Last night dp lost his temper

[melonpips]

And it scared me.

We've been together 15 years and this has never happened. Dc were play fighting and would not stop. After repeatedly telling them to stop, partner stood up and screamed for them to stop. His face looked different, he was red and looked angry like he never has before. He looked at me and for a moment I thought he was going to hurt me. He looked completely different like rage had consumed him.

I told him he had to go for a walk to calm down. The dc stopped fighting and I sat with them to watch a cartoon. They didn't seem to be upset or scared, but I was shaking.

When he got back I told him how I was feeling. I didn't feel safe in my own home because of him. He apologized and apologized to our dc. Said he loved us all and told me he would never hurt me.

I still feel uneasy. The only other person I've seen act like this was my dad towards my mum. It terrified me then as a child, but as an adult it felt much scarier.

I don't know what to do. I hate how I'm feeling right now. He said everyone looses their temper some time. I just don't want my children to have memories like I have.

Am I over reacting because of my upbringing?

You cannot stop them from seeing their dad so that means he’d need supervised access.

Based on everything OP has said herself, if they separated and if OP tried to enforce supervised access, and he went to court, it would not go well for OP.

Exactly. That's the truly shocking part here for me - the suggestion that this means he shouldn't be alone with his kids.

If OP doesn't want to be with someone who might occasionally shout then that's her decision, but it would be delusional to tell herself that her kids are better off with separated parents, seeing dad in a contact centre over this incident. Shouting at kids may not be ideal parenting but the vast majority of kids would be better off with a parent who occasionally shouts (whilst being in no way physically violent) than the above scenario.

Why are posters repeatedly minimising this by saying he only shouted.
Fucking hell. You lot love creating your own story in your head. So far posters have decided the children are brats, the dad is the only good parent, he has never shouted till now.
None of which is true. OP said he has shouted and lost his temper before. Which is not ideal but normal and human.

This time he lost it and screamed at them. That is absolutely not normal. The gas lighting of the OP on this thread is sickening.

Have you asked him, without blame or judgement, but genuine concern, if he is ok?

If it is out of character is he stressed about something, if it was dh I would be genuinely concerned about what triggered it as it would be totally unlike him.

There’s a thread on here today from a woman who pushed her 5 year old and all the responses are “aww, don’t worry, we all do it sometimes, stop beating yourself up”.

I tend to agree. I can remember as a kid every time a normally calm teacher lost their rag with us and shouted. It chastened us, frightened us a little bit too, but in a healthy way. It showed us that our behaviour was having a real impact on someone we genuinely did respect because we'd got carried away being little shits, and we shut up and settled down. It's not an awful thing to learn that your behaviour has an impact on others.

Because screaming means a long continuous sound. It's unlikely he did that, and far more likely that like many people OP is using "screamed" to mean he shouted loudly. It's the same thing.

He looked different. - because he was furious and had reached a tipping point.

He looked like he was capable of hurting someone. - your view, a judgement, but not backed up by fact. He didn't hurt anyone. He did control his anger. He found a way to quickly calm down. He apologised.

It came on very suddenly. - to be expected with a sudden rage. He was perhaps trigger by the play fighting. I can't stand it. It brings me back to fighting with my sibling, it makes me furious. I struggle to react calmly sometimes. He too is allowed to be triggered into a strong response. As you have been. Your fear doesn't outweigh his.

Can you all honestly tell me you have been in that situation and felt safe and happy with an apology? - yes. 15 years with someone without an issue, of course.

I suspect you are extrapolation from one incident into imagining worse case scenarios. Your DC, from your info, seem perfectly safe. You seem perfectly safe. No one was harmed or threatened with harm.

I hope that you can find a way to rationalise what seems like a regrettable but not significant issue.

And yes, watching cartoons with the children is totally the wrong signal. Wether you were shaking or not. You could have sent them to their rooms to calm down whilst you did the same.

That would be the famous MN double standard

How can it be a double standard when the majority of this thread is similar responses?

Are you suggesting there isnt a double standard on MN

I can't tell whether posters are minimising or whether the OP is catastrophising.

I'm not sure how anyone else can tell either, even the OP can't.

I am glad someone else noticed this

"the offender may not have intended to cause the victim to think an attack was imminent but if they behaved in way that was likely to make the victim think they were about to be attacked, and they didn’t care what effect that behaviour would have, the offender is guilty of the offence."

