An Unhealthy Fixation on God's Wrath?

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Ephesians 2:1–3 (emphasis added)

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
Ephesians 5:6-8 (emphasis added)

I've recently been reflecting on Paul's use of the phrase "children of wrath" in Ephesians 2:3.

For years, I've understood it to mean that we are (as some translations put it) objects of God's wrath. In other words, the wrath being described in this verse is God's wrath directed at the group Paul speaks of as "we" as well as the rest of mankind.

But for the first time as I've been recently going through Ephesians afresh these last few weeks, I have been considering a different meaning. Could it be that what Paul means with the phrase "children of wrath" is that we (and the rest of mankind) prior to Christ are characterized by/filled with wrath? In other words, the wrath being described in this verse is the wrath of unregenerate men directed at each other. 

Now, to be clear, I'm not denying the biblical reality of God's wrath. Scripture clearly teaches this and we read of it explicitly in the letter to the Ephesians later on in Ephesians 5:6. I'm only questioning here if Paul is talking about the same wrath in Ephesians 2:3 as he's talking about in Ephesians 5:6. There are at least a few reasons I'm inclined to think Paul isn't talking about God's wrath in Ephesians 2:3:

1. He explicitly speaks of the wrath of God in Ephesians 5:6 but he doesn't appear to explicitly associate the wrath with God in Ephesians 2:3.
2. Paul uses the term "children of light" in Ephesians 5:8. There the exact same construct ("children of...") appears to convey that in Christ we are to be characterized by light or full of light. So to call us "children of wrath" prior to Christ makes good sense when understood in contrast as we were characterized by wrath/anger or full of wrath/anger prior to being characterized by light/full of light in Christ.
3. The "But God..." in Ephesians 2:4 seems to make most sense right after Ephesians 2:3 if Paul is contrasting dark and fallen man as at heart characterized by wrath/anger with radiant and holy God as at heart characterized by richness of mercy.
4. Along these lines, Paul tells Christians in Ephesians 4:31 to put away wrath, which seems to imply that wrath is what we are characterized by apart from Christ (this aligns well with Paul speaking of the hostility between Jew and Gentile that Christ takes away in Ephesians 2:14-16). And then right on the heels of that he tells us in Ephesians 4:32-5:1 to imitate God who, by contrast to us in our flesh, is characterized by love, tenderheartedness, and kindness. Similar to the "But God..." contrast between wrath in Ephesians 2:3 and richness of mercy in Ephesians 2:4. Notice a similar contrast between the end of Titus 3:3 with men characterized by hating each other and Titus 3:4 with God characterized by goodness and lovingkindness. Very similar to the "But God" contrast between Ephesians 2:3 and Ephesians 2:4. 

I'm hesitant to adopt an interpretation of a passage that has no support among any of the early church fathers.  This excerpt from Tertullian is the closest I've come:

But the apostle, too, had lived in Judaism; and when he parenthetically observed of the sins (of that period of his life), “in which also we all had our conversation in times past,” he must not be understood to indicate that the Creator was the lord of sinful men, and the prince of this air; but as meaning that in his Judaism he had been one of the children of disobedience, having the devil as his instigator—when he persecuted the church and the Christ of the Creator. Therefore he says: “We also were the children of wrath,” but “by nature.” Let the heretic, however, not contend that, because the Creator called the Jews children, therefore the Creator is the lord of wrath. For when (the apostle) says, “We were by nature the children of wrath,” inasmuch as the Jews were not the Creator’s children by nature, but by the election of their fathers, he (must have) referred their being children of wrath to nature, and not to the Creator, adding this at last, “even as others,” who, of course, were not children of God. It is manifest that sins, and lusts of the flesh, and unbelief, and anger, are ascribed to the common nature of all mankind, the devil however leading that nature astray, which he has already infected with the implanted germ of sin. (emphasis added)

The clearest thing that tips me in the direction of him leaning towards the interpretation I've proposed above is how he speaks in the last sentence of anger being ascribed to the common nature of all mankind (sounds like Paul's use of "by nature children of wrath") at the end of this excerpt.

Is it possible that, since the Protestant Reformation, we have developed such an unhealthy fixation on the wrath of God that we read it into passages where it isn't explicitly mentioned?