Our three year old is making us all miserable :(

[ThreenagerBlues]

Coming to the end of a week off of much awaited annual leave where once again, I come to realise I'm happier when I'm at work. It feels so horrible to say this but I just don't enjoy living with our three year old DS. His constant tantrums, nagging and whinging has reached a point where it is just so draining and exhausting. My mental health is falling through the floor. I honestly can't remember the last time I had a day where I felt happy . There might be parts of a day that are ok because we go out for a nice walk or he may have a couple of hours where he's at that optimum level of not being tired, bored, hungry etc. But the vast majority of the time, life just feels like one long endurance test both physically and mentally.

It's effecting my older DD too who is 8. She gets frustrated by his tantrums and the way he tends to bulldoze in and ruin anything she wants to do. She then ends up lashing out at him and gets told off too.

Mine and DH relationship is becoming non existent. It's like we are just surviving..both exhausted and stressed and sick to death of the daily grind of work, childcare plus some fairly major work we are having to do on our house which we can't put on hold as at the point of no return now and it's a mess. There's next to no downtime. We've not had a child free night since before DS was born. The grandparents won't have DS until he is less of a handful and tbh they aren't young and I would feel too worried that they were struggling with him.

Earlier today I was in tears yet again because after 5 hours of almost constant tantrums over every little thing I just couldn't take anymore. DH always shares the load but today busy doing building work which I don't want to delay as that's another aspect of our lives that is stressful right now and the sooner it's finished the better. I ended up cuddling DS both of us in tears until he eventually gave in and fell asleep as sometimes only a nap will help reset his mood. I found myself thinking how much happier we were as a family before we had him. How bloody awful is that . He was so wanted and I love him but I just feel so done with parenting. I don't even think I'm very good at it tbh because otherwise I wouldn't be hating it so much would I?
I don't really know what I'm asking here tbh. Survival tips? Because I'm sinking. Really, really sinking

Thank you both so much for responding...I really needed to hear that.
I'm having a miserable time with my DS, god I love him but I don't like him most of the time.
Im now feeling a bit more optimistic about the future x

It's hard to say what can be done without details of the dynamics, but even then it's difficult to figure out. This is going to sound really dumb, but there's some good tips in how to handle situations like this on shows like Supernanny- I think the UK version was Nanny 911. I've only seen the US version, it's on youtube now. I know how stupid it sounds but it's a good way to see the behavior and step by step how to handle it. There may be some not useful or outdated advise, I'm not sure but I have 4 well behaved kids and the two youngest have an age gap of 12 years so I understand what you're going through, but I was able to nip it in the bud. I came from an abusive home so I had to work hard to figure out how to parent and I got it wrong plenty as well. I've had days where I couldn't figure out what was going wrong or what to do and I felt miserable too. I completely understand.

I do think you and DH need to get a sitter for one day every week for a date night. I think it would be well worth the money.

I hope you find something that works for you soon!

Counseling. Go to a family counselor all together. They will be equipped to help you.

You should leave!

Wow, I wrote this four years ago. Happy update; tricky twin 1 is now 8 and an absolute delight of a child. Infact until I read my own comment I had forgotten how hard she was! Infact Twin 2 who was a milder mannered toddler is now a sassy nightmare 😱🤣

Mine is almost 13 and still terrorising the whole family. I've seriously considered adoption so many times. We can never go anywhere as a family with him being completely disruptive and upsetting everyone. I've not been able to get any diagnosis. I'm just repeatedly being sent for parenting classes. I've had no issues with other 3 children and feel as though I'm being blamed for his bad behaviour. I've exhausted all avenues and now must remove myself to other parts of the house to maintain my sanity. My only hope is that he is getting closer to 18 and may hopefully have enough ability to fly the nest sooner rather than later. It makes me feel vile, I often feel he's the spawn of the devil, then he flips a switch and becomes all sweet and affectionate. He takes genuine pleasure out of upsetting people, no remorse