PLEASE HELP!!!!!!

[yeye]

hi all.
My husband and I had a big fight over little things that wasnt even worth fighting. I told him to calm down and I kept telling him there was nothing to fight about but he kept insisting. Then, suddenly he started to open a lot of things that i never heard from him for more than 4 years that i lived with him. He said for the first time that he doesnt love our son as much as I do and he doesnt care about our son that much. He said that our son ruins his everyday life. He said that he's not happy with his life and he hates the fact that he's working hard to support his family. I never heard that from him before. I was very speechless. My son was at the back of the car and he started crying so hard and my husband kept yelling at him to shut up. I was so upset because he wont stop yelling at him so I tried to throw the DVDS at him and when he saw me doing that he tried to slap me. He almost did but instead of hitting me hard he just touched my face with his right hand. It didnt hurt because he stopped himself from hitting me hard. Now, I am very confused. Should I give him the chance to be a good father and a good husband? or should I pack my things and leave? If I do leave with my son I wont be able to support him. He's only 3 years old and I just got fired from my job. I dont have a drivers license and I dont have a car. I came from another country because he petitioned me. If I do go home to my country he'll never see his son again. I dont know if thats what I should do.
Please help!

[vess]

Sounds terrible! Really feel for you!
Has he calmed down since? Do you think he really means it, or is he just not very good at controlling himself under stress? You definitely have to talk to him again, ask him if there is a reason for what he said and...personally I'd threaten to leave him because this is not a way to talk to your wife, especially in front of your small child - I'd let him know that I won't put up with that sort of attutude!
See what he says when he's calmer and take it from there!

[pinkmama]

yeye, thats awful, so sorry to hear that. As Vess says, you really need to talk to him when he is calmer. Has he ever been like this before, or given you any reason to worry about him. My dh struggled with his relationship with our ds for a long time and things came to a head about a year ago, for him it wasnt just our ds, but he was under an enourmous amount of stress and had become very depressed. He has now had a lot of help from outside and inside the family and his relationship with all of us, including ds is now marvellous. Its hard to know from the small amount you ahve said wether this is a symptom of something going on for dh, or whether it is how he really feels and you are better off without him. Let us know how its going.

[bathmummy]

Sounds awful.
Hope that he has calmed down and you are able to talk things through calmly and rationally and sort it all out one way or the other. We all say things we don?t mean in the heat of the moment and yet often our deepest darkest secrets only come out under pressure and the deat of the moment too. I guess only calm talking and trying to get him to be honest about his feelings is the way forward.
As angry as you quite rightly are for both you and your son, I would try to get to the bottom of the problem(s) with calm talking first if you can to find out how unhappy he is with his life and his relationship with his son and deal with the way he said it, the potential violence and in front of his son etc. as a separate issue. If you confront him with all of it in one go, my guess is that it could turn unpleasant and both get defensive and upset without delaing with the real issues. Easy to say, I know.
Hope you deslove it all soon. Hugs xx

[throckenholt]

if it is out of character then try and find a quiet time and sit down and talk. Say you were amazed by what happened and what he said - try and calmly talk through the issues.

Maybe he is worried that you have no job and he is the only breadwinner. Maybe he feels a bit pushed out of the family.

Try and work out if he really is feeling what he said or if he was just feeling vulnerable and lashing out.

[KarenThirl]

So sorry to hear this, yeye, it sounds dreadful. Awful though it is, try to remember that men (generally) have a tough time talking about emotional problems and he may have been building this up for some time. True, he could be feeling anxious about being the sole breadwinner now that you're not working, but whatever the reason you need to get to the bottom of this and discuss it calmly when your ds is not there. Then decide how you feel about this yourself - if you believe he meant what he said you have to decide whether you want to be in a marriage like this. If you want it to work you could try Relate. Ultimately it's your decision but you do need to find out what's brought on this sudden outburst before you leap.

I sincerely hope this is a one-off and you can sort it out. Even if it is your dh needs to accept that he can't speak that way in front of his son, whatever his personal feelings towards him.

[yeye]

Thank you all for the advice.
I haven't spoke to him since the fight, I figured I'll give him time before i open this things up to him. He started talking to me like nothing happened but I wouldnt answer him back so he knows that I am still upset.
When he gets mad the next day he gets over it and seems like nothing happened but when we argue again he's going to bring it up.
He;s very stress lately because he has to go to work then go to school and also I lost my job about 2 months ago. He's been working extra hours since then. He knows how hard I try to get a job and when I was working he knows i was under a lot of stress because I was working graveyard and when i come home in the morning I had to watch ds all day so basicly I didnt get enough sleep.
We dont fight a lot but when we do is because of ds. when it comes to ds he doesnt have the patience. He takes his stress out on ds and thats why I always get mad.
He's not a bad husband but he's a very lousy father. He told me that he cannot treat our ds better than I do because he doesnt feel that way.
I know deep inside he loves ds same as I do but i just wish he would show it before everything gets worse.
If I try to talk to him about this things he might start yelling. Do you guys think i should just write him a letter? Or give him more time to think about things?
My dh is not a bad person he just doesnt appreciate our ds.
WHen I was pregnant he wanted to abort ds so bad but I fought so hard and sticked with what i wanted and not what he wanted. Do you guys think that has to do with him not be able to show love to ds?
My whole pregnancy he never touched my stomach or talked about ds.Ds was very unwanted by dh but i still stayed hoping he was going to change.

