Husband reactions in front of the kids

[FoxesSox]

Bear with me…

My Husband swears a lot, we have an ongoing debate about it because it makes me so unhappy he constantly does this in front of the kids. We have a 6 month old baby and a 2 year old. The 2 year old is like a parrot, her language is amazing and she repeats everything back. Husband swears constantly in front of her. He is very uptight and reacts to everything, eg, a spec of ketchup on his top, a drop of a water on the floor, stubbing his toe, dropping something etc gets a “FK SAKE! SHT… Blcks” etc. Which is all the time. Often multiple times in a few minutes. he scraped his ankle last week and shouted “Fck a Cnt”. When I remind him please don’t swear in front of the kids he snaps and aggressively says things like “well I just cracked the fucking vase in the dishwasher etc” and explains why he swore. (Obviously there is always a reason and I’m not saying he is just shouting for no reason).

For context, we’ve had marriage problems lately and are in counselling and I have only just come home with the kids after staying at my parents house for 2 months because of the behaviour in front of the kids, arguing, and stress, mostly due to a work issue he has had which takes over every part of his life and no space for anything else (he’s been pushed out of his job and not been at work despite being paid still - no immediate financial worries). He made an effort for a few days but it seems to have gone straight back to how it was before.

Anyway, yesterday we had friends over they were late leaving and we were late putting the kids to bed. The bath was stressful as he kept walking to have a go at me for putting the blackout blind back up in the toddler room and that I would further damage the roller blind etc leaving the baby and Toddler in the bath (could still see them but not in grabbing distance). I said not to leave the kids to drown and he did go back but continued to shout at me through the bathroom door.

Bath ended and we did nappies and Pjamas etc and I left him to give toddler her milk and went up to the loft room to feed baby. A few minutes later he was screaming my name and swearing from the floor below “she’s being f*king sick! Projectile fking vomming! Get here now now! Where the fck are you”. I immediately unlatched baby and came downstairs with him, he’s just started crawling and can’t be left alone. Toddler sat in bed covered in sick and all over carpet. He continues “I needed you to get here fucking quicker” (it must have taken less than 25 seconds from shouting to me being stood there). My daughter starts crying. It makes me SO sad. All she needed was a cuddle, take her clothes off and put her back in the bath and kindness. Him shouting at me made her think she had done something wrong and caused a problem and she was crying at that, not because she had been sick. He started madly getting carpet cleaner and stuff and I said we needed to put the kids to bed first.

He says “I have always sworn, and you knew who I was before you married me. Swearing is an auto response and I can’t help it”. I say, he did lots of things before we were married, I wouldn’t expect him to do these things in front of our young children. He is very snobby (private school etc, often looks down on people and calls people “pikeys”). But surely swearing in front of your kids is rough and why doesn’t he care our daughter will pick this up and swear at nursery etc.

I guess my question is:

YANBU: This is unacceptable, he needs to stop swearing and reacting in front of the kids and if he doesn’t this will cause lasting damage and make daughter really insecure.

YABU: Everyone swears, it’s no big deal. He can’t help himself in stressful situations and give him a break.

To use his terminology, he’s an abusive fucking cunt. Leave and this time, don’t go back. You and your children deserve better than this highly substandard specimen.

Why on earth did you go back? It's not just the swearing, it's his rage and aggression. He is a violent, abusive bully. This man will destroy your children's childhoods, and damage the rest of their entire lives.

See a solicitor and divorce him.

The way he speaks to you and orders you about - abuse springs to mind, if he hasn’t changed after 2 months of you being out the house then he never will, leave him- at the very least for your kids sake

Thank you everyone - I didn’t expect so many replies. I know this isn’t normal and no, I don’t want my kids growing up around this.

I’ll try answer individual questions but first off:

Yes, the work situation has made him 1000 times worse although he was always uptight. I think he did have a breakdown before I left linked to work (shouting / swearing / erratic weird behaviour).

We are already in marriage counselling for 3 months now.

He recognises he needs to address his stress management and is in individual CBT. I haven’t yet seen any real improvement or trying though and he seems to be usIng the sessions to air his grievances about how he has been treated badly at work rather than acknowledging any need to change himself.

DD is not terrified of him (yet) she does love her daddy and he can be very kind and caring with her. She does go very quiet when he behaves like this though and it is obviously doing damage. When I left before she continued shouting “Stop it Daddy!” For ages at my parents house which was heartbreaking. That faded after a while.

