Sometimes, the worst thing about making a mistake is knowing the trouble is of your own making. You weren’t hit by lightning; you weren’t minding your own business when disaster befell. No, you opened your big mouth and now you have to live with the consequences.

So when I read this headline in last Monday’s Star — “If I could, I would smack your f****** face off” — I could only feel sympathy for the woman who uttered those words. How unpleasant to have a moment of weakness so publicly exposed.

Poor Twink (54). Her husband, David Agnew (45), had an affair with Ruth Hickey (29). When Twink, the “54-year-old entertainer”, discovered the romance between oboe-player Agnew (45) and Hickey (29), who plays the clarinet, their marriage (21) came to a screeching halt. Then Hickey (29) had a baby “for” Agnew (45). Twink (54) was furious and left an irate message on Agnew’s phone. And yes, she’s 54, he’s 45, the girlfriend is 29.

So she effed and blinded her way through a message, warning Agnew not to let photographs of him and the baby appear in the press. It wasn’t all profanity; there were moments of great humour. She also told him to “zip up his mickey”. I rather liked that. When she’d done with his mickey, she had a go at Agnew’s other vulnerability — his hair. She suggested that the oboeist’s strategy of shaving his head to disguise his receding hairline made him look like a middle-aged prick and advised that he invest in Regaine instead. Ouch. That may have hurt more than the mickey remark.

Still, if he had zipped up in the first place he wouldn’t have been on the receiving end of the message, so I guess he only has himself to blame.

Anyway it was he, and not she, who kept the message. Now it has escaped on to the internet and into the press.

All Twink has done is vent her justifiable anger at being walked into a row of such cliché that it’s farcical. I mean, couldn’t he have left her for another man? Or become a monk? Honestly, shagging a young, pretty clarinettist and getting her pregnant. Who could blame Twink for leaving irate messages? But she broke the cardinal rule of having a row — she lost her cool. When you lose that, you lose the row. It doesn’t matter what the argument is about or what provocation you face.

As someone who occasionally loses it, I find it a particularly annoying rule of row management. Once you throw something, scream or spitefully say the thing that never should be said, you’ve done it. The opposing party in the row is satisfied because you’ve exhibited the kind of behaviour that proves you are insane, unreasonable and hysterical. Whatever behaviour caused the outburst pales into insignificance beside your loss of control.

Is it really so bad to let your anger manifest itself in an act, be it the loss of a family heirloom, a scream of frustration, a hysterical voicemail or an angry text? If it doesn’t get out, where does it go? If you swallow the anger and keep yourself cold and in control, does the coldness take longer to pass than the heat of anger? Personally, I don’t trust people who are always in control. I like to see the cracks every now and then. It shows there’s a heart beating somewhere.

Now and then I have a short-lived self-improvement drive and practise yoga for a few minutes every day. One of the most rewarding exercises is called the Lion. On all fours you lean forward and stick your tongue out as far as it will go and make a raspy “haaaaaa” sound. It’s inelegant and I don’t feel entirely comfortable performing it, even alone, but they say it releases the tension in your throat that has built up from all the things you wanted to say but didn’t. I certainly feel invigorated after it. Maybe Twink would too.

Now that my babies are toddlers I’m training them to be civilised, and it’s quite a job to control their reaction when they can’t have cake or one takes the other’s toy or mammy can’t play right now. Our instinct is to lash out. Yet this expression of pain is taboo, no matter how domestic the event.

I know people and possessions have to be protected, and words can cause dreadful damage, but sometimes there is no more appropriate response than a string of invective hurled with all the pain of your broken heart. If you’re lucky, the words will leave your mouth and disappear into oblivion. If you’re unlucky, the object of your disaffection will keep the recording and play it to third parties in order to win allies. Not only are you hurt because of the original row, but you’re defeated because you cracked up.

As with most rows, you will get round to making up. The accepted process is for both parties to acknowledge they were equally wrong. Mutual apologies are made. If it’s a good make up there may even be a competition with each side pleading to accept more blame than the other. If it’s a bad make up, one person will play along with the mutual apologies but secretly feel they were the more injured party and resent having to go through the motions of communal guilt.

That row isn’t over. It will come back and more viciously than the last one. Eventually someone will say: “No, I was not wrong. You were wrong. I don’t care what I threw or what I said. I am not apologising for breaking down because you hurt me.”

When Twink was told her message was playing on the internet she said: “I couldn’t care less.” If that’s true and she’s freed herself from the obligation to make insincere apologies, then I’d guess she doesn’t need that yoga exercise after all. I’d better stick with it though.