Sick of my wife’s temper

[Seriouslyworrieddad]

My wife has always had a temper but recently it’s next level and I’m concerned for her but mainly our child.

We have a toddler who admittedly is extremely full on - for the last 6 weeks he has been going through a sleep regression and my wife has been completely loosing the plot with him during night wakes.

We had a conversation about it last week and she said she would look into anger management.

I’m away at the moment and my wife is now sleep training our toddler. I called before bedtime to say good night not realising that my wife had put our child down early. She answered the call in a room seperate to where our child was sleeping but it must have disturbed them as the next thing I could hear was our child crying so my wife hung up.

She then preceded to send me increasingly angry messages saying bedtime was a disaster and then called me shouting down the phone saying it was all my fault. I could hear our child screaming and crying in the background.

Thankfully I know my child is asleep now but I’m just getting sick to death of my wife’s temper and worried about her with my child.

Does anyone have any advice please ?

Is this satire?

The wife doesn’t want a job, she wants to continue being a SAHP.

Part of being a SAHP is taking on the majority of the parenting role - a choice the wife has made.

Why would OP, who is working FT, do all of the nighttime wakes, bedtimes and mornings??
1 - that’s not fair on the wife to be refused access to her own child
2 - also OP needs to work, to be able to provide for his wife and baby.

Unless you are suggesting that the wife gets a job (not sure how you can force this) and then they do 50/50 parenting.

OP is not a single parent and shouldn’t need to act like one when he has the other parent who is at home all day not working.

The pile-on on this thread is unbelievable. People are completely minimising a partner screaming abuse, flying off the handle, and shifting blame for everything onto the OP.
Sleep deprivation is brutal, but a severe, explosive temper isn't just a 'stressed parent' quirk........It's abusive behaviour, especially when there's a terrified toddler caught in the middle. Dismissing these warnings and blaming the OP for a phone call happening at the wrong time is shocking.

If anything stopping breastfeeding could be throwing her hormones off and she's still rebalancing from that and not getting the oxytocin boost from feeding. That, and the fact that the sleep deprivation of a sleep regression when you have got used to getting some sleep again is about 100 times worse than the sleep deprivation of the early days, in my experience.

In what way would doing the night wakes for a short period of time to allow his wife to catch up on sleep and then sharing the load going forward mean he’s acting like a single parent?!

We actually don’t know if the wife wants job or not, we only know that she said she wouldn’t want to work and still do almost all the parenting on her own. Funnily enough the Op didn’t jump in to tell her she wouldn’t be doing all the parenting herself which perhaps gives us a hint here.

Considering the amount she's struggling, it's time to look carefully at your career choices here.

This amount of travel and long hours might have worked before you had children, but your child and wife clearly need you to be more present.

Sometimes people need to take a salary cut in order to save their families and their mental health.

@onesinglepringle Or alternatively, wife could also work and bring in some money which would quite possibly facilitate husband reducing his hours and allow him to be a more present father.
He said she doesn't want to work but she can't always have it all her own way.

Thing is - this is a recent development likely in response to weaning off breast milk, which is known to cause sleep disturbance in the first few weeks (a quick google confirms this). It’s not a LT issue and it is one OP and his wife can get advice and support from the HV/GP for.

All of the advice here is reactionary and extreme.

OP/wife need to contact HV for support at this stage - toddler may need a bottle/larger or later solids based meal before bed time to help.

They may also need waking at 11pm for a few weeks for a bottle which can be gradually reduced with ‘skipping’ this step on nights when OP is home and can agree in advance to handle any nighttime wakings that happen as a result.

@Seriouslyworrieddad ‘s wife screaming and shouting down the phone is an unacceptable behaviour - they need to explore what is underlying this:
Q does she resent his absences, and is there a way to manage these in the short term with employer support.
Q does she actually just resent and have issues with OP (ie, is this actually not to do with the baby and more to do with their marriage). OP needs to have the discussion, because they may need relationship counselling and to explore how they move forward if, in fact, wife is actually not happy/in love and wants out.
Q could wife be having delayed PND? Discussions together with HV/GP need to be had to explore, exclude/confirm and medication and counselling put inplace
Q could OP actually be doing more on a practical and emotional level that he is at the moment - does he use his work/job as an excuse and justification to opt out? Did he think that their agreement that she be a SAHP while he be main breadwinner implied that he was absolved of engagement and do they need to discuss exactly what they both understand this arrangement means and perhaps revise/renegotiate.
Q did Op’s wife give up a work/career to be a SAHM. Does she regret this? Has she been given safe and non-judgmental space to voice this? Have you explored a pathway back to work for her, if she now feels that her current role does not fulfil her as much as she thought (and be given unconditional love and reassurance that feeling this way does NOT make her a made mother, that it is totally okay for her to want to go back to work and look at childcare options together to support her in doing so).
Q as suggested above - did she had a difficult childhood - were her expectations of motherhood realistic or based in the fantasy realm of ‘doing it completely differently and perfectly’ [this was an issue for me - no actual functional model of parenting to base my own on, so felt i was fumbling my way through the whole process]. She may need counselling, HV support, and access to parenting classes [together with OP as she is NOT doing it alone]. There are charities and family support available for parents who were raised in homes with DV/abuse/neglect to help scaffold them as new parents. Again a good HV and local parenting support group should help.

