Was I right to intervene?

[Flowerpupp]

My DH and I have struggled a lot with differing parenting styles since having children. He came from a home were physical abuse was normal and I'm pretty positive there was lots of mental abuse too. His parents used to batter each other and the kids, even into adulthood his dad would attack him. If they cried as children they used to get put into a corner on a stool, and a fake dog shit would be put on their head and his parents and the other children would gather round the child on the stool and laugh and chant "shit on your head" at them. DH's mum will proudly tell people this as her way of making sure that her children didn't grow up to be "whiny crybabies". As a result DH clearly has attachment issues and poor emotional regulation. He realises this himself though and works hard to address it. It didn't affect is too much as a couple until we had kids. He struggles with them crying and gets really stressed by this and pretty much shuts down.
Fast forward to tonight, my 3 year old daughter is being monitored by the hospital due to poor weight gain. She has had tests done and they can't find any issue but she just really isn't interested in food but is incredibly active. We managed to get her weight up and her appetite had significantly improved but recently she was ill and wouldn't eat so her weight has dropped again and her appetite has also disappeared. She stopped eating dinner after only a few mouthfuls (a dinner we made especially based around her as it's one of her favourites) nd refused to eat anything else offered. We have a baby who was getting grumpy and tired so I went to put her to bed and left my 3 year old with DH. I was next door and could hear him telling her she had to eat and he wouldn't let her down from the table until she had finished. She started to cry and he ignored this and continued on, I could hear her praising her when she did eat but then there were times when she must have just been holding the food in her mouth and he was telling her off, he would then take her down and put her on the step and make her sit for a minute because she wasn't eating her food. I could hear her crying during this but then after a minute he would take her back to the table and she would eat another mouthful or two and then eventually just hold the food in her mouth again so he would put her back on the step. The 3rd time I heard him putting her on the step I came out and told him to stop, that what he was doing is traumatising and going to cause her more issues. He told me to let him do it this way because she needs to eat and it's getting her to eat. I said no and stood in front of her (at this point she was crying and calling for me). DH got really angry and said that she is his daughter too but I seem to think we can only raise her my way and that from now on he will no longer take anything to do with disciplining the children. I argued that this wasn't an issue of discipline, she doesn't need disciplined for not eating because it's just going to create more issues. He brought up my eating disorder which I suffered from for a long time prior to having children, saying that he was forced to eat food as a child and so were his siblings and none of them have had eating disorders but I'm the one who has done.

It's made me question myself. I'm not against children having reasonable consequences for bad behaviour but to me that's not what this was and I couldn't let him carry on with what he was doing as it was distressing for me to listen to so I can't imagine how that would be for her. She does need to eat though but in the past we managed to build her appetite gradually over time by focusing on making her enjoy food and eating. It's even making me question whether or not I want to be with him
He refused to help me put the kids to bed afterwards because he was so annoyed at me for intervening.

He needs to get therapy for his own issues before he fucks up his own kids the way his parents did him. You definitely do the right thing intervening. That poor child.

He is going to fuck his kids up. He needs therapy himself asap.

Forcing a child to eat is never a good thing is it. She’s 3 ffs. And bringing up your eating disorder was a total dick move too.
I wouldn’t say it’s on the same level as what his vile parents did to him but it could escalate. I think you need to keep an eye on this and never feel bad about intervening when you’re uncomfortable with what he’s doing. Yes they’re his children too but that doesn’t give him the right to treat them badly.

OP he was horrifically abused and has no idea how to bring up children in a healthy way. I would contact Family Lives, they have free parenting courses and he needs to get into therapy. He could contact NAPAC it's an organisation that supports survivors of childhood abuse, they can help him find support.

I completely agree with him needing therapy but he's in total denial sometimes about how much his childhood has affected him and I don't think I would be able to get him to go, he really really needs to though because he needs to realise how abnormal it was. He gets it about certain aspects of it like the violence and he is very anti-smacking children, but the emotional and mental stuff he just doesn't really seem to get as much, maybe because the physical stuff was so extreme so he thinks that was the bad stuff.

