I just shouted in his face

[Gettissuesgotissues]

Despite repeated conversations asking him not to, my DH shouts at the kids, sometimes several times a day. He also makes these stupid loud growling noises. He just did it again, shouting 'child's name'. It used to give me a fright, never mind the kids, and I'm usually in the next room when this happens. Anyway, today I just lost it, and shouted right in his face 'stop shouting at the kids!' I rarely shout, unless there's danger, and hate confrontation. I'm ashamed I did this.

@bloodyplanes

You can be in denial all you want to, but shouting is abusive and it’s very sad that you don’t realise this. ☹️

Seriously all the crap on here is laughable! As i stated before i was married to a very abusive man who almost never even raised his voice! I am loud and shouty as are my kids and we are not abusive to each other, one does not necessarily equal the other and it is ignorant and stupid to say it does!

And also if shouting equals abuse why is it ok for the OP to shout in her husband's face doing the exact same thing she says he is doing? Two wrongs don't make a right it makes her the same as him!

That is abusive behaviour. Your kids are just used to it. Just because another abusive person didn't shout, doesn't mean you're not abusive. Asking nicely once, then shouting is not how a non-abusive person deals with a situation. You and your kids need help and I hope they have support from others.

Gettissuesgotissues · Today 10:04
He looked shocked.“

Good.

You can be abusive without shouting. Doesn't mean shouting at your kids isn't also abusive. Abuse covers a range of nasty behaviours.

But abusers never think they're in the wrong. Your ex would say all the same stuff you're saying now.

Stop shouting at your kids. It's damaging them.

@Season0fTheWitch don't be so dramatic

@bloodyplanes
So when your kids go out into the world and don’t get their own way after asking once and then resort to shouting at people, you don’t think there will be an issue?

You think people will say - oh they aren’t being abusive or lacking in communication skills, this is a perfectly fine way to behave towards others?

YOU don’t think it’s abusive - that doesn’t mean it isn’t. At the very least it’s a total lack of emotional regulation and communication skills.

I say that as a former shouter, raised by a shouter who would have sworn on a stack of bibles he wasn’t a bully and his children were not scared of him. Guess what…

@Gettissuesgotissues good for you! Sometimes bullies need a taste of their own medicine.
Be prepared for him to be the victim now - you shouting at him will have been horrible and belittling and not fair. Him shouting will be fine and just his way. Not the same.

Good you you, and if he looked shocked then I would be having a conversation with him asking how he felt, and advising him that’s how you and the kids feel every time he does it to you

and I would now be contemplating if I wanted to stay with him

@bloodyplanes I’m with you on this. Shouting is not necessarily abusive. Some people on here are so dramatic.
To be fair, growling is pretty weird and in this case, the shouting is possibly, therefore, inappropriate, but generally, some people are just more verbally demonstrative than others.
I have Italian friends who are insanely loud. They shout in praise and in anger. It’s not abusive for goodness sake. Soon people are going to be saying that saying ‘no’ to your kids is abuse 🙄

Don't feel bad. Taste of his own medicine.

Yeah, but you also said elsethread that you wouldn't be phased by Charles Bronson living next door to you, so I don't think your judgement of harmful behaviour is much like other people's.

btw, shouting & growling at kids IS abusive, whether you consider it so or not.

Says the woman who can only say something once before resorting to shouting ...

I can only remember my DM shouting when we were young. It’s really sad because I actually know my parents did masses of great stuff with us, took us camping, let me join lots of clubs and so on. Yet I can only remember her as a cross, shouty mum. She was probably just frequently stressed and overwhelmed by her life.

This definitely affected me and I’m very, very non shouty.

Good moment to seriously discuss this and look for change.

I shout lots, im far from abusive and my kids are most definitely not scared of me!

I'd love to hear your children's take on that. My DM shouted a lot, I can distinctly recall being aged about 8 and thinking 'I'm scared of her,' and with hindsight and knowledge a lot of what she did would be considered abusive.

Not coincidentally I was a very timid, nervous child.

Well done. Now follow up with emphasising that this shouting is not acceptable - also the growling is bloody ridiculous.

I did something similar. DH is mostly great with the children, but tends to take his stress out on whoever is about and there was a phase when this was happening a lot, and the kids and I basically tiptoed around it.

Then one day I came home to hear him stamping around upstairs and the children semi-hiding away out of his way. They told me that a bookshelf had collapsed in the bedroom and he had decided it must be because they had been climbing up on it. I have to admit that the shelf in question was ridiculously overloaded and I was perfectly sure that was why it had collapsed. I went up to try to calm DH down and reason with him, and he wouldn't have it and started shouting at me. I just thought "No, I'm not having this" and said so, loudly and very firmly, also telling him he was being ridiculous blaming it on the children. He was really shocked that I had bitten back and shut up immediately, and that was really the point when the problem turned around. I realised that tiptoeing around him wasn't good for anyone, he realised that he wasn't going to have free rein to shout at everyone any more, and life definitely improved.

@bloodyplanes do you shout at your kids or are you just a loud family?

My ex did this repeatedly (including the growl) it's a form of control to intimidate and get obedience. I bit back a few times before I finally left, it did shock him but ultimately his need for control was greater than his need for family life.

@bloodyplanes my aunt shouted at my cousins. I doubt she realised how frightened we were

Just leave him. Your parents have their father shouting at them and their mother shouting in their father’s face. Neither of you come out of this well.

My father shouted at us all the time. The atmosphere in our house was awful. Mum stayed with him mainly "for the sake of the children" which was the done thing them. She eventually divorced him but I'd left home by then. It was too late, the damage was done to all of us, and there really was damage.
My memories of childhood are mainly of dad's temper and endless shouting for no good reason at all. The happier times were completely eclipsed by that. We couldn't relax. Leaving home was like entering heaven. I wasn't used to a normal life with people talking to each other in a normal way.
Your husband is doing the same thing to your kids. Shouting and aggressive noises like a dog is how they'll remember him.

Shouting "lots" at children is abusive. HTH.

I completely agree. We have family members who shout at their kids all the time - not when they're being deliberately naughty, but maybe just taking a few seconds to respond or a bit whingey. They have a stereotypical middle-class lifestyle, and I'm in no doubt at all that they love the kids, but it's horrible. We hate it and it jars us as adults who are merely witnessing it. Why would you look at your precious (albeit no-angel and maybe often annoying) children and your first reaction be to just keep hollering at them?

I think it's actually even more sad when the children don't react to being shouted at, because they've just become habituated to it as part of their 'normal' of just what parents do: they give you a bowl of rice krispies every morning, they take you to school and they shout at you all the time.

Excuses that being shouted at doesn't scare or upset the children just signify to me that the kids have been forced to lower their expectations and comfort levels and restrict their lives and (harmless but maybe slightly annoying) behaviours and characteristics; or otherwise simply hide their fears.

My acid test is a simple one: how would you as an adult react if another adult at work treated you in the same way? Would you tolerate it? Would you complain? Worst - would you be absolutely incredulous that anybody would even dream that such a thing could be acceptable in the first place? Abuse is the correct term for it. And all along, don't forget that you as an adult can always walk away, which a child can't.

I pity the people who enter relationships with your children when they are adults, as they will repeat the cycle of abuse that your husband and you began. Shouting is verbal and emotional abuse. End of. The fact that you refuse to see it or even entertain the possibility it might be shows you have an inflexibility in your thinking which you normally find with abusive people.