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 ?

It's not the same as leaving the kids at home. When I go to the gym and take the kids I need to get them ready, sort their water bottles and snack, have them with me in the car, get safely across the carpark, get there in time to settle them in creche and inevitably get interrupted to make 1 or both to the toilet.

On the days my husband's at home. I just throw my gym gear on and walk out of the house. No additional stress at all.

Such a patronizing point by the way. Are men expected to find sports clubs that offer childcare? To organise the kids before they take them WITH them for their hobby? To decide which classes fit around bedtimes etc. if she's going to the gym several times a week and he's working crazy long hours and she's doing all the bedtimes then she's going to the gym in the day and making the arrangements to allow for that. That's additional work in itself.

Plus it is usually very time limited, meaning your actual time in the gym is spent rushing and clock watching.

@Velumental But isn't that a part of being a ft SAHM? Making those arrangements?

My point is that op is saying oh she goes to the gym, however not specifying that he isn't parenting when she does that. When is he parenting is the question.

Yep, 2 hour set up for a 40 minute workout just to try to retain some sanity

@Velumental Well he physically can't if he is away? With work.

Maybe it's time to consider some childcare? Even if she's not ready to go back to work having some time off is needed when you are hormonal drained in many ways then 1 I found placing my children in a nursery from around 15 month extremely beneficial for them in regards to socialising and learning, a d a break for her! Look into what early years funding you can get a lot of babies and kids get funding now.

Have you ever considered she may have postpartum depression? Yes behaviour like this is inexcusable but she's clearly in need of a break and support mentally and physically! I know very well what it looks like being ADHD dealing with an audhd child she's only human and so is he more childcare and breathing space and support from a GP. Because borderline personality disorder can actually very well be autism and ADHD !! I was diagnosed as emotionally dysregulated and I'm now on the autism pathway so yeah 👍🏽 little more empathy would be nice

I don't know if you know this but firstly if you travel to a destination the road goes both ways, you can travel back.

Also if you've ever been a parent without a sahp in your family you'll know that you absolutely can leave work for a kid based emergency. I've had to swing out of some pretty hairy situations because a child was in hospital or whatever. It happens.

If he legitimately thinks his child is in danger he lets his boss know there's a family emergency and he makes arrangements to go home. Same as I would or any mother would be expected to in that situation

@Velumental What's the emergency?

Do we know if OP is in this country?
I've always worked and the only time I've been granted emergency leave was when my son burnt himself badly at school (accident in science).

If I posted on here that my husband had been screaming at my baby when tired and slamming doors and ow as away for work but had heard my baby screaming on the phone while my husband shouted and screamed at the baby and my reaction was to make a mumsnet post asking if he should address his temper the response would obviously be 'go home and take your baby from this abusive man, work can wait' as it should be for this dad.

I've had to leave for a child having a seizure, a child having an asthma attack and to collect vomiting children, a child with headline and a child with chicken pox from nursery due to exclusive criteria. Who collected your babies and toddlers in these situations?

@Velumental Either my husband or my mum. My job is one where I can't have my phone on me nor can I leave immediately. Hence I am not primary contact.
Reading OPs original post he doesn't mention his wife screaming and shouting at the baby?

In his later posts he talks about her slamming doors and shouting at the baby.

The point is he's unwilling to see how he fits into that. Was your husband a sahd?

In our family we now have a setup where the days I couldn't possibly do pickups my husband wfh, the days he HAS to be in the office I work flexible hours. We've really lucky to have this but it took juggling and working out. And it took both of us.

This op seems to think parenting is entirely his wife's business

Still shocked at the number of posters excusing her behaviour towards a helpless child. It makes me wonder what the hell people in the UK are doing behind closed doors. It's not excusable to behave like this.

I don’t think anyone is saying her behaviour is ok.

Posters are looking for solutions, and the obvious solution is for the DH to step up more with looking after his child, especially at night.

Partly because the mum sounds likely to be knackered and this may be the root cause of her temper, partly because that’s the quickest way to make sure his child is safe, and partly because he’s the child’s father and should be doing more than what he describes even if there wasn’t an anger issue.

Being tired isn’t an excuse for acting like this, it doesn’t make it ok, but it is a possible reason and he can fix that reason.

Come off it, OP is posting and he has done fuck all about the danger his child may be in. That is not remotely acceptable and one of the many ways that many fathers need to up their parenting game.

He needs to take action.

@Velumental No - also a working parent the same as me. I refuse to be the "default" parent just because I am a woman!

Then why can't you see that the OPs wife shouldn't be shouldering 100% of the sleep deprivation?

@Velumental OP said she isn't?
Obviously she has to when he is away with work but that cannot be helped. She made the choice to be a SAHM, she doesn't want to work.
How do you think wives with husbands in the forces manage it?

I don't think wives in the forces have an easy time tbh, for many reasons. But they do probably have a community, due to their situation.
OP's wife has a DH who works away a lot - and we don't have a lot more info. Does she have family around, a support network? We don't know - but these things make a real difference to women at home.
My own mum was invaluable to me when I was a sahm - I could, when things were bad, just go round to her, and have her support & I'm not sure I would have survived without that support.
Loneliness is epidemic amongst mum's with babies who don't have the traditional support of extended family - studies have been done on this.
I think the most telling thing on this thread is that the wife said she doesn't want to go back to work because "she'd have to do it all, plus a job" - I think this shows us just how much actual parenting the OP does.

"She does do the majority of bedtimes / dinners etc as I work long hours and travel a lot but I do try to pick things up at home when I can"

I'm afraid these are just excuses. When my children were young (toddler & baby), my DH worked away Monday to Friday, he was home for 48 hours or so every weekend, and he did all the housework (except for laundry as I managed to get that done), he tidied, cleaned, and cooked every meal over the weekend, then freezing portions of the leftovers for me to eat during the week when he was away again.

He knew that our baby would only sleep whilst on me, and that she'd cry if she wasn't being held by me, and that even whilst she slept on me, I'd be expressing milk at the same time, so I never got a break, never a minute.

My DH stepped up to do what he could, knowing that I was giving my all to motherhood.

He never once used his working long hours and travelling as excuses to shirk his responsibilities to the household @Seriouslyworrieddad

The solution is simple. Instead of pretending to be worried, posting for himpathy and then going to sleep, OP can go home and give his exhausted wife two full days of sleep and rest with zero parenting duties.

Since literally every single human being on the planet would start shouting after weeks of no sleep with an extremely full on (in his words) child, she will then return to her normal frame of mind when she is no longer being tortured.

Then they can work on a plan together to make sure she is supported, attend therapy together, if required she can access anger therapy and he can address his own failings as a parent and a husband with the counsellor, and work on ways to improve himself.

But in the meantime, he can give her two days of rest. Because she needs it, and it is his job, as a parent, to ensure the other parent is not tortured into irrational behaviour.

He's not in the forces.

Hope this helps.