AIBU or is DH’s parenting choice here crap

[NoisyHeating]

NC but long time poster. My washing gets ‘darked on’ sometimes. AIBU or was this not great parenting by DH;

DS 13 had been gaming with DH all evening. I am ill so had gone to bed. 11pm I go to loo and DS still up. His bed linen is on the floor. DH in bed.

I ask how come he’s not in bed (should be lights out 10.30) and he says ‘dad won’t put my bed sheets on’.

I ask DH and he’s basically told DS to help put bed linen on (he’s never had to help with this chore before, DH had stripped the bed earlier then not put the fresh linen back on) and DS has said no, he’s too tired. He is is coming down with the same thing as me and it’s exhausting so I imagine he was a bit whiney. So DH had just left him and gone to bed.

So I know a 13 year old is capable of putting bed linen on but AIU to think that insisting on it for the first time at 11pm at night, when he is coming down with a cold, is tired and he’s never had to do it before is a bit daft? And then is it U that he went to bed? Had I not happened to go to the toilet DS might have stayed up all night or fallen asleep on the sofa.

Or was DH right to put the boundary in and leave him to it if he wouldn’t help.

Context is they are both stubborn and DH has a tendency to talk to DS in a pretty Sergeant Major tone which does tend to result in defiance.

In the end I did it with DS together.

AIBU to think that DH’s parenting was a bit off here and could have resulted in a very tired moody teen today? Setting him up to fail again?

Your kid played you and you undermined your DH horribly. Most people can figure out how to put on a fitted sheet at least.

@NoisyHeating if your dh is as 'regularly agressive' as you are now stating. Why are you with him?
If he's as horrible and awful as you are now saying... surely the focus should be on separating to protect your child?

So does your 13 year old do anything in the house?

Agree with @Spies here. DS wasn’t unwell enough to do his own bed as he’d sat up gaming. It’s not difficult to work out how to make a bed, especially at 13.

I think it’s time to work on his life skills - by his age I was doing all my own washing, changing my own bed etc (unsurprisingly my brother wasn’t expected to 🙄).

I don’t think the DH was entirely wrong as the DS should have been able to work it out, but it wasn’t an ideal situation to leave him up gaming. Next time he should remove the power cable and take it with him.

Changing the bedding was the last taught task here as I prefer to be in charge of when beds are changed. But, new bedding goes on when old comes off it's not the same bedding that's going in the wash

What is their to figure out?
Untrammelled aggression, albeit verbal, is as devastating as physical. You and your children will pussyfoot around him for fear of an outburst, which is exactly what he wants.
Why would you want your DS to grow up in such a toxic environment.
Can you be sure this won't progress into physical violence?
I despair of women sometimes

I don’t understand how he was okay to game but when asked to help to make the bed he was suddenly too ill. Holding a corner and tucking sheets in is hardly demanding. It sounds like excuses from you.

There is nothing to say DH stormed off. DS refused to help his dad make the bed, so dad went to bed and left DS to deal with the natural consequences of that.

When mum asked why DS was still up he said that dad had refused to make his bed. Which isn't really true is it? Dad had offered that they do it together. It was DS that had refused.

In any case that wasn't the reason he wasn't in bed - he still could have gone to bed and made his own bed (mum says he didn't need to be shown) or slept in an unmade bed. He wasn't still up figuring out how to make his bed, he was still up because he wanted to carrying on gaming. So his answer to his mum was disingenuous and an attempt to get dad in trouble.

And look - it's worked!

Because the drip gets a swift turn a round to increase the YANBU votes...🙄 mn standard... as soon as YABU is more proportionate the 'oh wait! Wait! Here's some incredibly relevant info to show I'm right!'

Your DS is 13!! How on earth can he not know how to put a bedsheet on? They both sound like arses, to be fair.

Your son is developing weaponised incompetence and using it to drive a wedge between you and your husband and you are fully enabling this.

He’s stayed up late gaming and blamed it on your husband because he didn’t want to go to bed. If he really couldn’t do the washing, he could have just stuck a sheet on or just gone to bed without the bedding. Millions of young people have done this through sheer laziness and bad planning.

You’ve just enabled him and created a horrible dynamic.

I think at 13 your son should be changing his own bed. I have 5 boys and they were all doing that from about 11. It's not rocket science and I'm sure your son could have worked out how to do it himself. I'm with your DH - I wouldn't be mollycoddling a 13 year old. Being tired and coming down with a cold sounds a bit of an excuse - it takes 5 minutes!

