Dh is angry I am undermining him

[Spink]

And I need help getting perspective.

He has always had a bit of a temper. Not physical but shouting, banging around. When he gets angry talking is impossible and winds him up. Sometimes I can see I totally contribute to this as I am frustrated with his reaction and say so, which escalates things. He then tends to leave the room, angrily.

One of our flashpoints is that dh is fed up with ds's 'naughtiness' and often shouts at him. Ds is 5. I think he is too harsh and that he loses his temper with ds too often. Dh thinks I am too soft. Sometimes I can see dh is getting close to blowing and rather unhelpfully try to intervene. Tonight, bedtime, ds mucking around, I went up once, he had a warning and then carried on, I then went up & took a toy away. Dh was upstairs at the time and when ds complained about the toy dh came in and started to tell ds off. He seemed to me to getting angrier and ds said 'ok I'm going to sleep now' and turned away. Dh continued talking (angrily) and I wanted him to stop as I thought I could see it escalating. I said something like 'dh I think ds understands now' and dh stormed out, swearing at me about my undermining him. I said that I was sorry but I didn't trust his temper. He said 'fuck you' and left the house.

I feel guilty that I undermined him and see his point that i was unhelpful. I also am pissed off that he is acting as though his temper is fine.

I don't know what to do. Anything I suggest is met with 'you do what you want, you know best'. Apart from his temper he is a lovely pa.

He does not think it is reasonable to lose his rag but I think he believes it is acceptable to shout. His dad has a temper at times so I think it is 'normal' for him, and he has always respected his dad and has a close relationship with him now so I don't think he sees it as necessarily harmful.
I will talk to him about the parenting course idea, we have talked about it before and went to a couples counselling session in the past when the therapist normalised ds's behaviour and pointed out that in becoming parents we'd lost our relationship along the way. We did talk about dh's anger but it was not the main focus- which was our concern about ds getting on ok at school and general concerns about us as a couple.thanks guys.

Poopoo I agree with you.

I don't get angry every day but it doesn't strike me as outlandish. 5 year olds can be infuriating. There are always posts on mn from mums saying they are always shouting and they get a good hearing and lots of empathy!

Sounded like the OP wanted help getting out of an unhelpful cycle with DH rather than fearing for her ds. Cd be wrong though. OP?

Anger every day is a long way from normal you must feel on edge all the time! And your poor little boy must be scared of him too. This is a huge problem, please consider your options, it is not healthy to live like this.

No, I don't fear for ds. Ds clearly does not like his dad's anger and I think he is afraid of it. But he also regularly chooses to play with his dad, asks for him etc etc. He sometimes says 'daddy is naughty for shouting' and dh does often apologise to ds and tell him that he (dh) was in the wrong for being angry.
I think it is about how we as a couple find a way to end the pattern. I am going to talk to him now.

'It seemed to me he was gettin angrier' - what exactly was he doing? People are assuming shouting etc, but was it in this specific case?

The situation was DS was disobedient at bedtime. You applied sanction 1. It didn't work. DH applied sanction 2, and whilst still mid-sentence DS rolls away (more disobedience? It's like a teen saying "whatever") and instead of dealing with that continuing disobedience, you want him to cease. I do think it would have been better, in the long game, with DS to show him that rolling over and ignoring a speaking adult is not the behaviour you want.

That aside, you mention that when DH does become angry (why, how easily, and with what level of cause) he shouts and bangs things round, but also realises and separates himself. This is a form of control. But is it enough for you? Do you feel safe?

That's how I read it. Tough to deal with though when he interrupts your disciplining and then says you undermine him! Hope you manage to talk this through constructively and maybe get external advice.

Just because he asks for his dad and wants to play with him, doesn't mean that he is not affected though. You said he is afraid of his anger and he 'often apologises' to your ds? I think this just seems normal to you because it's what you're used to, but it isn't.
I hope your talk goes well.

I'm another one for whom it took until my thirties before I could handle the way my Dad dealt with his stress (shouting and stropping). By learning that it was his stress, and giving him ownership of it. Since I learnt to do that, it helped me be a better parent myself, and it also helped my Dad - who I put in the bracket of a good dad in all other respects, with some wonderful aspects to boot. We've been through family therapy and I know the reasons for his behaviour are due to his experiencing awful abuse in his childhood . When I changed the way I reacted to him losing it - it also helped him become aware and to stop it.

