DP and DS keep having big temper-losing fights

[AuroraAlfresco]

(I didn't get much response to this in Parenting and it's fallen off the page ; hope ok to post here as well ...)

I can't see any end to their problems and I fear it's only going to get worse. DS is 8. I don't have the same problems with him at all. It's 90% the way DP is that causes DS to react badly to him, become stubborn, not want to cooperate for him.

DP will come home from work, I'll listen to his interaction with the DC, and maybe the first 5 things he says will be ever so slightly sarky ... subtle put-downs ...smart arse retorts to them (particularly DS1). It's so clear to me that this is why DS1 reacts badly and I just want to scream at DP "Why can't you just fucking well TALK NORMALLY to them!" It's as though he always feels he has to be keeping them in line ... casting a slight eye of suspicion over them as if they've done something wrong. I am so sick of it.

If I try and talk to him about it he complains that I am attacking him. So I don't know where to go from here. He's the only one that can change the way he is. But he puts it largely down to DS having an obstinate personality.

I'm fairly sure the reason behind it is that he dislikes himself a lot, so maybe feels he has to take it out on his DS to sabotage their relationship as a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

I would love any thoughts. I'm really not sure what I'm looking for and I know some people may tell me just to leave him ... it's possibly at the end of the tunnel, but anything more constructive that that would be good too. Thank you (I might not be able to reply till the morning but I'm not abandoning the thread!.

AA, you will feel confused about how to deal with the situation because you are unsure whether you are right or not, because you have been conditioned by your partner's behaviour. Until you feel secure about your boundaries you will struggle with your partner's behaviour (which is dreadful). The very fact that you are asking for help in how to deal with his reaction to me means you are easily swayed by his arguments.
His arguments are designed to get you to back off, to feel confused about the real issue, which is the ongoing, consistent, subtle emotional abuse of your ds.
Once you feel deep down that this abuse of your son is wrong, you will find it easier to deal with your partner.
What your partner is doing is taking away the focus on his behaviour and twisting it to be about how your partner is feeling when you call him on his behaviour. Your son's feelings are then treated as being unimportant.

HotDAMN I agree that I can't fix him and any change has to come from him. He's a slow learner in this respect but he has managed to turn other aspects of our relationship around in the past. I am hanging on in hope and I don't think it will be in vain (eternal optimist here!). But time will tell.

Pag that's really interesting about your DS (and a great success, by the sound of it). I was thinking of sitting the two of them down with me in the middle, the last time they had a bad argument/whatever you want to call it, but felt the initiative to resolve this one had to come from DP. And it did, they sorted it out, but there's always a next time

To see ourselves through others eyes.

Have you ever thought of recording him, pretty easy to do on a mobile. My DS1 was paying with my phone and I could here myself shouting orders in the background. Hated what I heard and have addressed it.

Playing not paying

I have considered that, Babs ... just as I used to consider filming him when he was drunk to show him what an arse he sounded*

I just worry about how instrusive it is, filming someone without their consent, and how angry he would get about it ... tbh if someone did that to me I would be apopleptic and find it hard to get over my outrage at the invasion of privacy to look at the film rationally. I would be horrified. It was always drilled into me as a child how unforgiveable it was to open other people's mail etc ... That doesn't mean I've ruled it out, though, it is still an option ...

*(this is one of the issues he's totally addressed and grown up about, btw - it was a bit of a problem in the early years of our relationship but he goes out for drinks something like twice a year now, if that, 4 or 5 pints at the absolute most these days, and I haven't seen him in a paralytic state for close to ten years, yay)

What if he does not actually attend counselling or gets fed up with it after one session then subsequently refuses to go.

The fact that you are hanging on in hope basically means that you are just hoping for the best. You want a quiet life really, you're the bystander in this overall dysfunction.

Basically your H is meting out to your son what was done to him by his own Dad. Small wonder therefore they no longer have any contact; are you at all surprised by that?.

Your son will go onto do the same with his father - and also despise you for not protecting him as a child for your own reasons. You'll be lucky to have any sort of relationship with him as an adult I tell you that now.

