Posting here for traffic (I hope that's okay). I'm a frequent poster but I've name changed for this.
My husband works away a lot and I am a SAHM. We have a 4 year old and a 1 year old.
I've been feeling so distant to DH lately because I find his negativity towards the kids unbearable. He is an excellent dad for the most part but he expects way too much of them IMO and when the children aren't cooperating (having a melt down or something) he becomes the most negative person.
For example, DD is on a course of medication at the moment which involves me having to wake her in the night to give her a dose. The issue is, she is VERY anxious when it comes to taking medicine and anything to do with the doctors due to a previous situation. In the day time, she'll take her medicine no problem because I can talk her through it calmly, but when I wake her to give her the night time dose she has been having huge melt downs. When DH was away she would cry for a period of time and then eventually calm down, I'd cuddle her whilst she was crying and then once she'd calmed down we'd talk, she'd tell me she felt nervous and scared and we'd have a chat and then I'd eventually be able to give her the medicine. In the morning, I'd talk to her about it and she'd have no recollection of what had happened in the night. Anyway, last night DH was home and decided to give her her medicine. He went up and handled it calmly initially but then I could see he was becoming frustrated by the situation (understandably). He was being very short with her, huffing and puffing a bit and DD was getting more and more distressed and the screaming was becoming extremely loud (10.30 at night and we're in a mid terrace). I said to DH "I think we just need to stay very calm and reassure her. She seems to be getting more and more distressed". His response was along the lines of "No, she knows exactly what she's doing, she's fully awake and this is completely unacceptable". I explained to him that on the previous nights she had had no recollection of it in the morning and he sort of laughed to himself and said "trust me, she'll remember this". We decided to step out of DD's room to give her some space to calm down. He kept harping on about how she responded well to a situation a week ago where she was having an epic melt down (at the hospital and as I said she's scared of doctors etc). She had been freaking out for a good hour but he managed to talk her down by being quite firm with her about how her behaviour was unacceptable. I tried to tell him that I understand that worked that day, but tonight was very much different because she'd been woken in the night and in my opinion wasn't fully compos mentis. He began arguing with me and I said "this isn't good for her just now, we need to be calm, please", but he carried on. In these situations, he never listens to a word I say, he becomes so negative and argumentative that not only are we dealing with a difficult situation with the kids, he turns it into a friction between him and I. After all this, I eventually stepped in and managed to calm DD down by just sitting with her and waiting it out and telling her I was ready to talk to her whenever she was calm enough. I gave her the medicine and went downstairs to apologise to DH to smooth things over. I said, "I'm sorry about that DH, we just deal with these situations very differently and that's okay, there's no right or wrong and I'm sorry." He then carried on trying to argue with me. He said that there's no way we should be just letting her scream like that and just waiting for her to calm down. He just wouldn't drop it. It's like this every single time there's a drama with the kids and it's wearing me down so much. He'll always say "well I did this once and it worked", I've tried to tell him that it often doesn't work that way with the kids as no two days are the same. Something that works one day won't necessarily work another, in my experience anyway. But he just argues, complains, huffs and puffs and I just can't cope with it anymore.
I've obviously given the example from last night as it's the most recent but this is a very regular occurrence and I just don't know how to cope with these situations best? Can anyone help please. Thank you.