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?

But is he? I question OP’s judgement as she is treating her 13 year old like a much younger child. Is he aggressive or does he just not use his Mary Poppin’s voice? Tricky to tell.

That’s my understanding too.

I’ve been trying to think of an alternative word to manipulative and am struggling. Not only have you added this information but with each post that disagrees with you, your definition of aggressive is becoming worse.

If this is how the dynamic at home is working, your poor son.

Yes he is. He’s admitted it’s abusive in the past and promised to work on it. But it hasn’t changed. So now I’m divorcing him he is denying he’s been abusive.

Well I guess I am using this thread to work some stuff through. So yes, may be that is manipulation. I don’t know. Wasn’t my intention.

His behaviour has been witnessed by someone else who called it abusive if that helps?

Op, the fact that you are ignoring any query as to what you actually mean by his being aggressive and just saying you can't 'parent the way you want to' and that's why your divorcing, my take is that you are a permissive, gentle parent, which means no rules, behaviour expectations or boundaries for the 13 yo?

With respect, you really shouldn't have left out the father's aggression and rage filled outbursts because it provides the context as to why your son is showing opposition to his dad's requests. Requests that would be reasonable 8f their relationship was not so fractious. It puts a different spin on why it's happened at all. If your H gets so aggressive, aren't you worried about your son's interactions with him once you have split and they are alone together? Think you have bigger problems than an unmade bed, to be honest.

Divorce in progress. I’ve held increasingly strong boundaries around it since I realised. I was the proverbial boiled frog.

Congratulations anyway OP on having a teenage boy who cares about sheets.

Sorry I think it’s useless that your 13yo stayed up instead of figuring out how to either put the bed sheet on or slept without it?
hes 13yo, where’s his thinking skills or ability to do something else rather than sit there at 11pm waiting up. He’s never made his bed? My 9yo would have done something about it!

In the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty much the opposite of a big deal.

@arcticpandas
You have completely contradicted yourself.
You say your boys have never made their beds. Yet in the very next sentence you say they tidy their rooms and make their beds.

At that time of night, especially if your DS didn't know the bedsheets had been taken off, I would have helped and we would have done it together. No-one wants to do it, everyone's tired, best to get through it as fast as possible by both helping.

If your DS had known that he was responsible for it in advance and hadn't done it all day, then my answer might be different - although it would depend on DS's attitude - if it was belligerent I'd leave him to it. If he was knackered and despairing I'd be kind and help him out.

I’ve put increasingly strong boundaries around the behaviour once I’d clocked it. I grew up with DV so my norms are skewed. I was a boiled frog. Now I’m divorcing him. But while that goes through I’ve got to somehow co parent. But thanks for the empathy.

Oh come on. If you believe that you're as easily manipulated by her DS as the OP is.

If he cared about sheets he'd have either helped dad when asked or put his own sheets on. He cared about gaming and getting dad in trouble.

Agree

Why are you drip feeding all this when people disagree with you? The divorce, it’s turned from Sgt Major voice to abusive over a few posts. It feels very much like trying to justify your own behaviour.

You’ll parent your son however you want and it has no bearing on any of us, but when you ask for advice, at least have the balls to own your own behaviour and don’t try and manipulate people. It’s not going to go down well.

I actually find making the bed one of the most physically demanding chores. He has a high bed too. I wouldn’t want to do it at 11pm at night after a long day and coming down with a virus.

But anyway. He did it.

Surely if the father was as prone to aggressive outbursts as the OP now states, then the child would have been more likely to comply with the original instruction to help make the bed so that they could get back to gaming without having to deal with an aggressive outbursts? Doesn't make sense to me.

But he’s not 8 is he, he’s 13!! OP talks about him as if he’s a toddler

I would be pretty appalled if I told a 13 yr old to make their bed and they just refused and said they would sleep on the sofa. I understand that the timing wasn’t optimal but he wasn’t set up to fail, he chose that reaction.

I can’t imagine how hard it must be to co-parent in the middle of a divorce so you have my sympathy but you do need to try to show a united front on smaller issues. One military style dad and a super soft mum (sorry but that’s how you seem) is going to be so confusing for the kid. he’ll end up (wrongly) feeling like a victim every time dad asks him to do something and I would also be concerned he’ll grow to think of women as service animals if you jump to his rescue over things like this.

I'm with you OP. But on MN all children make their bed, prepare dinner, clean and are fully independant from the age of 7 so you'd be better asking people around you. I don't know a single 13 year old that make their own bed by themselves but on here it's the norm. And if he's not fully independant at 13 ge will grow up into a misogynistic wifebeater🙄

'He did it'!!!
Huzzah Huzzah!! You're still making this out to be a monumental task, so I'm now picturing you and ds bravely working together on the ardous struggle to make the bed, sobbing together while agreeing how evil and abusive Dad is, and if Dad had only just done the right thing when lamb 13 yo refused to help make his own bed and made it on his own, none of this drama llama would have happened?....🤨

It was only a long day because he spent the time gaming (which, at 13, was his choice and responsibility to know that he was "too sick" to do so).

The aggressive/abusive outbursts are red flags and I’ve put increasingly strong boundaries around this culminating with divorce.

What’s grey is the bedtime situation.

So how do I handle the non-abusive situations like this whilst we are forced to continue sharing a home?