What do I do when husband makes daughter sad

[Blue48]

Ok what do I do? My DH is a high earner who considers being a good father is about providing for his family. By way of background he had wealthy parents who gave him a very comfortable upbringing but away at boarding school and I don't see any closeness. He is not bothered/close to his family and rarely sees his. We have been together 25 years since uni and I know he loves me and our two daughters and would lay down his life for them. But he just can't be kind or a softy or ever give them a good word unless it is earned. He nags and criticises. He puts them down. He teases. He can't tell them they are gorgeous or look lovely unless they are wearing something he approves of. At 13 and 11 this isn't often as they have their own style. So he will tell them they look like chavs, say they are ignorant etc. Call them a klutz if they drop/break/spill something. Will put them down intellectually. Will criticise the way they eat, sit. Tell them off for not helping but criticise the way they do if they do. Sometimes these things are said as jokes but they are not funny. It's as though he is so disappointed in them. But I know he isn't. My younger daughter has just told me how sad it makes her. How he sucks the joy out of a room. She wants a daddy who makes her feel special. But she has enough EQ to know that if she says anything to him he will be in a huge mood and say something like "no one loves me or appreciates me" which I genuinely think he feels. I know I am failing my daughters by not sticking up for them enough because TBH I know he will be in a huge mood with me. So I am failing him too. I want to talk to him but how do I do this in a non confrontational way? I think he wants to be loved but despite the girls making him cards and doing dances to cheer him up he doesn't feel it. Help.

He's not a bad person? He's abusing your children for fucks sake.

I love backgammon and it’s easy for kids to understand.

Your girls shouldn't be making him cards or doing dances to cheer him up. His emotional state is not their responsibility.

OP is clearly focused on what she wants to hear, i.e. care bears, rainbows and unicorns not on what actually seems to be happening and the impact this is likely having on her children and her already. I don't see the point in any of us commenting further, tbh.

Piano or chess are great as well.
Anything which allows interaction.
Some me only feel comfortable in formal situations and teaching an instrument or game gives them that framework.

Tell him the damage done to a child who feels they are never good enough is irreversible. He still has time to work on it, it isn't too late.

It jumps out at me that you say he’s popular and seen as supporting others externally ...so he can behave correctly with them but keeps his shitty abusive behaviour for you and his children in a domestic setting ?
Not on ... leave him and stop making excuses for him .
This is a choice that he makes .. he can help it .

For the sake of your children move out .

OP, I am finding this thread quite disturbing, because your husband's abuse of your children is shocking, but you seem kind of numbed to it all. I can only suppose that he must be abusing you too; he has conditioned you not to question his behaviour too much or at all.

His treatment of your daughters will already have done immeasurable damage to their self esteem, happiness and understanding of how healthy relationships should work. They are very likely to get into abusive and unhealthy relationships as adults. And you have been allowing this to happen... for what? Because he sulks when you challenge him? Because he has a nice big salary?

You need to think very carefully about what is important here. You are failing your children and you need to step up and protect them. Whether that means ending the relationship or staying but fighting for them. But are you able to fight? Is it safe for you to do so?

If he was willing and capable of change, he could get therapy and do a parenting course; but I wonder if he would do it and take it all on board?

You might do better to focus on getting therapy for the girls, they're going to need it.

Please read this
www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/emotional-abuse/

So him being in a huge mood is a thing that stops you from confronting him for upsetting your daughters? I was in one of your daughters' shoes: my father also was a bread winnder for the family (my DM also works but her salary isn't that great as his) and he believes that is enough. His family also wasn't really connected to each other so he isn't really connected to my DM and me. My father is what you've said about your DH: he nags and finds faults with people, never says nice things, he is a toxic person who never values others' feelings and doesn't really listen when it comes to things connected to me or my DM. My mother doen't confront him so I do, we argue quite a lot now as I grew a backbone to stood up for myself. Being a child, I never wanted to go home while he was there for the lunch, I waited outside for him to leave the house. I still dont like being nearby him and really look forward to move out and finish all the ways for him to contact me. If that's what you wish for your daughters, then go on doing nothing. I wish my mother would confront him once and have a serious talk to him about his attitude to his family.

You see that your H was damaged by his parents and upbringing. Now look at your DDs. This is the legacy you are setting out for them if you allow your H to continue.

SittingAround1. Your girls shouldn't be making him cards or doing dances to cheer him up. His emotional state is not their responsibility.

Can you not see how damaging if this is? Do you want your DDs to behave this way with their own partners? Figuratively dancing around to “cheer” someone else up. Leaving them open to being abused without the tools to recognise and resist it.

He’s a bully.

He’s emotionally abusing your daughters and you don’t want to confront him about it in case he emotionally abuses you too.

This cannot be fixed by family board games.

