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 ?

Should she not be taking the time to ask herself why she behaves like this and doing something about it. Should she not lay down at night and think to herself.. I’m being emotionally abusive towards my toddler and it needs to stop.
My mum was like this, has she got mental health issues.. probably. She still managed to terrify me throughout my childhood, and whatever her reasons that wasn’t ok.
I’ve already posted upthread but I now longer have any contact with her, none of her children do.
I also have very little time or respect for my dad for not leaving with us.
Id like to think most people understand that for a baby or toddler to sleep they need a calm, loving, peaceful environment.. slamming doors and screaming at a toddler is horrendous behaviour no matter the reason.
I get how sleep deprivation affects mums I really do, I had a baby that woke every 90 minutes with colic. I was on my own and there were times I’d put him in his cot crying and give myself 15 minutes.
Some mums aren’t good mums, some are neglectful and abusive, I wouldn’t feel comfortable at all leaving my child with this woman.

cooking dinners is no big deal . Sorry but it’s not . And when you are the one at home you have more time to plan and chose ingredients . Bringing a toddler out to the shop to chose something for dinner is a great time killer for me .

How dare you be away. Haha
Are t people.pathetic
Shes needs help...a gp and some get your shit together meds should help.
Being angry and upset becuase the kids veing full on what happens as the ages and stages contuine for 18yrs!
I guess itz all your fault lol i am kidding

This could be hormonal, possibly perimenopause.
On the other hand parenting could now be too much for her and maybe going back to work to have a break from the child may help. I know childcare costs are not cheap but it could be worth it for her mental health.

She needs to start anger management classes. It is not acceptable for any reason to be make a young child feel threatened or scared.
She won’t change without help. Are her parents the shouty type? It can be learned behaviour, still doesn’t excuse ranting at a baby.

Being sleep deprived can hugely affect someone's functioning.

If you're not prepared to swap roles with her, your only option is to support her.

Longer term, it would probably help if you both worked and parented rather than being so all or nothing.

This thread is awful. We have multiple threads for adults who were mentally and emotionally abused by their DM and here people are falling over themselves to excuse this behaviour. My DS never slept, was always cranky, screaming crying and demanding, to the point I thought about jumping off the balcony, he was worse for DH but I couldn’t shout, slam doors, scare him because he wasn’t doing it to annoy me.

Pre child I was the chilled most content person, my husband and and I never had a cross word in the 13 yrs we had before a baby. Cut to a reflux milk allergic terrible sleeper (going on 3 years!)

I got such awful rage feelings being constantly woken up, it was awful and scary. I was exhausted and then parenting all day as nursery fees outstripped my wages so I went freelance and was parenting all day. My husband already did alot of night wakes but he ended up doing two nights on and one night off with our child as he saw how drained I was, and how upset I was that I'd feel so angry in the night around what was a much wanted precious child. He knows that I'm not a naturally angry person, in fact I had a very angry mother so vowed never to be that.

It sounds like your wife needs to support now, she's burnt out. It also takes a long time before the patience returns, I found that even after a few days sleep my son would wake up in the night on my night eith him and I'd just feel furious! Of course I'd not show it to him but it's awful to be flooded with that. So give her a break, be honest with each other, and recognise how scary sleep deprivation is. Sleep training is awful too as it fries the nerves listening to crying, it's why me and my husband could never face it so have a 3 hr old who still wakes us up.

Exactly! I said that in a previous comment that she would benefit from some time in the work place. They both need to be around to facilitate this so one parent isn’t left working and doing all house/ kiddie care.

I grew up with a mother like your wife.
She never improved and I was absolutely terrified of putting a foot wrong.
She would also openly tell horror stories of how I was dealt with as a baby when I cried/wouldn’t sleep and I remember it being like that from toddlerhood too.
My Dad was passive, emotionally avoidant, and always working.
Please don’t let your child endure what I did - you need to step up, help your child, and help your wife.

Does she take any contraception with progesterone in it? I had periods of rage while using progesterone based contraception and it stopped immediately when I stopped using it. I suspect I am progesterone intolerant, it can cause irritability and intense periods of rage in 10-20% women.

This.

There is a big difference between an emotionally abusive mother who will often use manipulation tactics and be quite insidious with how they put their child down and/or refuse to meet their needs and a woman who’s at her wits end from sleep deprivation. The latter is not abuse.

LTB. That would be the advice if the genders reversed.

I think you are right to be worried. I don’t agree with the posters insinuating it is your fault. No matter how sleep deprived you are you should not be screaming at a toddler regularly, and if you do that you have no one to blame but yourself. It is child abuse. However, I do think that the answer is stepping in to do bedtimes/nighttime, if only to protect your child. And keep a diary with evidence, in case the behaviour escalates and you need to make a case for custody of the child. Good luck, it is an exceptionally difficult situation and I am sorry for the unsupporting (and frankly abuser enabling) reactions you have had here.

Hard disagree. Is it ok that a child is abused if the mother “can’t help it”?!

No there isn’t.. To a child it makes zero difference as to why they are being treated in this way, the results are the same.

It doesn’t matter what we think, this woman is barely functioning and in dire need of support. What do you know about her? Nothing. I hope op has decided to step in and start parenting and supporting her.

I completely agree.

There are many SAHDs and if someone posted that they were losing their temper like this then posters would be saying how wrong it is, not blaming the wife and perhaps even suggesting contacting the police.

I can’t believe there are posters falling over themselves to excuse her behaviour.

It’s concerning because if they think this is acceptable just because the mum is tired etc, then what does it say about their own parenting.

How many men use the excuse of being tired or stressed for the reason they snapped and abused a child?

There is never an excuse.

If you’re at that point then you put your child in a safe place and go and lock yourself away for 5 mins to calm down.

This woman has always had a temper - it’s not PND or something that has suddenly appeared through sleep deprivation.

As parents we have all done things we’re not proud and have probably all shouted or cried during the worst sleep deprived times but only as a one off.
This behaviour is ongoing and escalating.

This woman gets lie ins, gets breaks to go to the gym, she gets to stay home all day and not have to worry about meetings and deadlines, she doesn’t have the worries of paying bills etc.
She’s not a single parent who is at maximum capacity.
Toddlers are hard work but she has absolutely no excuse to behave this way.