Letting DC play out of an open window. Surely IANBU?

[everybodysang]

Got home from work and DH was playing parachutes with DD (4). Which involves flying her toys out of the open window in her bedroom, with her standing on a chair leaning out of the window.

I was furious. He did apologise but not like he really meant it..."we were playing". I did shout - deliberately so, I really wanted DD to get the message that it's not on to be leaning out of her window.

This may be relevant - DD has chickenpox, today's their first full day of quarantine.

DD was very upset. DH cannot see why I'm so angry, saying it's just a game - which I get, and he says she's sensible and won't do it on her own. And she is a sensible little girl but she's also 4. I said I wasn't just angry about them playing a game, I knew he'd be supervising, but that I was really angry that he'd even introduced the idea to her.

I said I didn't want to go out to work again knowing he could do that kind of thing.

He absolutely lost it. She was already crying because I'd
shouted so I'm not coming out of this too well anyway, but he was raging at me, saying he couldn't believe I didn't trust him and he wanted an apology.

Thing is - I do think what he was doing was unacceptable, with no caveats. It doesn't matter how many times he screams "we all played games like that" or "oh and YOU'VE never exposed her to any risk", I'm not going to change my mind on that.

He wouldn't stop though. He kept on screaming at me. She was sobbing on my knee, I kept asking him to go away and eventually I said I was going to call the police. I couldn't think of anything else to get him to stop.

This may also be important: I've got anger issues related to PTSD. I've had counselling etc and things are a million times better than say a decade ago, but I do get shouty. So if you're all going to say LTB because he was yelling, it's a bit trickier than that .

He did say some horrible things though. About me going out and building a career while he has a difficult time at home. Pretty much calculated to hit the WOHM buttons there .

I don't know. AIBU? What do we do now?

Everybody - most people do copy the parenting they received, unless they really think about it and make an effort to change. If you can catch yourself before you explode, then you will be able to work out ways to process your feelings.

I don't know of any books, but things that help me are

1. Take a deep breath and a step back. This is probably the most important thing. You will actually be breathing less is you're stressed and you will respond to that by getting more stressed. A deep breath helps with getting you to physically and emotionally calm down.

1. Remove yourself from the situation if you need to. Go away and think about it.

1. I often write our how I'm feeling. It really makes you slow down and think about why you feel this way, and whether it's justified. Often I read back what I've written and think what an arse I sound like. Or I get caught up on how best to paragraph it and then the emotion seeps away.

1. Then try to work out what made me feel so bad (in this case, seeing your DD in danger, your DH dismissing your views, possibly a little envy at seeing them have fun while you were working.) Were you justified.

1. Work out what you want to happen. Do you really need to escalate this, make it a big thing, have a family discussion etc. IF this were like work, would you call a meeting, and have an agenda about it? Discussing how to keep DD safe would make me think yes, but the ultimate goal is to keep DD safe and all of you happy. What discussion needs to happen? What part of your reaction can you ditch as emotional overload and move on from?

Some people ask a close person, like DH, to give them a signal if they're suddenly overreacting, but that can backfire. IF you've lost it, then it can feel sanctimonious and controlling if someone starts giving you 'time out' signals.

You need to think through this stuff when you're calm, and next time something happens try to catch yourself asap. I used to sometimes be mid sentence, take a deep breath, say sorry then walk off.

And don't expect it all to suddenly get better overnight. It takes a lot of effort to overcome how you were raised.

Thank you kickass and howabout there's some really good advice there.

Writing down how we feel might work - in my case I was certain I was in the right till I began to type it up on here and then started to think 'wait a minute...'

I never want anything like that to happen again. You're absolutely right - it would be just awful if I was looking after her all day and then DH came in and kicked off about something - even if there was a justification.

So much to think about.

It wasn't ideal to have such a heated argument, particularly in front of DD.

However, I think your resolution of the argument, discussing with both DD and DH, shows a very positive and self-aware person. IMHO showing children that their parents can be angry and then resolve those differences is a positive lesson. Unresolved anger is what damages children, not parents being flawed but fundamentally good and caring people.