Living with people who are vengeful is challenging at best. If the vengeance is limited to verbal anger, it can ruin your day or even your outlook. If the vengeance turns into action, then there could be physical damage to people or property. Being around them can often leave you feeling helpless. Despite the feelings of helplessness, there are things that you can do to deal with them more effectively.

1. Give them space. Many times angry or vengeful people want to stay in contact with the painful event or person they are mad at. By giving them space and walking away, it takes away a target or reason to be angry or put on a display.
2. Do not try to control them. This is sometimes done by interrupting or putting limits on them. When they are in the midst of anger, they are not acting in a rational manner.
3. Do not try to put them in their place. Such action as telling them off or harshly confronting them only serves to agitate the situation.
4. Bring them into the present. Vengeful people often assume that the present is a replay of past events. Try to intervene and break that connection. They need to realize that what happened before is no indication it will happen again.
5. Avoid language that assumes you are right and they are wrong. When angry, they will not accept such talk. They may even view it as a threat. Focus more on feelings rather than proving them wrong with facts.
6. Remind them of others humanity. Vengeful people often dehumanize others or see them as inferior in some way. Remind them that other persons are people too, and they have feelings as well.
7. Offer them food or drink (non-alcoholic). Eating and drinking many times helps calm people down.
8. When they begin obsessing, gently direct them onto another topic.
9. When they begin pacing, help redirect them into some other activity to lower their level of agitation.

These are a few simple steps that can be taken to reduce the agitation of vengeful people. Such people often view their targets as less than human. They believe that their targets do not deserve good things, and believe they are responsible to give them the bad things they do deserve. The vengeful person often uses objectifying language, where people are talked about as ‘things’ rather than as humans. There are also violent fantasies about what they wish would happen. As long as the mind holds onto those fantasies, there is the danger of them acting out on their vengeful fantasis.