This dysfunctional crap does seep down the generations. You are watching a second generation i.e your son become affected by the behaviours his dad saw from his own parent when he was a child.

Deflecting this with humour does not work, it shows your son that you are really not protecting him from his Dad's barbs. You need to raise your own too low boundaries with regards to your H pronto.

Who is more important ultimately to you - your H or your son?.

I get your point, I was filmed by accident. On the flip side of that is that your DS hasn't given consent to be spoken to like that. Your DH maybe doesn't realise how he comes across. Could be useful. Hope you get it sorted soon, not an easy situation. PAGS approach sounds really good. Good luck op.

You need to point out to your dp that unless he changes his attitude to ds he will end up like him and his own father ie. no relationship. Is that what your dp wants?? Ask him... It should make him stop and think...

My dp and ds were the same and dp has not spoken to HIS father for over 20 years -very sad! The other thing is that my dp and ds are so similar, they clash constantly! They are both quite argumentative and will not back down. Of course, it is the adult that needs to realise this, and not escalate arguments..

However I kept reminding dp to sort out his attitude to ds, unless he wants to lose their relationship (just like he did with his father!). he definitely did not want this to happen and he worked at it. Now ds is an adult and they get along pretty well. The thing is, father/son relationships are so important, if they can be maintained, it is good for both of them, as long as they respect each other.

Thanks Babs, I will think about engineering an "accidental" filming session (!) and Attila, I know I deserve a harsh talking-to as you are giving me. Thanks. I am hanging on because I have seen him get better in certain ways in the past, as I mentioned with the drinking. Things will change, I am determined.

If your H has inherent low self esteem that was likely caused by his Dad's own emotionally abusive behaviour towards him as a child.

It is NOT your DS's fault or yours for that matter that his Dad/your H has low self worth; that blame should lie with his own father whom he no longer has any contact with. I wonder what your H's own mother was/is like?.

Unfortunately people like your DH who were abused in childhood can go onto repeat the same lessons they learnt as children. That does not happen always but its happening here.

Unless your DH accepts responsibility for his actions totally and seeks proper help (and by that I do not mean just a period of six once a week counselling sessions) then you are likely to be on a hiding to nothing. He may well be several years work for the most able of therapists and may not actually see that what he is doing to your DS is wrong at all. He certainly does not at this time think there is an issue.

I wish my mum had called my father out when he bullied me

She told me years later she did it when I was in bed later, because she wanted to hide the conflict

To a child though, it just makes you look as if you are colluding in it

It really does

I am being harsh because I have seen this as well. You need straight talking and no bs.

If you were to read some of the "well we took you to Stately Homes" thread on these pages you would see the after effects of what such toxic parenting (on your DH's part) can do. The effects of this can last a lifetime.

Yes, as I think I mentioned on my other thread in Parenting, wunda, I said to DP after their most recent blow-up that if he didn't get it sorted their relationship was at risk of breaking down completely. He said "Maybe it's already broken down" which I thought was an awful thing to say. He hates himself, it's so defeatist.

Attila his mother was as bad in many ways - would come into DP's room at night crying to him about the awful things his F had done to her (mutual emotional abuse from both sides, I believe; nothing physical though stuff thrown, doors slammed etc). Confiding in him, offloading all her problems onto him (an only child) ... and we're talking when he was, like 10 yo here! Not nice, to say the least.

To a child though, it just makes you look as if you are colluding in it

Yes, AF. I will not appear to be condoning his behaviour any longer. I've made such a mistake, trying to protect DS from me calling DP out on stuff.

What was your actual response to that comment of his?

Your son would be better off without him honestly in his day to day life.

Your DH is certainly not helping his own self here at all is he?. He comes across as both self absorbed and selfish. He is not prepared to give himself any opportunity to repair this now as he already thinks it is beyond repair. He will continue to self sabotage any efforts on your part to improve things at home.

Again it is not your DS's fault that his own Dad has low self worth here.

You cannot change your DH but you can certainly change how you react to him. Your son will one day make his own decision re his Dad and you could have the fallout from that too because he may well no longer want to talk to you either.

I just said to him that that was completely ridiculous, Attila, saying something like that about DS at age 8.

