Struggling -need advice please

[Toadstool93]

Hi, I would like other people’s perspective on this if you have time please.
My daughter has anxiety on and off and this week we went out to a restaurant for the first time since lockdown for my husband’s birthday .
She was nervous there and when we got home still suffering a bit. My husband had a real go at her saying she made it all about her and that her anxiety comes and goes when it’s convenient for her. When she tried to explain, he shouted at her to shut the F* up. Then he Stormed off to bed. The next day he hardly apologised and said she needs to be stronger and she spoilt his day. That anxiety is not an illness. He really does not u der stand and thinks telling her to be stronger and she can cure herself helps.

My daughter who is 14 is not in a good place with him and I don’t know what to do. Her anxiety is worse now as she says he can’t accept her. The stress is not helping her. I never thought he would speak to her like that. She has been doing amazing and the first setback in months with her anxiety. She is 14. She had therapy last year and doesn’t need it anymore as she is doing amazing and is normally controlling it well.

Any advice as my daughter says she is not comfortable around him now. The house is under strain and he thinks he has done nothing wrong and she should get over it. Thanks for any help.

I feel she should return to therapy to talk over her relationship with her father.

In fact her father could do with attending therapy about resorting to being 5 year old again when things aren’t going his way. His reaction in his frustration is very childish. He could have told her how he felt frustrated by her condition and she would have probably told him how frustrating it is for her too.

Your husband needs counselling to learn how to cope with his own emotions. He had a tantrum and now won't apologize - its quite clear he has deficits he needs to work on. If he wanted to be the baby of the family, he shouldn't have had children.

Support dd and get her back into her own counselling. Unfortunately she will need support to learn how to cope with having an unskilled, emotionally backward father. It will be difficult for you to help with this because you're married to the man.

I'd advise you to chuck him out tbh, but your dd sounds like the type of person who would blame herself for any change to the family circumstances. Its so tricky. I'm sorry your husband is such a child. He must struggle with basic day to day events if he is this childish. If he had had a strop and then said sorry, that would be one thing, we all have bad days, but to double down as he has is really pathetic

Thank you so much for your replies. It’s really helped. To be honest I don’t know how we can move on. I think about him differently now and so does my daughter. Things have changed. It’s so hard to be around him when he has made my daughter so upset and she doesn’t trust him anymore. She is my priority.

I wouldn’t go as far as to throw your husband out. I would encourage him to try and talk to you about what REALLY upset him. There seems something else behind his tantrum.

How about just you and him going out for a re birthday meal? You may be able to talk it out better over a nice meal with no distractions. It can be hard for family members not be affected by another’s difficult condition and honesty and understanding of the frustrations are needed. Your husband needs you just as much as your daughter does. Is your relationship with your husband healthy? ( you don’t need to answer that). Does that need work?

is she using her anxiety as an excuse to do things she doesn’t want to? Not for one minute suggesting it’s not a real, debilitating condition, but having it and being a bit of a bugger as an adolescent are not mutually exclusive.