Your DH is being unreasonable. 11pm is not the time to teach a new skill.

HOWEVER my 6 year old helps change the bed… 13?!

I’m living with a DH who can be very explosive and aggressive and I’m trying to figure out how to co parent well whilst we are still living together. It’s complex. Here, clearly, it’s a grey area and may be I should have backed DH more. But, I don’t want DS to feel alone and like I’m on DH’s side fully because I’ve had to take a strong stand against what DH himself has admitted is verbal and emotional abuse (although he’s gone back to denying it now). That’s the dilemma I might ask for more help with on a different thread.

This would be the same in my house, dad makes it difficult for the kid to do the chore with them.

TBH, OP, leaving aside how you feel your husband is aggressive to DS etc.
Just reading your posts alone, I feel you are doing your son a disservice.

From your posts, you are mollycoddling your son, you are undermining your husband and re-enforcing whatever defiance your son has towards your DH. You are helping to set up a very poor dynamic that may very well come back to bite you in the bum.

Coming to your how you feel your DH is towards your son, kindly, OP, You sound very soft..TOO soft, so it has hard to know how 'aggressive' your DH is.

What is clear though, is you both have very different parenting styles and that need working out very soon because DS is already starting teenage years and those years are tough. DH and yourself are going to need esch other.

It will be even tougher if DH has checked out of parenting by then because of this 'DH is baddie' dynamic and leaves it all to you.

I hope you get some insight into how you are contributing to these scenarios.

Your DS is 13. This shouldn't warrant this amount of drama. I can't believe he stayed up because his bed was not made! Please, think on this.

I agree your DH should have raised making the bed earlier in the evening. But your DS was daft to stay up hoping someone would come help, rather than just cracking on or accepting his Dad's help to do it earlier. Even just putting the mattress protector on and sorting the duvet the next day would have been a solution.

I don't think it's terrible for your DS to learn the life lesson that sometimes we have to do mundane tasks when we're tired/unwell. Maybe your DS could learn to strip, wash and change his bedding, then he can choose what time of day he wants to tackle it.

I think if your DH is speaking to DS in an aggressive way then that's a separate issue you need to address. Otherwise your DS may learn he can use the excuse that his Dad spoke to him in a harsh tone for not doing something which was a reasonable ask of him, even if it wasn't made in the right way.

I wanted to see what the consensus was without the context. I got that. 50/50 so then I moved on to the complexity and nuance because I’m struggling to know how to navigate these day to day parenting dilemmas in the context of his aggressive outbursts.

At 13 if my son didn’t want to put his own sheets on I’d be irritated and go to bed too. coming down with a cold isn’t an excuse either, we all have to do stuff when we’re ill that’s just life. Bloody awful parenting to just do it for your son

Yeah, of course you did.

So what are the 'aggressive outbursts' like. As per pp, the softly, softly toddler talk way that you've shown you speak to the 13 yo isn't very indicative of what he's actually like?

Why are you ignoring the fact that your DH is an aggressive bully and that this is not an environment to bring up a child??
Which leads to the question, why on earth do you want to start a thread asking for strategies to back up this verbally aggressive 'man'?
Are you so love-struck that you think that you need to support your DH by making sure his every whim, deed and thought are anticipated/catered for at the sae of your DSs mental health, or yours.
Edited to add: It isn't a grey area at all. It's a fucking big red flag area

With teens (same as with toddlers - because the teen brain is in a state of development very much like it is when they are about 3) how they are told to do something is often as, if not more, important as what they are told to do.

As the adults, it’s on us to control that - gentle/playful is so much more effective than commanding/combative. It’s about getting the thing done, not winning.

Well, this is the issue. I think my softness is, in part, because of how his dad is. Kind of to balance it out, may be. So I’m working on that. While we were away my boundaries were fine. This is why I’m divorcing him. I can’t parent how I need to whilst I’m with him. I’m anxious about doing the wrong thing and I’m trying to make sure our DC don’t feel on their own with it all (the verbal abuse and aggression) and know it’s not ok.

When day to day stuff like this happens I get anxious and don’t know what to do for the best.

Its helpful to have different opinions.

My boys have never done it either 🤷‍♀️. I have showed them how it's done and when they're 18 they will do it themselves (15 and 11). It's not rocket science and they will be fully capable of doing it when moving out one day and for the time being I have the time and I want to do it. I want my children to enjoy their childhood and focus on their homework. They tidy their rooms, make their beds and clear the table which is sufficient contribution as far as I'm concerned.