I am not commenting on this incident but you will need to be careful to avoid a dynamic that you argue your parenting differences in front of the dc.

She’s a baby, she has no idea what he’s doing. He needs help. Don’t ever force a child to eat , ever. And I bet in the back of his head he knows what he’s doing and he knows it’s wrong. I wouldn’t leave him with her. Can you bring someone home, like your mom to help. I know you’re in a bad place having the new baby but he sounds untethered. Get in home help and get him outside help

My husband used to do this and it stemmed from him being made to eat everything on his plate when he was a kid by a mother absolutely obsessed with feeding him up. He had the same reaction when I intervened between him and our son (son sat in front of an egg from weekend breakfast for ages at the table while his father waited for him to eat, lots of crying etc). İt got better when we had a long talk about it and I emphasised that food should be a pleasure not a battle, what our food rules should be (i e. you can't not eat your dinner and then expect to get some snack you love right before bed, each child can have one vegetable they are allowed to hate and not eat etc). I appreciate your daughter is quite young so it obviously has to be age appropriate. Point is when I talked to him when we were both calm and approached it as a problem we could solve rather than his emotional baggage causing it all, it helped a lot. Connecting it to his past and god forbid mentioning his mother's influence always backfired as it was just too sensitive a subject. I do think your husband would benefit from therapy though as he was essentially abused and parenting our children tends to brings up our own painful memories (sometimes we do the same without realising as it's our default). İf he's a good husband and father in other ways no need to panic. The situation can improve.

If she has been unwell she probably still doesn’t have much appetite. It’s cruel to force her. Your husband is bullying her. It’s not good.

He's abusing your daughter. Emotionally, and id say physically by forcing her to eat when she doesn't want to.

And emotionally abusing you by bringing up your eating disorder.

Every person who has a shit childhood at some point has to make the choice of whether they are going to choose to address it and do the hard work of breaking the cycle, or if they're just going to visit the same pain and suffering on their own children.

I guess he's choosing the latter.

The only thing you did wrong is not intervening sooner, he is unhinged, hes taking out his anger on her and its just abuse. Even if she was nit eating on purpose - which she isnt, shes been ill - but even if she was this is absolutely the wrong way to respond.

What has he done himself, and what have you two done as a couple, to try to break the cycle? His childhood sounds awful and although he was wrong in the way he acted, I think PPs are not being particularly helpful saying he's bullying and abusing her. I was raised in an overly-disciplined way (and yes there likely was abuse - I'm still trying to work this all out, even in my mid-30s). But really you should have had these discussions prior to having children, and I think you both have to take some responsibility for that. I'm aware that my childhood was unhealthy, and it's one of the main reasons I don't have or plan to have children. I don't trust myself to raise them in a balanced way, even though I'm very aware of my issues.

We have talked a lot and he can be quite reflective at times, he can sometimes see where he's gone wrong in his approach to something when we later discuss it.
We did discuss approaches to parenting prior to having children and did seem very much on the same page at the time, but the reality is different. I knew about the issues in his childhood but not having experienced this myself, given how good and supportive a partner he was, I didn't consider his childhood a reason not to have children together because when we talked about values in terms of raising children we seemed to be in agreement. Maybe that was naive of me but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
He can also be an incredibly loving and caring and supportive father, but things like this obviously aren't okay.
We are still discussing it right now and he can't see it from my perspective. He keeps arguing that if I had left him to it she would have finished her dinner and then would start eating normally again over the next couple of days. He thinks that I'm too soft around eating and that it's cruel because she would just become more and more malnourished if she continues to refuse to eat.

I totally agree with you on this. I swore to my children that I would never treat them like my mother treated me and I’ve lived up to it. Sometimes it is a choice.

You can’t tell me he cannot see when his daughter is in distress when he’s yelling at her and forcing her to eat food. That’s just giving him, I’m a dummy stick. This is very damaging. She’ll be throwing up her food bc of the stress. What’s he going to do. Make her eat that. You have to stop this.

