DH overreacting or am I really uncaring?

[TheFancyLion]

Teen DS first day back at school, due to snow has his friend coming to the house at 7.30am so they can walk together, friend arrives and DS isnt quite ready (just few minutes).
Our dog starts going crazy because of the knock on the door, DH starts shouting and has a go at DS for not being ready in time because its disturbed him sitting down to have his breakfast.
I try to diffuse the shouting by telling DH that DS hasent done too bad because he was almost ready (which is very unusual for him) and DH accuses me of "not giving a s*it about his feelings".

Ive apologised and explained that I dont like to see him stressed out and that I felt like it was an overreaction to the situation and could have been a conversation rather than a load of shouting. (DS is a bit lazy at times and timekeeping is something of a challenge in our family but i dont believe shouting is the answer).
But now im wondering if AIBU to have called him out about it or whether i should have been on his side about it more?

Side note, this scenario happens occasionally, where DH will get super stressed and shouty about what I believe to be a minor event with DS, I'll try to diffuse the situation, and DH accuses me of not caring about his feelings.

Your 'D'H sounds like a horrible bully.

Obviously situations like this one stress him out and he seems unable to control his feelings. He should figure out why he has such a disproportionate reaction to something relatively minor.

Shouting isn't going to achieve anything is my problem with it. DS is already running late - what is the purpose of shouting at him about it.

Someone might also mention that expecting to sit down for a quiet breakfast at the exact same time as (apparently notoriously) disorganised DS is trying to leave the house was always going to be a recipe for disaster, and perhaps waiting 15 minutes (or starting 15 mins earlier) would have been the more sensible choice.

My DH is a wonderful person almost all the time, but can be an utterly irrational shouty jerk first thing in the morning if he has slept badly (which he usually does). Most days he doesn’t get up before the kids and I leave for school/work at 7:45am, which he feels guilty about but which I much prefer and encourage him to do as he is useless in the mornings and it can just add stress. He makes up for it by doing much more at night when I’m a bit useless (lark/owl situation so it makes sense for us to play to our respective strengths!).

On the face of it, your DH is being an idiot, but whether I’d worry about it or not depends on whether it’s a rare occurrence brought on by stress about first day back, etc, or a regular pattern of selfish behaviour.

Tell your DH to stop being so precious about his breakfast. It's not Christmas lunch, just a bit of toast.

My kids would struggle to be ready by 7.30 - thankfully they don't need to leave until 8.15 - so I think your son's doing pretty well tbh!

Your husband shouts because his breakfast is being disturbed????!! The dog barking at the door bell being rung, shouldn't have been much of a surprise, as I'm assuming the dog barks every time it's rung! Your son wasn't 100% ready to walk out the door either. I presume your husband wanted your son ready, so his friend didn't have to ring the door bell, and set the dog off????? I wouldn't be apologising to your husband!! His feelings clearly trump everyone else's!! Shouting doesn't help situations, it's an immature response. He's a grown adult, and should be able to regulate his emotions over something so minor. Oh and tell your husband he needs to take the dog to training classes, so he doesn't bark every time the door bell is rung!!!

Which bit was daft?
Shouting not being ok?
Not being ready to meet a friend at the agreed time being disrespectful?
Not appreciating that some people (myself included) like to have a nice calm start to the day and not lots of noise and disruption?

I can only guess what your own house must be like at breakfast.

Brilliant advice.
I come from a background where my parents raged at each other.
My partner doesn't.
It took me a while to realise shouting was unacceptable.
My partner has never raised his voice to me and never would.
I was in the wrong for doing so and I would never do so now.

Having your breakfast disturbed on occasions, for one reason or another, is surely just a thing that happens in family life??