I have also had to temper my own temper (have recognised some interesting patterns I have copied ) - I get DP to help sometimes if I start to lose perspective in a situation, and I do the same for him (most of us can sometimes lose it). I say to ds something like - I am/Daddy is having a silly old strop - IGNORE me/him, you have done nothing to deserve it, but we do need to sort out XY&Z (of his behaviour) and I don't leave his side until I know he is ok - which is when I know he understands we are taking ownership of our bad mood/temper/actions. Clearly it is even better to just remove yourself/himself from the situation to stop it blowing in the first place but it is not always possible.

The thing is, as LEM points out, is that in order to do this you do need to have awareness, and if your DH does not have this at times, then it will be causing damage and you do need to do something about it. It is possible to learn appropriate ways of behaving, but only if you have awareness.

And this is where it is hard for you now, because you have to show you will not tolerate it. Talking through and working out agreed strategies for dealing with DS's behaviour as suggested is also an important thing to do, but you know this.

Well done for posting because you want to do something about it - and I hope people here and in RL will support you through it

Sounds horrible for your little son!

JimmyFlip, you have some great ideas there. I can't imagine my dad agreeing to family therapy - I remember suggesting to him once that he should consider anger management and he bellowed "I DON'T NEED F*ING ANGER MANAGEMENT!!" at me.
Spink, if your DH's father had a similar temper and they are close, he may feel at some deep level that "this is how fathers behave". I do think that if he always, always, invariably apologises to your son for losing his temper with him - and to you in front of your son for losing it with you - that this is really positive. Part of what made my dad's behaviour (and my mother's response to it) so unbearable was that he never apologised for anything, at least not so my sisters and I were aware of it - it was always completely swept under the carpet and we were expected to carry on as normal, with holes in the wall, broken banisters and on one notable occasion, my mother walking around with a black eye.
I'm not by any means a saint on the temper front myself - my partner and I do of course lose our tempers regularly, but it's never out of a clear blue sky, and we always apologise to each other and to our DS as quickly as we can.
Sorry for rambling - these threads about angry dads always strike a chord with me. I hope you are able to get somewhere with this. Relate are very good for providing a space to talk about parenting issues in a controlled kind of way - you might try them?
Love and hugs to you and your sweet little boy.

Thanks Bluestocking. Sorry to hear about your father

I am lucky that therapy was welcome and really helpful in our situation. My Dad did not have a father at all growing up; he had no positive male role model to base his parenting on. He was sent away to school where he was abused, physically, emotionally and sexually by older boys and by some tutors in a very high flying and prestigious academic institution. Fortunately decades ago now, and I would like to think that safeguarding in schools is much more rigorous now than in his time.

I am eternally grateful for his humbleness and courage in facing his demons, and in his mortification when he realised the damage he was doing to his own family was in his power to overcome. If his bad behaviour ever begins to emerge, it now only takes me or someone else in my family to calmly say something like ? you see it is this behaviour that is not helpful or acceptable in this situation ? which stops him in his tracks, and he is rightfully mortified all over again, deeply regretful and very conscientious from then on. I have been able to forgive him because of this, but I know that not everyone might be able to do this. I have had to cut other people out of my life that do not show this awareness or ability to change behaviour.

I hope the OP is ok this morning. I thought some of the responses were a little brash.

I think it is important certainly to acknowledge that some kind of losing control in the heat of the moment is a reality for a lot of people. The extent to which this manifests is clearly very individual, and sometimes we need extra support in assessing what is just grumpiness and what is more serious. I have to stop myself sometimes from becoming insanely envious of those who perhaps have not had these battles to overcome, and for whom dealing with these issues seem obvious and straight forward. It took me years.

Tease this out a bit. Be honest.

1. Does DH let things ride and ride and ride - and then blow up?

1. Are you too soft?

Be really honest w your answers.

Like LEmum says, when one parent is too lenient the other has to be too harsh to make up the balance. My H was the soft one, and I was forced to be harsh. I tried to explain until I was blue in the face, that negotiating with a tantrum is just plain cruel, and he never, ever got it.

Children really do need consistent boundaries. If your 5 year old is being 'naughty', what he is doing is looking for safety. He is pushing the boundaries to find out where you are, and can you see him, so he can feel safe. It is a parent's JOB to bear a child's discomfort in the face of a boundary, and to love him enough at that time until he accepts the boundary. To not bear this is narcissistic ('he won't love me!), and explains why my H couldn't do this. Even a tantrum was all about him.

So all the time you BOTH back away from him, I promise you you are making a little boy feel very lost and alone and unsafe, and he HAS to act up to 'find you'.