I suspect it is coming from a place of care and love for her (and fear about what happens if she won't eat), but he's going about it the wrong way. He needs to be very careful or he will give her issues. Could you go to therapy together? He might be more agreeable if it's to discuss parenting strategies rather than to discuss his childhood (even though in reality it's all linked).

He doesn't see it as distress, he sees it as a tantrum. It's not. She actually rarely tantrums. Again he was raised seeing as crying as being a tantrum and so he was punished for it. He doesn't usually punish her but he can't cope if she gets upset and will often leave me to deal with it. He feels like this is different about the food because she has dropped so much weight. It's misguided but he genuinely thinks that he's doing the right thing.

I've told him tonight that if he doesn't address his issues I'm going to have to leave. He said, "okay". This is part of it all though, sometimes he will say something like that in the moment but then go away and reflect on it and come back and talk it through, other times he will just pretend nothing has ever happened or been said. I feel like I need to give him the time to process it but need to give myself a deadline as to when we have discussed and agreed what will happen in terms of him addressing his issues. Because as the children get older we are arguing more and if he doesn't address them then we can't continue.

I've literally just suggested therapy together tonight and he said no, then I said what I just wrote above. I'm really hoping that once he's thought it through he changes his mind. I think you're right that it comes from a place of care and love, he is very worried about her and he feels like getting her to eat is more important than anything right now. I think it is too but I think that it will be a slower process of her building her appetite back up again, he doesn't think that's fast enough to be acceptable.

Show him this website. I really hope you’re not afraid of him. If so you need outside help. I routing for you. You take care of you and your kids. He doesn’t come first. You and your kids do

This is exactly the sort of mental abuse I suffered as a kid.

It isn't just the being forced to put the food in your mouth though, the 'praise' when you actually swallow it down is also horrible, because its always a belittling, humiliating 'see you were being silly and stupid and over sensitive and picky because look, you CAN eat it...' sort of a thing (even if genuinely not meant that way, thats what a child hears in this situation).

He is absolutely wrong - being bullied into eating when you won't because you're just not that hungry or its not your favourite thing might result in kids eating quickly without fuss... or it might result in overeaters who don't recognise their natural 'fill level' and stop when done... or other things.

Bullying and tormenting kids into eating when there is something else going on, like ARFID for example, will make matters significantly worse. YOu just make the dinner table a horribly stressful place to be so that the anxiety over food starts before the plate even hits the table.

I am serious, if he won't stop it, leave - because this sort of abuse does lifelong damage, and getting help for it once you're an adult is difficult (nigh on impossible if you end up overweight rather than underweight and that is just a matter of luck really, not down to willpower or judgement!).

I had eating issues similar to arfid as a child and had many a stand down with my parents. Being forced to sit at a table for hours. This taught me not to make a big deal about eating with my children. My eating improved as I became an adult /cooked for myself.
My dh grew up in a household where you were forced to eat everything and really struggled for a lot of years with portion control and weight.

When we had kids and they went through the fussy toddler stage I really stood my ground on no punishment for not eating. Dh didn’t like it and occasionally we went to battle but then he read some articles (written by doctors) around eating and the do’s/donts for parents. It was like a lightbulb went off in his head and he not only recognised his own issues around food (previously denied) he saw that he risked repeating the same patterns.

could you suggest he do some reading or find some articles for him to read?

Did you discuss parenting styles before chose to have a family? It’s a lot easier if you are on the same page.

With your dd I’m guessing you have had advice from dietician? I found small plates, with a few things on and at least one thing they love. Leave the plate out a bit after they have ‘finished’ as they may go back. Blend cooked veg into gravy, make fruit and veg smoothies/milkshakes. Get her involved in buying/preparing/cooking food. Do baking. Give her a multivitamin daily and use 50/50 bread as it’s fortified with calcium. If she only eats small meals top her up with snacks/supper. Lots of water/milk.