Exh and I followed a rule I made that we’d never let the dc play one of us against the other and if we disagreed on something we’d discuss it away from them.

Your dc have probably come to the conclusion - drive dad mad, dad shouts, mum gives us cuddles and tv.

Everyone gets angry sometimes and I get that past trauma growing up can make old feelings rise to the surface but as an adult, if there’s things we can’t deal with it’s best to get some help either with self help books or therapy.

Talk with your dp and explain how it unnerved you and how you can both work together to prevent it getting to that point again.

Yes, that’s what I said.

This!!

It’s possible for multiple things to be true at once. OP genuinely felt in fear and that fear was legitimate for her. But also, OP’s perceptions of how anger is expressed may well be shaped by her childhood trauma. So it may well be that OP perceived that DH might be capable of lashing out but that that perception was wrong, and was instead shaped by the fact that from a young age she has needed to associate anger with physical abuse.

It’s also (IMO) the case that DH acted in a less than ideal way without it making him a terrible parent. I don’t agree with the ‘good on him’ posts - screaming at kids is rarely a good strategy in my view - but I also don’t think making a mistake by being temporarily hijacked by his emotions makes him a bad parent. And although I don’t think screaming at kids is helpful - I do think it’s good for kids to see normal, healthy anger role modelled. They can learn that anger is healthy and can be expressed without physical violence, there are strategies for calming down, and there is the potential for repair afterwards by an apology. These are all good emotional lessons, and one OP probably didn’t have much of as a child.

And then there is the relationship between OP and DH. Assuming he knows OP’s past then he needs to be more sensitive to potential triggers. Again, we’re all human. Losing his temper doesn’t make him a bad person, but he should certainly recognise the impact that it had on a trauma experienced partner.

It's not acceptable to really scream at anyone, but he did all the right things after the incident and as you say, this was a one-off. If he were to keep doing it, then that would be much more concerning. But given that he left to calm down at your request, and then came back and apologised, it sounds to me like he managed it as well as he could given that he couldn't undo losing his temper like that.

I'm really sympathetic to how you feel OP because I have similar issues from my upbringing. I can't bear it when men raise their voices, let alone shout. I remember once my DH raised his voice at me during an argument and I was absolutely shaking in terror. I've been diagnosed with PTSD since and had a lot of therapy and I can now look back and see that, while it was unpleasant, I wasn't in any danger from DH and it was just dredging up frightening feelings from my childhood.

I think it could be worth exploring the possibility that you might need some external help with processing your traumatic childhood experiences. If you haven't already, you could also talk to him about it when you're calmer and explain how him shouting like that makes you feel and why that is. And perhaps come up with some strategies of what you can do as a team to ensure that it doesn't get to that point again.

Screaming/play fighting/ignoring requests to stop can be INFURIATING so I can understand why your DH lost his cool. So it might also be a good idea to sit down with the kids when the dust has settled and say that daddy shouldn't have shouted like that, but equally their behaviour was really over the line and you expect them to stop the first time someone tells them to.

I haven't seen the other thread but if the consensus over there is to cut yourself a little slack and that is mostly replicated here, then I'm failing to see this great inequity too.

No, you're not overreacting. That would scare me too. Your DP needs to curb his rage. His anger issues are not your or the children's fault and he needs to learn to properly manage them.

I'm confused then. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me?

I'm saying if the OP felt threatened then it would be common assault.

You're saying it's not helpful of me to state that the OP's feelings of threat should be regarded as common assault.

This. I think it’s from stupidity rather than malice.

I’m disagreeing.

Feeling threatened isn’t enough to constitute an offence, or anyone could go around saying they felt threatened and therefore they’ve been assaulted, even in relatively innocuous disagreements.

There has to be either (a) intent to threaten or (b) recklessness which is the part you quoted “and they didn’t care what effect that behaviour would have”.

In this case, OP’s husband took himself off then came back and was apologetic. There’s not been any suggestion from OP that he either intended to threaten her or knew she’d feel threatened and didn’t care.

@Sandra1984

shouting once doesn’t mean you have “anger issues” ffs

so many emotionally suppressed ‘oh I never get angry or raise my voice’ types on here.

Robot martyrs !