Not apologising to dd

[Redscarforyellow]

Hi all I am possibly overthinking. But I have a little girl who just turned 1. My DH and I are going through some financial / work stress at the moment, DD isn't a great sleeper no family help so it's been stressful lately. This morning he asked my DD to calm the f* down when we were having quite a heated conversation about finances. He didn't shout it at her but was rather stern. Dd didn't understand of course, she was winging at the time.

Later he calmed down and I asked her to apologise to her.he said he didn't want to. But he hugged her cuddled her. I found it odd that he didn't want to just say sorry. Am I overthinking this?

*DD was whinging

Why did he not want to apologise? I think that's key information.

@NuffSaidSam he said he didn't feel like.

I would not be impressed with anyone swearing at a 12 month old, whatever the excuse.

And did you ask him why? It feels like you need to dig down into his reasons a bit.

No I didn't, I could tell he wasn't 100% calm yet and was still quite stressed. So I wanted to leave it for a bit before raising it again.

Also, he wasn't saying it to her face but still.

To me this seems like a non-issue. I’m not saying sternly telling a baby to calm the fuck down is his finest hour, but I think most parents have lost their cool at some point and you said he didn’t shout it, it was just a firm voice. The fact he used the word fuck would be meaningless to her and no different to if he’d just said, ‘calm down, as she can’t yet understand what he said . She also can’t yet understand the word sorry, he hugged and cuddled her afterwards which is surely far more meaningful to a baby in terms of apologies.

Obviously if this is a pattern of behaviour in terms of how he reacts to DD then it is a problem, but if it was a one off at a moment where he was stressed about finances and in an argument and he didn’t snap to the extent of angrily shouting then I don’t think it’s unforgivable behaviour. I also don’t think it’s your place to ‘tell’ him to apologise to DD, to be honest in his shoes being told what to do by another adult would probably make me more likely to dig my heels in and refuse to do it out of principle!

Maybe wait until he is calm, talk about it with him and then if you still think it's odd you could start a Mumsnet thread? It's probably unhelpful to pick apart his behaviour with strangers when you haven't actually spoken to him about it properly yet.

@NuffSaidSam thanks, I don't have anyone in real life to talk about this things through which is why I started the thread. I also have a history of overthinking things. I also find that I get more critical now after reading mumsnet aibu actually.

@MolkosTeenageAngst yes it is a one off.

He didn’t say it to her, but around her. He didn’t shout but said in a firm voice.
I don’t think there’s anything to apologise for.

Perhaps at a later time you may want to have a discussion and come to an agreement about swearing around her

If you're an overthinker the last thing you want to do is get a load of opinions from strangers who don't know your DH. Talk to him about it.

How would you feel if you did something he didn't like and instead of talking to you he canvassed opinions from strangers?

I'm not saying don't ask for opinions, it's always helpful to talk things through but talk to him first, that's a how a healthy relationship works.

He needs to apologise to his dd at the time in order for there to be any impact. Apologising to her when she's long forgotten won't mean anything but the cuddles will.

I understand why he'd think calm the fuck down but he needs to try and think rather than say it out loud or your dd will pick up swear words in her speech.

Does your h apologise to you when he does something wrong?

Apologising to her is a bit of a weird idea - she's too young to understand. He did comfort her.

What's important is he learns to control his temper around her going forward. Focus on that.

I'm not sore what the post of apologising to a - year old would be. They didn't understand the swearing and they won't understand the apology either. Not the hill I'd die on

I think this is why I got a bit upset. He doesn't really when we have arguments. We don't often have arguments though, that's something we need to work on communication wise

It's not ideal, is it, but I think most people have flashed when stressed and have a small child. As long as this is a rare event, I think you can probably extend him some grace.

In the aftermath of moments where I have been a shit parent, I really wouldn't appreciate my partner telling me to apologise (or do anything else) and I likely wouldn't acquiesce.

If you're overthinking to the point that MN is damaging your relationship, I would stop reading here. It's easy for a forum to see the worst possible interpretation of an event because things look worse written in black and white. Most situations, and people, are full of nuance.

Aside from rare slip ups, we never swore in front of dc. If it is unusual I would, personally, have just joked with dh to watch his language at the time and maybe suggested we do the finance conversation later as dc needed some attention and moved on. I wouldn't make a big deal of it/bring it up again/or insist on an apology to a 1 year old who is too young to understand.

Thank you all for your comments. He is a great father, and partner, and does more thab his fair share if parenting so I wasn't sure if I should just overthinking things.

She just turned one - I can see why he won’t apologise, she won’t have a clue what he’s saying so it does seem a bit pointless and overkill. I’m not condoning his behaviour, obviously it’s not acceptable but apologising to a baby won’t make an ounce of difference. You are being a bit silly.
I snapped at my 4 year old the other day because I’m ill and grumpy and I apologised because he’s old enough to understand. If someone was nagging me to make a formal apology to a baby I would think they’d lost the plot a bit.

Then making him apologize is pretty OTT in my opinion, if you're completely honest with yourself is this your attempt to guilt trip/shame him for a very normal expression of frustration?

She is 1. I think apology had to be immediate or not really much point. Also shouldn't be asked to apologise to DD.
His actions of showing some affection are likely the best way of showing dd he cares. I would prefer he showed some sort of remorse or disappointment in himself for saying that to dd, I wouldnt care about the actual word sorry to the 1 year old.

Crazy post, swearing at 1 Yr old 🙄 then expecting an apology to be given to the 1 Yr old 🙄
Your issue should be your h swearing at the baby, he needs to take a look at his behaviour, it's pretty sad that he's swearing at a baby

@MolliciousIntent no this isn't an attempt of me to guilt trip him. I don't play mind games like that. I just thought he should had apologised.

@Campervangirl I agree the swearing isn't great but my subsequent post clarified that he didn't swear in her face, we were having a heated conversation about something, baby was whinging and he said that.