When he saw ds for the first time he was excited though and that made me feel happy.
Do you guys think I should go away with my ds for a couple of days?

Thank you guys for your advice.. It really helps a lot!

[throckenholt]

I think the problem is that he is not bonding with his son and probably feeling pushed out by your relationship with him. The best way to work through that is to give them as much time on their own together as you can - so that they can get to know each other, and DH can learn how to be a father.

The role of the father is very important for boys particularly - as a good role model - you need to try and give them as much chance as possible to make that relationship work.

[pinkmama]

Hi yeye. I think throckenholt is right, he probably is feeling pushed out by ds. YOu say he didnt want ds in first place, just interested as to why that was, what was he worried about? Also had you been together long when you got pregnant. Sorry to sound nosey, but just thought it might be relevant to how he is behaving now. Did he talk much about his fears when you were pregnant?

[vess]

Whether to go away for a few days - I'd say do it if you can! Might help everyone involved. As long as you and ds have a good time during those days and it's not like a running away/feeling miserable kind of thing.
By the way, do they normally get to spend time together without you? I mean your dh and ds? Could be good for both of them.
Don't know what else to say, I'm in my last stages of pregnancy and tend to get emotional and irrational, which is not going to be of any help, so I'll stop.
Good luck!

[yeye]

finally, I talked to him and i asked him what was bothering him. He told me that he's been kind of depressed lately and he felt like he didnt have any freedom. He said that he does the same thing everyday, go to work, go to school, come home and sleep. He feels like he's going around in circles. He also told me that he wanted to hang out with his friends again and he wanted to have a good time again. I told him that he can do all of that but now that he has a family he has responsibility it doesnt mean that he cannot hang out with friends he can still hang out with his friends and have a good time.
He told me that he wants to hang out by myself also and not around me or our ds.He said that eversince we had a baby he felt like he's been a prisoner. He just wanted his old life back , hang out with friends, go to concerts, get drunk.

I told him that you chose a life that is better than what it was, you have a wife that cares for you and a ds that adores and think that your the greatest dad. If you want to do what you did back then , i can understand but you will end up hurting our ds because our ds needs you to be a good father and as his role model.

My dh was just quiet after I said that. So I asked him if he wanted to go out on vacation just him and me and he said that he didnt know and we ended our conversation. Now,I dont know what to do. He really seems not happy with his life but i know he loves me and I know he loves our son but if he is not happy of the life he has now then i really dont know what to do.

[yeye]

he doesnt really spend time with ds. When he comes home all he does is play his video or watch his movies. Sometimes he plays with ds for 5 mins the most and when he gets ds to be motivated to play with him since dh started it after 5 mins of playing with ds , dh stopped playing with ds and tells him to be quiet so that dh can play his video games. I told him that if he didnt want to play with ds then dont start it and then not finish it.

[yeye]

he doesnt really spend time with ds. When he comes home all he does is play his video or watch his movies. Sometimes he plays with ds for 5 mins the most and when he gets ds to be motivated to play with him since dh started it after 5 mins of playing with ds , dh stopped playing with ds and tells him to be quiet so that dh can play his video games. I told him that if he didnt want to play with ds then dont start it and then not finish it.

[yeye]

he doesnt really spend time with ds. When he comes home all he does is play his video or watch his movies. Sometimes he plays with ds for 5 mins the most and when he gets ds to be motivated to play with him since dh started it after 5 mins of playing with ds , dh stopped playing with ds and tells him to be quiet so that dh can play his video games. I told him that if he didnt want to play with ds then dont start it and then not finish it.

[throckenholt]

can you encourage him to take ds out and have fun together - maybe go swimming or to the park or a play area. Help him to realise that having fun is not just confined to going to the pub with your mates and getting drunk. Having a family can be fun too.

He sounds like he is struggling with the reality of life and growing up - no-one can stay a teenager for ever.

But maybe you can help pinpoint the thing that is making it hardest - maybe his job - maybe you could encourage him to look for a different job.

As you say he has responsibilities and needs to accept that - but maybe if he did chuck all that away and go back to his mates he would find they had moved on as well.

I know it is exhausting when you come home from work and have children to deal with - but maybe you could encourage him to take over the going to bed routine - say doing the bath (if you do that), or reading the bedtime story - some positive thing they can do together. As him to agree to save the video games and movies until after ds is in bed.

I honestly think if they can find some common ground it will really help him get things in perspective.

[vess]

Just read an article about Irritable Male Syndrome - something to do with stress and hormones, not being able to relax and basically making the whole family suffer. Can't give advice, but seems to be quite common. My dh can be awfull - what makes him better is some kind of physical activity, like swimming, gym, jogging, tennis - whatever. I think people need physical activity, it really helps for stress - and some people need it even more!
Playing video games after work is really unhealthy - can't you encourage him to do something better, even if he's not with you and your ds?