Partner makes difficult situations even more stressful

[Whattodoforthebesteek]

Help/ advice please

My partner (father of my children) likes to attribute blame in most circumstances, with a nice healthy dose of I told you so. I find this frustrating but have realised he makes stressful situations much worse, and he won’t back down in the moment.

we have a puppy and he and my 5yo son were playing and slipped on the tiles and both hit the crate and got hurt. The puppy whimpering and my son so sad he had hurt the puppy (even though it was an accident).

I instinctively consoled my son whilst trying to see if the pup was ok. My other half is ranting I told you this would happen, look what youve done, you’ve hurt him now, look what you’ve done you should be more careful, making our son even more upset HOWEVER he never helped the pup either, so I’m left trying to comfort both and trying to see if the pup was hurt. Thankfully the pup came to me and I had one either side of me, all whilst trying to calm my daughter,9, as well. I snapped eventually saying stop yelling at everyone you aren’t even trying to help the pup and he just declared if we listened to him and did what he said none of this would happen. By which time my boy was broken, so so so sad.

this has happened so many times, eg when my son hit his head and I took him to a&e… he left me and the blood to go to the toilet whilst still ranting… I had to get my daughter and the neighbours kids to go to their house and ask them to look after her whilst I took him to a&e in a taxi… again I ended up yelling at him to stop it, and to help me or go away.

I am so so disappointed, again. Aibu to want less blame and more support in such situations? Am I missing something, is this a typical response for some people?

Needs to get more common decency
Or 'why are you so nasty'
Get a bit of humanity in youself
Tw**

I don’t know what to do as he doesn’t accept he is wrong or accept he could behave differently

he went on ranting to say that the kids were tired and should have been in bed, and if they weren’t so tired they’d be listening and behaving better… or apportioning blame to include me too

he took my son to bed and I could hear him sobbing and his dad ranting

i went up to say the pup was fine and not to worry and how proud of him I was for being such a good boy and looking after the pup, by which point my other half was being nice to him saying see I told you he was ok, he even then took him downstairs to see for himself. So from this, I assume he knows he reacted badly but I also know he would do the same thing tomorrow and not look to try to change or try to improve

I’ve tried talking to him but he is super defensive and turns the conversation into my failings

Why are you staying with a man who emotionally abuses your children?

Listen to 'Damn you Steve' on YouTube. It's Brene Brown talking about blame. It talks about the feelings behind blame and why we do it. It gives the illusion of control and order in the universe.

I have a blamer at home. Combination of hyper-critical father and wanting things just so. We've mostly solved it with talking about things like the Brene Brown clip and humour. If he starts to do it, "oooooo who can we blame?" Or "oh no, no one to blame, let's find someone'.

But mine sees it and wants to fix it. If yours can't do that it's very hard. You need a real conversation about how it affects your child, and you. You can;t be the only one dealing with the situation and ALL he does is blames.

This is the question you really need to answer. Your poor kids are just emotional punching bags for this brute.

I despise people like your husband. Bullying, idiotic weak links who serve zero purpose for anything except to make difficult situations worse or to ruin happy ones.

Yes this is very good!

Thank you, I’ll do this tomorrow x

www.google.co.uk/search?q=youtube+damn+you+steve&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:18d7b353,vid:RZWf2_2L2v8,st:0

He's getting overwhelmed in situations he can't control. He feels better when he blames others as it provides an explanation. He's not comfortable with feeling out of control.

He needs to find some strategies to manage his mh better he should not be shouting at your child.

I'd tell him to sort it or leave.

Few questions to ask yourself;

Do you want your DD to end up with a man who treats her like this one day, because shes been raised to believe this is just how men are?
Or do you want her to be a strong confident young lady with clear boundaries about how she expects to be treated, and who would not tolerate this shit?

Do you want your DS to end up treating his lady / kids this way one day, because hes been raised to believe its ok to for the man to be verbally abusive and aggressive towards females and kids?

Coming from someone who grew up in a household like this; you need to put a stop to this. Like, yesterday.

Abuse isnt just violence, its words, actions, demeanour.. Its also learned behaviour, usually at home.

These are conversations you can't have in the moment it's happening. He's not acting rationally because he is overwhelmed by his feelings about what is going on. What looks to you and what he acts out as ranting at everyone is actually him trying to self soothe.

I'm not defending this by the way, as an adult you have to develop the self awareness to see yourself and then strategies how you are going to stop whatever maladaptive coping mechanism it is that you are doing. Your DH does need to step up, it's not your job to parent him, etc etc. But he's obviously not been able to do that up til now and he may need his behaviour spelled out and reflected back to him before he can see the problem. That being fine in a supportive and calm moment, when he is not inside the actual overwhelm, means he's more likely to take in on and reflect rather than double down or defend.

Dh used to be a bit like this.
If anyone is hurt his first reaction is "what have you done you idiot", usually while the person is lying on the ground hurt or whatever.
BUT because he is a decent person in general we use humour and he doesn't really do it any more AND after his initial bad reaction he usually helps out if needed (although he is very bad at sympathy)

I have to agree with this. I don’t know how you can bear to live like this.

This isn't really 'blame' specific, more temper orientated, but there is a good book called The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters about what's happening in our brains when we fly into a rage.

Well you'll be back her asking how to help your teens, crippled with anxiety and your son with anger issues. Or you can makecit a deal breakers, he sorts out his ranting or you split. No child should live with ranting. It destroys self esteem.

Do you think he'd go to a couples' counsellor with you?

He most probably won't read a book or reflect on YouTube clips if he doesn't think the behaviour is an issue.

No doubt one or both of his parents is like this? It's his norm.

It can be useful to have a neutral 3rd party. You have a 5 year old. You have potentially least another 15 years of acting without thinking ahead! It will really drive a wedge between you and DH, and DH and DS if not addressed. Eventually DS will just conceal things from DH.

Oh and a 9 year old girl, I see.

Goodness, shouting at her is totally going to help with SATS stress/secondary transition/puberty/friendship issues/teen stuff.

Not!

There is a book I often recommend on here called '10 Days to a Less Defiant Child' by Jeffrey Bernstein (not saying your DC are defiant although mine is). Anyway, the chapter on how to stop shouting is brilliant. My parents are a bit shouty. I learnt a lot from it about how to do things differently.

Although sadly it does not have a chapter on "how to get dads who already know it all to read this book" and that's not a problem I've managed to solve either.

One of the most healing moments I had as a parent was when one of my kids broke a glass and burst into tears, scared of being told off.

I just said "it's ok, accidents happen, let's get it cleared up so nobody hurts themselves".

I definitely spent a lot of time talking about it in therapy that week. I hadn't realised how much of my father's ranting and anger was still in my head.

You can't change this, he needs to change himself. But it's not right.

Did I read that right?

You had a bleeding child, needed to go to A&E, and instead of looking his DD, he toddle off for a shit and you had to ask your neighbour to look after your DD whilst you went to A&E???

Well, fuck me, what a prize you've got there!!

Ducks in a row time, OP, ducks in a row!!

Yet another ghastly man. How many of them walk among us? I'm sorry you went through that OP.

Aw @Idtotallybangdreamoftheendlessnotgonnalie that's a nice story.