Sorry that was long @Seriouslyworrieddad but if you can take time this weekend (upon return from trip?) I would prioritise talking to your wife, asking her/exploring with her exactly how she feels and be prepared to hear harsh interpretations of your role [try in this instance NOT to react - listen, hear, let her know you are taking on board how she feels even if you are not sure that she is being fair] and make a plan to reach out to HV, GP and offer to explore back to work schemes/childcare etc with her if it is what she would like to consider.

Regardless of how you agreed to divvy up parenting (you working her SAH), you are meant to be a team. This requires checking in and recalibrating and making clear that communicating [changing] feelings and needs has to be a regular part of that process.

God some of these posts are awful - so many assumptions about the Op and how much he doesn't do and how much she does! Why are you away? What a stupid question - he is working and as she is a SAHM he has to support them - how do you suggest he does that? She has a bad temper which she needs to do something about - not getting enough sleep is not an excuse! Give the more Op a break and give him some helpful suggestions rather than piling on with Do the nights for her, let her get some sleep, just so unhelpful!

It may well be the case that he genuinely has to travel loads with work and genuinely can't take any time off right now to support her - but that doesn't solve the problem of her being sleep-deprived and clearly struggling to cope. If he can't do it, then he needs to find another way of helping her, such as hiring a nanny to take some of the pressure off her. Bitching about her on MN solves absolutely nothing.

Clearly she is not 'having it all her own way' when she sounds to be on the brink of a nervous breakdown from the amount of stress and overwhelm she's experiencing. I doubt she's feeling great about things.

I disagree, especially as the SAHP is also doing long hours in a full time job (my husband and I agree parenting time with a toddler is more exhausting than any long work day!) Once the working parent is off the clock and home, there’s no reason that childcare shouldn’t be 50/50 imo - although I think there’s a case to be made that the working parent should do more of the bedtimes if anything, to spend the time they do have available on a working day with their child.

@user1471600850 Absolutely. The OP is away working to provide for his family. His wife doesn't want to work so he is expected to be the sole provider. She can't have it all!
Posters saying "Well just go home and take x amount of weeks off work" are being ridiculous; as if it is that easy! OP has to deliver with work - what exactly are the family going to do if his performance slips and he loses his job?

@YourOliveBalonz OP is currently away with work.

The Ops wife has "Always" had a bad temper... I'm assuming she's always on the verge of a nervous breakdown, then???

@ForTipsyDeer Perhaps the OP is feeling overwhelm at having to work away, be the sole provider, and hearing his wife scream at their child when he checks in?
Why can't the wife work if isn't coping with being a SAHP? The answer was because she doesn't want to.

She doesn't want to work AND do all the parenting. Who would?

He confirmed most of the assumptions.

She's clearly not suceeding doing the parental thing only so i can see why she must be freaking out at the thought of her present chores PLUS a full time job.

Why doesn't she hire a nanny? You then can help too that way she has plenty of time to recharge. All that anger and resentment is bad for the childs mental health ( and husband).

And mums have managed to do the bulk of childcare since we first stopped climbing the trees and walking on 2 legs so what's your point?

By your logic OP's partner should be able to cope as a 'single mum' too...

Neither does the OP.

I have no idea who the people are who say it's unreasonable to be concerned that a parent has an uncontrollable temper and is shouting at a distressed child. It doesn't matter what else is going on, some things are unacceptable.

I agree with you 100%. The double standard on here is wild. If a dad admitted he was screaming at a toddler, losing his temper constantly, and refusing to work, people wouldn't be making excuses about sleep regressions.
Working away, being the sole provider, and then getting screamed at when you check in is an impossible position.

You’ve posted this multiple times and yet left out the other half of OP’s wife’s actual comment. She said she didn’t want to work and still be left to do all the parenting, the second part is a pretty important caveat.
Why doesn’t he just assure her he wouldn’t be leaving all the parenting to her?

@Slightyamusedandsilly You honestly think they are reasonable/doable suggestions when OP works ft? Just "be at home" - say no to working away.

@Marroon So she can go out to work too. OP can then reduce his hours as she's also bringing in some money and the parenting can also be shared out more equally.
"I don't want to work" - tough. Imagine if the OP said that?