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 ?

Again, that’s not what she said and you know it.

Why would she have to?

She doesn’t do all of the parenting even now she’s a SAHM, so why would she is she was working FT.

OP should also not need to work FT and do all of the bedtimes, mornings and night wakings, whist their DW is a SAHP as PPs have suggested.

OP parents, allows the wife to have lie ins etc and has offered to do more but the wife refuses - apart from forcing the wife to get a job or kicking her out of the house, what else can OP realistically do?

The wife needs to get professional help or OP needs to report her to SS and force her to get professional help.

@Marroon Why not try it? See how things go. If she is out working then she literally can't do all of the childcare and it would give her a break too.

When? Are you reading the same thread?

I was replying directly to another poster’s opinion that a SAHP should do more bedtimes for default, and I specifically said ‘Once the working parent is off the clock and home’. You seem to be responding to a lot of posts so perhaps you didn’t have time to read the quoted message or my reply properly!

Indeed. I had a shouting, abusive mother. She had a personality disorder and there should have been an intervention - by her DH, the neighbours, social services. But no one acts. 40 years later my half sisters and are all carrying the scars of the abuse and constant, corrosiveness of being screamed at and the content of her words. We are all now, finally, getting counselling and also talking and sharing with each other after years of carrying this and ie eating away at self esteem in the work place and shaping relationships. OP’s child needs both parents to resolve this.

I think (cba to go back and check) that it has been mentioned that OP’s wife has ‘always’ had a temper - perhaps she felt she was unhappy in work and being a SAHP would make her happy etc and it has not turned out that way, so she is now frustrated, resentful, scared at how her life looks now. But it seems [to me, admittedly online diagnosing with limited info] as though she may have a LT MH issue - depression, perhaps tipping into PND now, or even an underlying personality disorder like EuPD - but unless OP and she address this and seek support they cannot fix this or help her get to a place where she can better regulate her emotions and behaviour.

@chocoluv Absolutely this.

She told him she didn't want to work AND foo all of the parenting. He literally said this himself.

@Velumental Why wpuld she be doing all of the parenting as well? OP is helping as much as work/his wife allows. If she was working OP could look at reducing his hours/job change which would further even things out.

I would have assumed that the first step to that would be the OP assuring her he would be doing more? Yet he doesn’t seem to have said that.

How would working during the day, then coming home to collect the child, being the only one to cook dinner, the only one to sort the DC out, the only one to put the DC to bed and then the only one to wake in the night give her a break?

Have you told her that she wouldn’t need to do all the usual parenting? That if you both worked you would truly share the parenting?

I have said this to her but she says she would much rather be at home than having to work and then do all the usual parenting on top of it

This is literally what OP said.

The wife doesn’t want to work and do all of the usual parenting on top.

The child would still need parenting.

It’s not a reach to say that for some people working FT and caring for a toddler can be difficult to manage, even with 2 parents (although posters are suggesting OP should do this even though his wife is at home).

The wife has chosen to be a SAHP and take on more of the parenting, as she doesn’t want to work and parent like OP does.

@Marroon But isn't that what is being expected of OP?
I agree with the other poster - OP should suggest wife goes to work but reassure he that he will (as he has offered to do/has done) work with her on the childcare.

How old is your baby, how many naps a day and what is there bedtime wake up time? If they had been sleeping through the night and now theyre not their routine might need adjusted. That been said you did say your wife has always had a temper and im guessing the lack of sleep is exacerbating it, in which case professional help would probably be benficial. Treat the sleep and your wife's temper as two seperate issues.

The wife has chosen to be a SAHP and take on more of the parenting, as she doesn’t want to work and parent like OP does. @chocoluv

No, she doesn’t want to work and still parent like she does.

As I said: there's still no excuse for shouting, slamming doors and flying into a rage with a toddler. She needs to get a grip on her anger because there will be many situations in the future where she can't rely on someone else to take over. Of course her DH should do his share, but I doubt the anger will disappear completely if he does. That level of anger aimed at a small child goes much deeper than not having enough help - it shows you think it's okay to treat them that way, which is something that needs addressing.

Many people have said this and I’m curious…..

The mother of a small child away for work posts that she’s left her small child with the father whom she believes is regularly screaming at the child, in the context of having been the parent who hasn’t slept
for weeks as he’s doing all the nights.

This is a scenario that in your mind a)
might happen and b) would not be met with any criticism of the working mother leaving her child with someone who screams at the child and doing none of the night wakings when she is at home?

Really?

If so your experience of life has been extremely unusual.

What solution would you like OP? If posters had said 'yes your wife is awful, you must take over care immediately would you have dropped everything and provided full time care for your DC or would you go back to your wife and said 'you should do better' and left her to it?

She doesn’t do all of the parenting now, so why would she do it when she’s working FT?

OP said the wife doesn’t want to work and do all of the usual parenting on top - there will obviously still be parenting to do.

Right now, she takes on a bigger parenting role because she’s a SAHP.
The parenting isn’t going to just go away if she starts working.

Honestly OP, maybe you could actually help be a father and husband!?

I think though OP ,if you are still here, that a change that is within your power, you not your wife will need to do something different.
If you dont change what you are doing and clearly you have tried talking with your wife and she won't or cant change, then nothing different can happen. And that means unhappiness for your child your wife and yourself.

Same misogynistic attitudes still pervade.

OP has a FT job. So does his wife. Her FT job is looking after their house and parenting their child.

While OP is at work, his wife is also ‘at work’. So all parenting and household chores outside of ‘work time’ need to be shared equally. Including bed times and dealing with night wakings. Neither OP or OP’s wife can be sleep deprived to do their ‘job’ so they take it in turns to deal with night wakings.

Also, if OP parents his child can we not refer to it as ‘helping his wife’ 🙄

How is any of that related to the op's wife having a bad temper...???

From your replies it sounds as though you are helping, but she is not able to cope with the sleep deprivation/ is perhaps deeply triggered by it. I appreciate that your little one slept through until recently, but sleep deprivation is a true torture. If she did the majority of the nights due to breastfeeding as well, then she has lived through this once already and the fear of going back to those days can be crippling.
I lost my temper a few times at night during the first two years of my daughters life due to sleep deprivation and the absolute horror of how unravelled I felt.

Realistically I think you need to share the nights properly 50/50 during this regression. Her SAHM shift should be treated like your job and her 'hours' matched to yours. If you are working 9am - 5pm, then she needs to have that same core time and the rest of the time, especially at night, you need to be 50/50. So often SAHM have 24hr shifts, 365 days of the year. No one means for it to be so unfair, but it very often is.

I resisted help from my husband because I was so chronically overwhelmed that I was like a wounded animal refusing to let anyone tend to me. Take charge. Tell her you will do one night on, one night off, and make sure you stick with that and uphold your end of the bargain.

Take care of her, and watch her temper improve.

If the OP is having to work away, how on earth can he share the parenting 50/50?!!!