He sounds as if he has a very short fuse which must be difficult to live with

If I were DS I wouldn’t bother again. If I had gone to much effort to be on time and was very nearly ready and I got screamed at I wouldn’t bother again

Bothering to do something = Getting screamed at

Not bothering to do something = Getting screamed at

Then why go out if your way to try to do anything because if you miss the mark then the results are going to be the same

Dh sitting down for breakfast and getting disturbed by the dog barking. Time to live on his own. He lives in a family if he can’t cope with someone knocking on the door and dog barking then go live somewhere where he doesn’t have these disturbances

He got mad because the dog barking disturbed his breakfast?

Unless he has something like autism etc where he’s sensitive to noise, his reaction was OTT.

Nothing worse than having to live with a miserable git who is unnecessarily annoyed at people just going about their day.

This isn’t the 50s where the man of the house sits quietly behind a newspaper at breakfast whilst the wife runs around like a headless chicken cooking and pandering to him whilst the children are seen and not heard.

All because somebody knocked on the door / rang the doorbell? do you not have a postie who sometimes does that? I don't like the idea of a dog 'going crazy' but then I don't have a dog, which I accept puts me in the minority. Can you not train the dog to accept that sometimes the door goes? or have a way to remove the dog / calm the dog when it does happen? Expecting in a house of multiple people that nobody will ever come to the door at a time you want to sit quietly is madness. This isn't about ds's timekeeping, it's about your dh accepting there are other people living in the house who need to come and go and have friends who may ring the bell.

Disturbed him sitting down to have his breakfast, aw diddums.

Just thinking of some of the conversations whilst trying to get my two ready for school.

"Why have you taken your shoes back off?"

"No you don't need to go back to the bathroom as you think you washed one side of your face more than the other."

"Can you please use a spoon to eat your cereal and not a piece of toast."

Nowhere in there am I sitting down for my leisurely breakfast.

Your husband needs to be prescribed a serious dose of reality.

Unfortunately
being late = missing bus/train; friend will get annoyed/won't be bothered to wait
nearly not being late = the same thing

OP says DS was "nearly ready" - I'm going to guess the friend had already been waiting for a few minutes without ringing the bell, as teens tend to message that they are there in preference to having to interact with friends' families, so he was actually quite a bit "not ready".

The point of DS being ready on time is so his friend isn't kept waiting and so he gets to school on time. Both of those things are for his benefit. He's a teenager, not a 5 year old that has to be praised for doing something good. Yes, shouting was not ok, but DS needs to sort out his behaviour too.

It would have been calm if the DH didnt act like a little princess.

Barking dog - so what? Dogs can go a bit nuts when the door goes. I think thats a good thing tbh. Ive trained my dog to bark and go a bit mad for a few seconds when it hears a noise thats unusual or at an unusual time. Even if not a good thing for op's house, its a few seconds. Deal with it like the non-event it is.

Son not ready on this occasion - again who cares? Few mins and he would have been.

People wanting a calm house in the morning every morning - probably not suited to family life, and they definitely shouldn't kick off at the slightest issue, thats not conducive to a calm house.

Apart from pandering to the miserable sod!

Which is for him, not you, to deal with

If course DH overreacted. It was all in hand really, so I would think that he did not need to react at all unless to give a civil greeting to the friend.

Remind your DH that he is modelling how to manage big feelings to his son - he is telling him it’s ok to shout and be aggressive when stressed. Also being honest isn’t the same as not caring.

Your dh is a pretentious git...
Was he having a fucking banquet??

Would the friend not knocked on the door, and so the dog barked, whether DS was ready or not?

Your DH is obviously being a total arse.

OP, maybe you should stop trying to defuse the situation, and take yourself right out of it. Let your husband and his teen son deal directly with each other and don't intervene. Let it not be your business. It does sound as if you are invalidating your husband's feelings in defense of your son, even though you don't mean to.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

The only vaguely sensible reaction to someone shouting that their breakfast has been ruined is laughter and incredulity.

Your DH doesn’t sound like he has that maturity to be a parent. It is pathetic for a grown man to whine about his feelings when all that has happened is that his son left for school a couple of minutes late. Tell him if he doesn’t want a dog barking while he eats breakfast then he needs to train the dog to stop being reactive at the door.