Beware the fury of a patient man.

Patience is often mistaken for an absence of anger, when it is usually just anger kept out of sight. Someone who lets things pass is not necessarily untroubled by them. They may be counting, and a person who has been counting for a long time does not stop halfway when they finally speak. The quiet ones surprise people because the quiet was read as consent.

Two things are worth watching. Where you have been treating someone’s forbearance as permission, stop and ask what it is costing them. And where you are the patient one, say the small objection now, while it is still small enough to be heard.