I suggest that you find a calm place when S is not there, that you calmly talk about this, and if H tells you you are too soft, care enough about your son to listen. Ask him to give you examples.

Similarly, if you have identified that H tries to be 'nice' until he loses it, talk about that too.

Bottom line: when a small child starts, name the behaviour ('you are running around and not getting into your pyjamas). Name the expectation ('I want you to get into your pyjamas), and then what will happen next ('and then we will brush your teeth and then it is story time'). YOU are in control.

Super Nanny does it best of all and is well worth watching.

PS so you need to step in THE MOMENT he acts up. Just know that he is asking you to see him and support him, so to be calm and in control and taking over is an act of love and backing away from the confrontation is a betrayal of him.
Regarding your H, we lose it when we are tired. This is when (Alice Miller) the projection onto the child happens, where THEY are attacking US and we have to defend ourselves from them!

You are not undermining him. You are stopping him from being an angry twat! it would only be undermining if he wasn't wrong in the first place!

BTW you and your DH sound like me and my DH We have recently had a bit of a relationship crisis and in all the fall-out one good thing is that I managed to get him to see that the way he dealt with our children was wrong and counterproductive.

I think abitwobblynow has a good point.

I have a friend who is like that, who will not see her children upset or disciplined at all. It does the child no favours and means the dad is seen as harsh and wrong if he isn't as soft as the mum.

She panders to their every whim and will never allow them to be upset or tell them off. How can the dad be expected to be like that as well!

I was your husband some years back. Quick to anger and shouting every day.

It is my DH who made me realise that my behaviour was it acceptable nor normal. It was not nice to hear so I resisted his analysis at first. I expect his may be where your husband is at too. However I did observe myself afterwards and realised.

In my case, parenting books and practical exercises teaching me how to channel my anger really helped. I practice every day. Things are much better.

I second posters suggesting parenting classes or books.

Was not acceptable. When will I be able to post without typos?

The line between a happy household with some shouting, and an unhappy household with lots of shouting or indeed bullying can be a difficult one. I hope ours is the former, but there may be times, when I am stressed or we just go a bit out of balance, where there's too much anger/shouting. Having said that I'd hope it wasn't daily or bullying. But we are all loud, including the children!

Having said that, I think the time to address those differences between parents is not in the moment, but either in a chat or even in parenting classes. If I've lost my temper with the children, I would not want my husband wading in at that moment, indeed I wouldn't want him criticizing me at all unless I was completely in the wrong (messing about and being rude after bedtime isn't great behaviour, after all). But, if I've had a shouty period, he has taken me on one side and said I need to tone it down. I think that's what you need to do here, but also ultimately you do have to allow him to parent his own child, not always intervene if he gets annoyed.

I also agree with the person who said that him removing himself is not always a bad thing. If my husband loses his temper (probably once every six months), he would go out, not as a bad thing, but as an agreed way to cool off and move away from us arguing.

Only you know how bad the shouting is, how much anger there is around, and how much it affects your son. I would certainly talk to your husband pretty bluntly about how you all feel, and ask him to change, living on eggshells is horrid.

This was a bit odd, Edith: DS rolls away (more disobedience? It's like a teen saying "whatever") and instead of dealing with that continuing disobedience ...

The child said "OK, I'm going to sleep now" which was the desired outcome.
Am I missing something?

Mumsy. I think that's good advice.

Well, I would hope that I child would wait until the other person has finished speaking, would not turn their back on a speaker, and show some contrition/apology for their earlier truculence.

This wasn't resettling a child who was having difficulty sleeping (where any further attempt would indeed be the desired outcome) but dealing with disobedience which had continued after the first warning. I do not think that letting a child turn his back on the adult tackling the behaviour is going to prove helpful in behaviour management in the long term.

Edith

Well, I would hope that I child would wait until the other person has finished speaking, would not turn their back on a speaker, and show some contrition/apology for their earlier truculence.

Blimey!

No where does it say that the boy interrupted, he just turned over to go to sleep.

Even if your DS is excessively naughty and you are a bit lenient, then there is still no excuse for this raging and storming at a 5 year old. Your DH needs to get anger managment therapy. There are a few books on it and they also give advice for people living with an angry partner.

I read the turning over thing as being a retreat from the anger. If someone shouts at you so much that you suddently do what you are told it is usually because you want the conflict and shouting to stop because you have been cowed into submission. Not great parenting in my book

And TBH even if there was some 'defiance' involved I can't say I blame the child - if an adult thinks it accetable to rant and yell at a child I guess it must be acceptable for the child to show some sort of reaction other than abject obedience.