Some background first:
DS is twenty months old and after he was born I struggled with (probably mild, although it didn’t feel like that at the time) post-natal anxiety. I sought treatment and I think I was back to my old self by about the time DS was five months old. During this time, DH was an absolute star, working and taking care of both me and DS. The reason I am sharing this background is that I wonder if it has any impact on the way DH is behaving now, like maybe it took a greater toll on him than either of us realised.
Cut to now, and the behaviour of my DH just seems to be getting progressively worse and worse over the past few months. He seems stressed and angry a lot of the time, and will lash out at me without warning (just verbally, not physically). He loves DS very much and is very good with him but he can also find spending time with him stressful because DH is a worrier, and so when he feels anxious he can be (imo) a bit sharp or huffy with DS. This is not all the time, it’s just every now and then a situation will occur where he gets really wound up at something which I see as quite minor (DS getting food in his hair or refusing to put shoes on when we need to go somewhere, for example.) When these situations occur I often to bite my tongue because usually me trying to tackle the situation head on only exacerbates it, whereas if I ignore it he usually calms himself down. (I sometimes will then talk to him later about it when things are more calm, if I think it was something that needs addressing.)
However, last night I feel like he crossed a line with his behaviour, but I might be over-sensitive to all this so I want to know whether you think I’m over-reacting or if you would be upset about it too. DH was giving DS his bath (DH gets stressed because DS likes to stand up and walk about and then slips all over the place). I was in the next room and suddenly heard him say “DS, for FUCK’s sake” directly to him. He really hissed it at DS, not like in a jokey way. DS was crying and it turned out that he had managed to headbutt DH’s chin in the midst of him wriggling in the tub. So I appreciate that DH was hurt, but so was DS and he is too young to understand how awkward he was being in the run up to the incident.
I went through and got DS out of the bath and away from DH. I wasn’t worried that he would actually hurt him or anything, but I was worried that they would both keep on winding each other up. Later on DH seemed very remorseful about it. He did try to excuse it as ‘instinct’ though, that he hadn’t been able to control his reaction at the time. I responded that I had managed to keep my initial reaction in check, which was to run in and lamp him for talking to DS that way, tbh. AIBU for thinking that he crossed a line by speaking in this way to DS, or am I just hyper-sensitive because his behaviour generally has been winding me up? I’ve never posted on MN before but I’m genuinely perplexed and I don’t want to potentially over-react to something minor.