My husband has always not been great with empathy or to put it bluntly he very rarely empathises with anyone and lacks the emotional intelligence to discern what to say when someone is telling him something that upsets them. The issue now arising consistently is with our 7 year old daughter.
She had an issue today at school as most kids do when they fall out with their friends over silly little things and she was quite upset as the girl she’s friends with has started being bossy and mean to her. My husband proceeds to advise her that it’s her fault that the girl is being mean to her and tells her if he sees her within 1 centimetre of this girl she’s in trouble. I obviously chime in at this ridiculous advice as our daughter breaks down crying thinking she’s to blame for her friend being mean to her. I tell him that he’s upset her and it’s not her fault and he gets angry at me, blows up and says I’m interfering and stopping him from being a father! At this point I’m flabbergasted and beyond upset at him for upsetting her and for him not understanding what he’s just done but apparently it’s my fault for pulling him up on giving unhelpful advice. Apparently I’m undermining his parenting, am I?
Is this a bridge that can be gapped or he just doesn’t have enough EQ to know what to say in these situations as I feel this will heavily impact our children from the lack of support and empathy from their father?