I feel really sad for all of you, your husband included. He's had a really tough upbringing, it may have been privileged in terms of material things but as he's not in touch with his family it sounds as if very little love was shown. Plus a boys' boarding school was probably a pretty loveless environment thirty years ago so that probably did more damage. You actually speak very positively about him so I think that there is the possibility of change. I agree that counseling and him being prepared to change are key but at the moment he doesn't understand why he needs to consider this and doesn't understand the impact his behaviour is having on his daughters. I'd bet that he feels he is strengthening them by his behaviour and preparing them for success in the adult world. He's possibly thinking "I turned out fine" etc. because he has a good job and a steady marriage with two lovely daughters. He honestly can't yet see the damage he is doing. It's your job to make him aware of that OP. I don't think that it's a lost cause but I do think that you need to act now.

That sounds like a very difficult situation for you and your daughters OP

My father was like this but now that I have grown up with my own family I do not speak to him anymore but Op I also blame my mother. I told her how I felt just like your DDs and she did nothing. The damage this is causing your daughters is huge.

Why would anyone appreciate him when he is so nasty?

Sounds emotionally abusive to me. Why on earth does he have the right to put them down and insult them? You'd fight for them if a stranger said those things. So much worse coming from their own father.

He must get help, or leave.

I have a father very similar to this and my mother did nothing. My father's negative comments have been my inner voice my entire life. It's affected every part of my life. Your daughter is telling you it's bothering her please don't let her down op.

He is shaping their futures, badly. He is determining the men they will choose to date/marry. Not great men. He is doing a huge amount of damage and you need to stop it. You need to get him out of your lives if you don't want mentally and emotionally damaged daughters. Don't be complicit in the abuse, make no mistake, it is abuse.

I would as other pp say sit and talk genuinely to him about the consequences. He is being selfish and allowing himself to destroy his relationship with them rather than seek help.

I say this from a place 40 years on. My df is most definitely (and I have several reasons to know this and not to say it lightly ) ASD but at 75 and growing up in Wales no way would it have been recognised so he got no support. He is also off the charts intelligent in some things and was professionally successful. He was exactly the same way. I know , now cerbrelly at 40 that he loves me and dsis more than we could imagine. Hes petrified of anything happening to us. However I didn't hear a nice word from him ever. He permanently criticised us , it led to horrendous self esteem issues for both of us. Nothing was ever good enough (even we knew that he thought he was motivating us to push further , do more , all it did was tell us we were never good enough)

Finally in his 70's he started to realise we never came home, we never rung him, he realise done day he didn't know what I did for a living. The trouble is , to be honest , it's too late. No amount of being nice now (he still struggles as he genuinely doesnt understand empathy but he tries as if he has learnt by rote and studied it....he probably has).

Nothing can remove that at 15 he told me I looked common. Or that he put up with me under sufferance. He will never be able to have the relationship with me he wants because even if I wanted to he eroded it , with every little nasty comment, every pull of the face , every disappointed sigh. By the time I reached my twenties that relationship was dead in the water.

At 40? It couldn't be brought back if I tried.

Remind your DH, there isn't always time to change things. There will be a point of no turning back and it's far far closer than he thinks .

OP. Start a conversation with ' I wonder if our girls will come home often or call often when they leave home'? .
You can then talk about creating nice family times so they have memories of fun times not just the criticisms.
Say ' do you think your girls will call us - meaning him- when they are older. Will they tell us what's going on in their lives or ask us for advise about important issues?
His responses will be eye opening for him and you
You dont necessarily have to leave . You can educate him on how to behave, although these are very important years in terms of their self esteem so it's good you want to do something now.
Good luck.

My exh was a sulker and also frequently like your dh with our dc.

I left him because he was emotionally abusive to ME, but since leaving I have realised that he was also like this to the dc. He is incredibly uptight and perfectionist and holds everyone including himself yo ridiculously high standards.

My dc still love their father and want to spend time with him.

When people say LTB over things like this, I always wondered what the point was, as they still see both parents.

But the difference is that you can treat your dc differently (and not just by secretly finding them behind your husband's back so he doesn't sulk).

My mother never backed me up when my father was criticising us (me and my brother), it was so so hard to feel we were constantly disappointing him and it damaged my relationship with with my father AND my mother.

Sorry "not just by secretly CONSOLING them behind your Dh's back"

I mean that in this situation, it is hard in your marriage to keep contradicting your husband in front of the kids. Doesn't mean you can't do it if your marriage is strong enough...

Sorry, but that’s horrible. Girls at that age need so much kindness and support or poor impressions of themselves will stick with them long term. Trust me, I know.

Does he read at all? Philippa Perry’s book The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read is very good and not a long or heavy read. It might help him sort through his own feelings about his parents and the way he speaks to his daughters. But really, that’s not good.