Husband keeps having accidents with 15mo

[newmumabouttown]

My DS is 15 months old. My DH is incredibly accident prone. I have tried to talk to him calmly, I’ve also more frequently lost my temper. I’ve tried to approach conversations with seriousness, explain repercussions, but I feel he’s just not listening. Monday he closed the dishwasher and didn’t see our son had his fingers in it and trapped them. Just now, he had his wardrobe open with DS under him but was choosing an outfit and didn’t see DS trap his fingers in hinge. It is destroying our relationship as I keep thinking I just need to get him away / out.
I know he cares, as he can be loving, but I feel like he doesn’t care enough to be on alert all the time or make adjustments. I don’t know what to do… feeling lost.
Also, just to add it’s not just with our DS. He’s constantly stepping on my feet. I had an operation recently and when we were in car he accidentally hit where I’d been cut, and then seconds later slipped changing gear and punched my leg. It wasn’t deliverable, but it’s hard not to feel like it is when it’s so frequent.

The gear stick in manual cars is right next to the passenger's leg. I don't see what's implausible about that.

It’s not “they”, it’s your husband as an individual. My husband is a really conscientious parent.

Sounds like he is rushing or not paying attention. Who doesn’t check for their child’s fingers before shutting the dishwasher, if they are right next to it? Why are you doing the comforting when he caused it? He should be more careful and then confronted with the consequences when he isn’t.

Ah but remember, OP doesn’t believe in adhd etc 🤷‍♀️

I love the way you put all the responsibility on a small child not to get their fingers trapped and none on OP's DH. The bar for some men being a competent and safe parent is really low on here.

His peripheral vision might be poor. But my money is on dyspraxia because of a family member who is like this. He's an artist doing very detailed work but outside of that he's terribly accident prone.

My post above was supposed to quote this 🤦‍♀️
so … remember, OP doesn’t believe in adhd etc 🤷‍♀️

What as stupid thing to say 🙄

Yes, I agree with this. A response to shutting anyone's fingers in the dishwasher shouldn't just be a casual 'oh, it was an accident'. And if these things keep happening, a competent and rational adult really should be able to recognise that they need to at least be curious about what might be going on, and be prepared to take steps if necessary.

I don't see how his hand can slip off the gear stick accidentally and punch your leg, did he do that on purpose?

If he is like me I will often overshoot the gear stick. I do bang other people and walk into people a lot. The other day I got my finger inside one of the kids ears by accident - surprised us both! I also have a scar on my eyelid from where I jabbed it with my own short nail a few weeks ago. I hit it so hard I tore it. I had a forehead itch at the time. People do know I trip quite a lot but actually unless you know me well most people wouldn’t notice - I am a well paid professional and my kids all think I am super capable at all sorts and just treat the clumsy stuff as a quirk. One of them is a bit more ‘mum’ and a quite clumsy but they are more like dh. As such while it’s hard for people not like this to understand - this could just be him. The strategy of telling him to be careful just don’t work. I can go from reminding myself not to do something to doing it seamlessly.

Oh look, another poster attempting to make a woman responsible for male behaviour. It actually does not matter whether or not he has any sort of diagnosis. No diagnosis makes it okay for one person to continually hurt another. The OP and her son should not be expected to put up with being hurt on a regular basis because some posters on the internet have attempted to diagnose a person they have never met in order to try and excuse his behaviour. Get a grip.

Teaching children not to put their fingers in doors, on hot items, plug sockets etc as early as possible is good parenting irrespective of clumsy/dyspraxic adults in the home. Its not putting responsibility onto the child, its helping them to stay safe.

This is what I'm thinking, too. Surely you'd investigate?

Of course it matters if there is a specific cause because there are specific strategies to learn to work around some of these neurological problems.

And in this case its the woman losing her temper and telling the man to sort himself out and that there is nothing wrong with him and that he just doesn’t care about his child.

Oh for Gods sake Jessica Fletcher ! ! ! 🤦🏻‍♀️

As a passenger, I've had it happened to me a couple of times, with different drivers. Completely accidental. I don't think it's that implausible.

So he doesn't smash his glasses, drop his contacts or poke his eyes out?

But accidentally punches you?

No, I didn’t miss it and I do think it was accidental (as does OP) so don’t agree with your use of inverted commas there.

DS has dysraxia and OP’s description of her DH rings a lot of bells.

I think if you're not a clumsy person (I'm not), then clumsy people do seem to be doing it on purpose. It just seems bizarre that people can fall over their own feet or drop stuff on a regular basis.

It's still on them to be less clumsy though, especially if they're putting other people at risk. It's not OK to say 'sorry I didn't mean it' when you are shutting baby's fingers in doors, not once but twice, and punching people in surgical wounds. Your husband needs to start taking this seriously as it's just not right that he's endangering his own wife and child and apparently it's not his fault as he's just a bit clumsy!

But he does need to sort himself out-that is his responsibility, not hers. And the fact that he keeps shrugging his shoulders and not attempting to resolve the issue is a clear demonstration that he just doesn’t care. So how exactly is the OP wrong?

The sinister thing is that he doesn't care enough to even acknowledge it's a problem.

If that’s aimed at me, you’ve completely misunderstood my posts.

It doesn’t really matter whether there’s an underlying reason why he’s so accident prone, the issue is that he doesn’t care enough about your or your child’s safety to either investigate the cause or get more help.

Gently pointing it out and shouting hasn’t worked so I would escalate. I would quite literally die for my child so it follows that I would do a lot to protect them, even if that means protecting them from an irresponsible father. Tell him very calmly that you consider him a danger to your child and you love your child enough to end the marriage and do everything in your power to ensure that he does not have unsupervised contact with your child. The accidents are concerning but not caring about it is even more worrying - your child could lose fingers or he could crack his head open! Not to mention, someone outside of the home will eventually notice and you will be in danger of social services getting involved.

OP never said he doesn’t care.
She is assuming he doesn’t care enough because the accidents are still happening.