger her. Of course, if you don’t know, you can’t apologize, and she can’t forgive.

The result of suppressed anger on relationship quality is clear. 

Whether you’re friends or something more, suppressing anger causes dissatisfaction and can make relationships deteriorate. 

Researchers believe that suppressing anger is bad for relationships because it makes people seem less open. It can be perceived as fake or at least unfriendly behavior which the other person doesn’t appreciate as much as honest emotional expression.

So if you have a woman friend or partner who you don’t feel is being open with you about her feelings, it can make that relationship weaker. 

5) She appears anxious or stressed.

Keeping anger in is not good for your mental health, as one study on American and Japanese subjects suggests.

This study was looking for differences between levels of stress and social anxiety if people when people either expressed their anger or kept it inside.

What this research found was that when people try to keep their anger bottled up, it makes them more anxious in social situations and more stressed.

These negative personal consequences can obviously take a toll on a woman’s well-being.

When she keeps her feelings inside, she denies her true emotions and that can make her start to doubt herself, lose confidence, and struggle to do well around other people.

6) She seems tired.

But it’s not just the mind that keeping things inside causes trouble.

The body also suffers at the same time. 

First of all, stress and social anxiety can cause women to have poorer immune responses. This can mean that a woman can become more susceptible to infection.

A woman can actually make herself by keeping in her emotions and causing herself stress.

On top of that, one of the signs you’re going to notice with a woman who is upset but won’t admit it is that she’s tired. 

A 2016 study looked at the emotional responses of over a thousand people aged 34-84 years old. The study found a distinct link between participants who reported higher levels of anger suppression and poor sleep quality. 

This poor sleep quality was linked to higher levels of negative affect and less positivity in these people’s behavior. Add that to more stress and anxiety and deteriorating relationships, as well as the initial subject of anger to begin with; it’s easy to see why these women wouldn’t be sleeping well.

If the woman you suspect of being upset with you refuses to admit it but has big, panda-like circles under her eyes, this might be a solid clue that all’s not what it seems.

She may very well be angry with you and keeping it inside for some reason.

How to deal with a woman’s suppressed anger

These six signs a woman is upset with you but won’t admit it, according to psychology, are a good start to help you recognize her suppressed emotions.

And even if the issue isn’t about you, it’s clear that she’s doing damage to herself by refusing to express her feelings and get things out in a healthy way.

The best way to improve the situation is to use honest and direct communication. If you notice these signs, tell her you’re noticing them and that they add up to something being wrong.

Encourage her to express her feelings without judging her, and the truth will come out, even if it does in a tempest!