. He will continue to self sabotage any efforts on your part to improve things at home.

It's a possibility, I know. I'm prepared to split up over it.

Not surprised to read about his mother either I am sorry to say. She failed him as a mother and took him into her confidence and placed a great deal of responsibility onto him. Your man is truly a product of a dysfunctional family background.

BTW does he have any sort of relationship with his mother now?.

I wish to make it clear that not all people by any means that come from emotionally unhealthy and dysfunctional families do end up emotionally abusing their children but many children now adults of toxic parents have FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) with regards to their parents and have terribly low self esteem and worth. Those effects can last a lifetime and it can take years of therapy to get anywhere near resolving.

If I can reassure you on the "callling him on it" part. My dp has a tendency to towards this. Or rather he did have. He would often use sarky adult type humour with our 6 yo ds. Ds obviously didn't get why his father would talk to him that way. Coupled with an attitude from dp that our (incredibly well behaved and lovely) children should be pulled up on everything they do and everything they say, it was getting ridiculous.

I called him on it. Every. Single. Time. At first he tried to tell me I was undermining him (yeah, too right), but I figured that it was more important that our dc see the other parent standing up for them.

It was in fact a dealbreaker for me, it got so bad.

Now, I can deal with it using humour, if I feel he's slipping back that way again, which he sometimes does. He can be incredibly picky, the type who wants to win every battle, not the war, however bloody irrelevant that particular battle is.

If he starts going on (and he does try it with me too), I make it very clear in words of one syllable that it's not acceptable, and sometimes I address this directly to ds and say that daddy is not to speak to us like that etc.

It seems to work.

I should've said "not just the war".

And you are right Attila, as ever. I am one of those children who grew up with a dysfunctional relationship with my mother, and I'm going to make damn sure that my dc don't suffer the same fate.

I do worry sometimes that I might go overboard on this, such is my strength of feeling, but, well, maybe that's a topic for another day!

We still see his mother, Attila - she has been smarter than his father and avoids getting into arguments with DP now, just to keep the peace. DP and his father had a terrible argument over the phone about 4 years ago now - we asked him to please not give toddler (at the time) DS crap food and drink when he took him out (DP did put it in more reasonable terms than that!) - and his "D"F flew off the handle at this, telling him that it was good enough for DP when he was a child, etc, etc, who do you think you are, blah blah blah, instead of just nodding and smiling and agreeing to the possibly PFB request of his DGCs parents. Stupid man. We don't miss him in the slightest in our lives.

MIL backs down and, as a result, she's still around to see her DGC, and is a lively and involved, if slightly hysterical DGM to them. (They cut contact for about a year when DS was a baby, she would come to the house to see me and DS and she and DP would just avoid each other - for a year! - and it was so awkward until one time I just said to them I was taking DS out in the buggy until they sorted it out, which forced them to sit down and talk about it)

Peppermint, well done to you, I completely understand what you're saying. You've challenged your dp's behavior, and he has listened to you. You are strong!!

I was also accused of 'undermining' if I challenged dp's attitude to dcs - it is not easy!! But I think gut instinct is good - if behavior seems inappropriate, it probably is....

In hindsight I wish I had stood up more often to dp when he argued with ds as a young boy. However, as I am stepmum to ds, I was never sure when I should step in or not step in IYKWIM. It was a tricky situation and ultimately I felt ds was HIS son, he knows what he's doing...who am I to tell him!!!?!

My dp has no relationship with EITHER of his parents so this has certainly affected his concept of being a parent. But ultimately, dp does NOT want to lose his relationship with his dcs and he does need to work at it! I need to remind him often!!!

AS, just to drive my point home a little further....

I don't have a relationship with my father and the one I have with my mother is strained

She made her choice many years ago (him) and even to a child it was completely obvious

Your ds will carry on looking for approval from his dad, it's what kids do even the face of constant putdowns

I did, and I regret it now

It contributed to some risky, damaging and harmful teenage behaviour on my part and some low level self harming

You don't want that for your kids, but then neither did my mother

It doesn't change the fact however that she watched it happen right in front of her eyes

AA, sorry

Thank you wundawoman