No I don’t want my kids growing up around this. I grew up in a broken home and wanted a family unit. But YES I know single parenting is so much better than growing up in a tense / abusive household of conflict. I can’t bare the thought of her being scared to make a mistake / spill a drink etc less he fly off the handle.

I tried to talk to him about last night in the park and he doubled down and said “well I had someone projectile vomiting on me, what do you expect, it’s obviously stressful for god sake etc”. (Not “someone” his daughter).

He's not going to change. Do the right thing for your kids.

I think he did have a breakdown. He has always been stressed over minor stuff but it’s got much worse. Work feedback is that he creates a negative vibe in his teams.

We are already in marriage counselling for 3 months now.

You do not go to marriage counseling with an abuser. You need to accept that your husband is a violent, abusive man. All his excuses are just that, excuses. His job is stressful? Poor little diddums. I don't give a fuck and you shouldn't, either. We all deal with that and don't turn our homes into bloody nightmares. As long as you continue to make excuses for him, you will stay and your children will keep being damaged by this. Enough is enough.

Yes, I was happier and less on edge. I have a large lovely and supportive family / support network there - as opposed to nobody here, a 3 hour drive away.

My daughter seemed calmer but she definitely missed him too which was difficult for me.

I do wonder this, if I ask him to help out with something kid related he reverts to being clueless and it’s so stressful explaining and his attitude it’s easier to do it myself.

Its not the swearing it's the aggression and anger. If he was shouting like that with the same level of anger and, quite frankly, hatred, then it would damage the kids just as much. Yeah it'll be embarrassing your kid being the sweary one in nursery, but she's also going to be the nervous wreck being raised in an angry house and that'll affect her for the rest of her life.

Thank you. I have asked him if there is more to the story at work as this also crossed my mind. He says no.

I don’t think he is close to lashing out. Before I left when he was having the breakdown type thing he did raised his arm, balled fist etc and stepped towards me, threw my suitcase across the room but I still genuinely didn’t believe he would ever do that. He’s never hit anyone / been hit in his life. Again, posh boy. He would probably miss to be honest.

Really interesting point about the huge ego masking low self esteem. This is definitely him.

Well yes it is helpful actually because maybe it will make the OP think about why she's staying in a relationship like this!

So you are intent on minimising his abusive behaviour even after your 2yo reacting like that?
How you could put your kids back again into that position is beyond me. You are picking him over your poor kids.

I honestly don’t know how to get him to see how close I am to leaving. I left with our children for two months and moved out. And he still thinks “you’ll never leave me”. I will.

I came back because I thought with the counselling and his CBT we had a shot. I guess I was wrong. He says I expect too much.

Yes this horrifies me.

Just leave. He is horrible.

“He says I expect too much”

he doesn’t get to decide how low the bar of expectation for his behaviour is. You are fully entitled to expect him to behave in any way you choose. You only get one life (and your poor children only have one shot at childhood) and you are free to decide how you wish to be treated. Either he meets this bar and you stay, or he doesn’t and you leave.

At the moment your kids are very small & probably quite cute but they are going to get bigger and they will push both of your buttons more than you can imagine right now.

Can you imagine going through all of the issues raising children to adulthood - through the toddler tantrums, schooling, exams, the tricky tween and teenage years - with a man who loses his absolute shit when his small child vomits on him?

If he is having this much therapy and things aren't shifting with him you have to consider leaving permanently.

He says I expect too much.

Says every abuser. He's trying to convince you that you are the problem. Men like your husband are very, very dangerous.

I left for pretty much the same reasons although he was fine with the younger ones once the oldest ones started developing personalities and pushing back he started to get physical with them
screaming shouting intimidating them when he kicked my oldest out for answering back I knew it was time to go couldn’t let him continue

This is very much the danger with a parent who can't control their temper.
It takes great patience and a lot of self control to raise children!

Go back to your parents’ place.

Read Lundy Bancroft’s book Why Does He Do That?

Stop going to counselling with this abusive man - it is not a safe space in which you can express yourself, he will use what you say there to hurt you further. (You can ask to have a solo session with your counsellor to explain why you need to stop, if you feel that would be useful).

You don't get him to see how close you are to leaving.
You have to actually leave. And not as a threat to get him to finally understand and change his ways. Because he is not going to change. That's what you have to understand, he is not going to change.
So your choices are, either you stay and live with this, the way it is now, through teenage years, toddler tantrums, all life's ups and downs with this man by your side, exactly as he is now.
Or you leave. Its as simple as that.