I just screamed 'Stop bullying my fucking kids' at my husband.

Go in the garden. Take some deep breaths. Go for a walk if you need to. Try and ground yourself. It’s rescuable. Just don’t let it escalate.

You did what many parents would instinctively do protect your children in a moment of distress. It’s clear you acted out of love and concern. What matters now is taking a breath, making sure your kids feel safe, and thinking about how to address what happened with your husband when emotions are calmer. You’re not alone in feeling fragile this stuff is heavy, and it’s okay to need support. Be kind to yourself right now.

Sounds like a horrible environment for your children. You and your husband need to remember that you are the grown ups.

@thenoodlemachine
It’s ok. You reached your threshold, and you shouted. People shout when they feel they haven’t another option in the situation. You grew up in a shouty house, and that’s probs your helpless child tools coming out during a stressful time. There are other options, so you just have to be more aware of that.

It really bothers me when people blame things on Perimenopause. It isn’t generally a mental illness, it’s a lowering of threshold for bullshit you normally put up with. And now you don’t want to put up with it.

You sound angry at your hub. You say for not helping you with the house, and it sounds like you wanted to hurt him by saying my kids and calling him a bully in earshot if the kids. That shout of fractured partnership to them can be scary.

Take some time to calm it down. Make sure the kids are ok. Say sorry if you mean it. Talk to your husband and tell him how you’re feeling. Tell him you’re feeling on an edge and need more help. Tell the kids too. They’re old enough to help.

You’re not mad, you’re fed up. But you need to make yourself heard by them all in a better way. Take care.

its a bit of shouting. No one was murdered 🤷🏻‍♀️

he felt like he needed to get out of bed to deal with it.

See, I don't like this. If I'm dealing with something let me deal with it unless I specifically ask you for 'back up'. For someone to just 'jump in' and take over feels like they're taking my 'power' away. And that they're reinforcing within themselves the idea that I 'can't handle things' by myself. DH and I had a bit of this when our sons entered their teens. We actually went to counseling for a bit to make him 'see the light'. And to realize that the boys may have been 6 footers and me 5 ft 5, but I could still put the fear of God in them 'all by myself' when I needed to.

DH feels is trying to do more and I don't want him to succeed.

If he needs to 'do more' then he needs to find other things to do, not get involved with what you're already doing. And it's not that you don't want him to succeed, it's that you want him to succeed doing his own duties, not 'succeed' by taking over yours.

Shouting isn't good. But it's not the end of the world. Now it's time to calm down, take a deep breath, each of you apologize to the other if needed. And move on promising yourself you do better tomorrow.

So you’ve been together 20 years snd unequal distribution of housework is only an issue now? And why do your daughters’ bedrooms have to be tidy? If it’s their space what does it matter?

This is one of those situations where the long term resentment of being a domestic drudge gets taken out on daughters instead of lazy husbands. Easier to coerce young women into ‘helping’ with the housework than confront the arsehole male.

Sort your priorities out. Leave the girls and their rooms alone. Deal with your husband rationally instead of shouting and getting emotional. He needs to shape up and behave like a fully functioning adult. No wonder the girls are upset living with all that drama over nothing.

I don't know. Do you never shout at your kids @thenoodlemachine ? Does your dh feel like you are unassertive and it's up to him to step up and sort behaviour out?

Shouting as a general way of dealing with each other is absolutely not on but teenagers can be very frustrating. Do you usually not lay down the law if they are disrespectful or don't behave? Sometime and we don't know what's happening in your family but sometimes if one parent is avoidant and permissive it can be very hard for the other parent. If both parents are on the ball and deal with expectations and occasional bad behaviour with clear boundaries and a firm but fair approach no one needs to shout or not often.

If however your h is in the habit of screaming at his family and constantly getting irate you need to think carefully about what's next and how you want to bring your dc up.

I don’t think you did anything wrong, he shouldn’t have been shouting at her. Your daughters will likely remember this forever and I think it’s good you stood up for them.

Sure, but it's fine for her husband to be screaming at their already crying children. Righto.

It's a hard one to call since it sounds as if everyone is screaming and shouting at each other, not simply a one-off by OP's husband.

@thenoodlemachine but you do see he was trying to back you up by telling them to sort their shit out albeit in a manner which wasn't appropriate?

Sit with him and explain how you want him to handle it when they don't do as they are asked.

Why was he shouting at 12 year old about her room? If so the my answer is based on that possibility. If not ignore! Was she supposed to have cleaned it but didn't? Yes he shouldn't be shouting but if she hadn't cleaned it when asked she should be told to get on and do it.

It seems to have escalated when your 17 year old got involved and you called him bullying of "my" kids not "our" kids. Why was the 17 yesr old getting involved?

It sounds like the whole thing got out of hand. To be fair if he is calling out 12 year old for not cleaning room when asked or not doing it properly and you were wanting others to step up and help you should have backed him up and told her to go back to clean it and then had a word about the manner in which he had done it afterwards, setting out your expectations of how it should have been handled.

@thenoodlemachine I've been there. It was in a car park in Evian, can't even remember what the argument was about but for some reason the children had triggered dh. Cue a stressful night. he talked about flying home early, I was planning divorce. 16 years later we're still together - we'd just hit one of those moments. All the adult children are totally at ease with both of us. I'm sure you can move on xx

Oh thank goodness, a sensible reply at last.

Honestly, I feel like I am living in a parallel universe sometimes. One where people are human and occasionally get cross and scream at someone else without the world coming to an end.

@thenoodlemachine not going to quiz you

There isn't enough information here but my first response was to be worried

Especially as the older sibling was defending the younger, that kind of put me on alert.

I sense it might be best to sleep in a separate room and address it all in the morning.

That sounds very hard. Take a breath. Yes, there’s been screaming and tears but everyone is safe and this isn’t the norm and you know it’s not right. That means it’s all resolvable and not the end of the world.

You need tomorrow to decide if this is related to the perimenopause and speak to your doctor. If there’s anything happening with your DH (health, work etc) then he needs to look at that.

Give the kids a hug,

You know what, sometimes kids need to be shouted at. And teenagers have the ability to bring out the worst in us.

You say he shouted at DD over her bedroom, why? What state is it in? How many times has she been told to do something about it?

It’s easy to come on MN and say that someone else (generally a man) shouted at the kids and to immediately have everyone on-side and accuse him of being a bully. But the circumstances are important here.

If DD has been told time and time and time again to clean up her bedroom and hasn’t then sometimes shouting can be warranted.

And no, peri isn’t an excuse for screaming either although funny how women get a free pass because “peri”.

I wouldn’t call you deranged, it sounds like you’re a great mum protecting your daughter’s. We could talk at length about raising salient points without raising voices, but my gut tells me you already know this. Just wanted to offer a handhold.

I obviously don’t know the sibling dynamic but in my experience if one sibling is stepping in to protect another sibling then the person they are protecting them from has massively crossed the line (given that usually siblings are fighting like cats and dogs instead). Your daughter feeling the need to stand up for her sister tells you your husband was almost certainly in the wrong IMO.