DH - advice please

[ineedgin]

Regular but name changes for this.

Don't even know where to start :(

DH and I have been together for 10 years, married for 4 and have 2 DSs under 3. I am a SAHM and he works full time bringing in a decent wage and supporting us all. Working hours are good so we can all spend time together late afternoon, eat and he baths and puts kids to bed.

He owns the house we are currently in and will very soon be moving into our new family home which will be jointly owned.

From the outside he is the perfect dad, in that he provides, good with the kids, helps out (a bit) around the house and is liked by all. But he is not the man I married, or the father I thought he would be.

I find that he gets angry quickly, short tempered and has limited patience with the boys. DS1 is quite boisterous, but a typical 2.6 year old in terms of pushing boundaries etc. DH is very quick to snap and shout at him. I know discipline is always a difficult subject, but feel as parents we should agree on what we are doing. We discuss things, implement them and then he forgets and just goes back to his usual way of doing it which I disagree with.

We use time out as punishment for DS1 when he is naughty and we have already told him off once for doing it. I get down to his level and explain why he is in time out, leave him and then re-tell him. He apologises we move on. DH just shoves him in the time out spot and tells him to get out (normally from living room into hall), sometimes as explanation sometimes not.

He also condones the use of smacking, and I don't. I think in exception, dangerous circumstances it may be necessary and if it felt right I would use it. But DH threatens a smack or does (back of legs/hand) pretty much every day. For example, at the dinner table tonight, DS1 wouldn't give him a piece of paper, he asked a few times then smacked his hand. He didn't use time out or say “give it to daddy or you will go in time out for not listening, just smacked his hand. He often says do that again and I will smack you. When I pull him up on it, he just laughs and says he doing it his way and tough if I dont agree with him.

Also, these past few months his behaviour has got worse, he's negative with and about me, wont listen, when I ask him to explain this as his arguments are sometimes quite confusing his tells me its my fault for not understanding him. I approached him the other week and said I felt like I was being verbally abused, he basically told me I was being stupid and I was the one who needed to get a grip. I sent him to info (rightly or wrongly) to read and he said he wasn't reading it as it was just someone’s opinion off the internet and he knew he was on the right :(

There are other examples, but this is rather long already and thank you if you have got this far. I don't even know why I have posted this.

at the least get him on a parenting course - you could both attend - where positive parenting is encouraged.
what child needs to be smacked every day? if a parent is smacking every day/putting child in time out every five minutes then the parent has a problem with their own behaviour.

not making excuses here, but I suspect he is stressed about an imminent house move (yet to exchange but close) and work. neither of which is my fault.

they are toddlers under three.

daily and constant time outs/smacking - it isnt right.

offer him ultimatum - agree to do a course and listen to other views and implement a more positive way of parenting or reconsider the future together

cest - I suggested that if he reacted a different way with ds1 then he may well improve. ds1 can be quite boistious with ds2, so we use time out for that and ive recently done him a reward chart which he is responding well to. hes a lovely little boy, not malicious at all. he is also fine when he is at playgroup.

there will always be stresses in life.
house move now, other things later...
he has to learn to deal with the stress and not let it out on the children.

what parent goes round smacking a "lovely little boy"?

he said last night that he doesn't want to and doesn't like it. so I said just stop then, lets find a different way. but he said thats what he was doing? I cant understand it. what hurts the most is that you think you know someone and that they share their values etc and then this

look up (positive) parenting courses in your area. a good one might involve role play etc. he needs to see other ways of doing things... he needs to be admitting to other peiople outside the family that what he does is wrong...telling you means nothing if he wont seek help to change.

im going to sit him down tonight and lay it on the line. he changes his ways for the good of the whole family, or there wont be one for him.

find a practical step to move him forward tho - he wont change on his own - look up when and where the next parenting course is. book it book the sitter and go to it together. some paid for courses have free taster sessions. or ask hv

if he refuses to go and wont be open minded about listening to new ways of doing things then you know where you are.

and you need some validaton/back up for what you saying.

like what? Thank you for your help and advice, it really is appreciated x

he said if I think he ie abusing the kids to call police/social services

Like to see his face if you took him up on that.

Of course compared to his younger brother DS1 looks bigger and more mature but he's still only little. If he gets smacked what's the betting he will think might is right and do the same to his little DB?

House move, work - there's always an excuse for a bully to push a wife or child around, verbally and/or physically.

donkey - ds1 is a handful and will hit out, mainly push ds2. dh thinks smacking will solve it. Obviously it wont. I said earlier in my post that id said the two were linked to dh.

dss are at different stages developmentally though so it is tough at the moment. I keep saying it will get easier, different and harder in other respects.

I dont know what he expects really.

Wonder why DS1 hits out?!

children will copy. he learns from dad.

you have tried telling him. he said "call police ss then". you didnt. so he knows you wont take it further...
but if he hears something from someone outside that says "smacking wont work" he may be more inclined to listen?

ineedgin,

Your DH expects the impossible, he would ideally want you all at his beck and call at all times. He would also want to bend you all to his will.

Your DS1 is already learning to lash out at his younger brother; this is also what your DH has taught him.

His behaviour is never going to be addressed by any parenting course.
I doubt very much if your DH would attend any such course too because he's the type who knows more than any so called "parenting expert". He's told you he thinks he's already trying a different way. It is also not down to you to try and find some solution for him.

Your DH is basically repeating what his own parents did to him in his own childhood, that is what they taught him.

What is stopping you from leaving him, what do you get out of this relationship now?.

If DS1 was a DD would he hit smack her? Is that what he thinks boys 'need'? Or all DCs? Perhaps next time he has a run in with an adult male he won't mind if he gets smacked or shoved by someone 3 feet taller and considerably heavier.

Has he ever had a dog, would he agree that if a dog fails to do something, and smacking it made no iota of difference, he might have to rethink his approach? If he could picture changing a training method with an animal why can't he revise his thinking with pfb?

A parenting course wouldn't address his verbal abuse of you.

What does he say to you that makes you feel you are being verbally abused by him?

Your dh learned from his parents that its ok for a bigger/older/more assertive person to hit another smaller/younger/less assertive person if the s/y/la one does something that the b/o/ma person does not like/approve of etc.

So he is carrying on that message with his own kids.

I was smacked growing up so I learned that it was ok for people to hit or physically punish me when I was older. My ex was smacked as a child. When we got together he was the more dominant personality - and grew up thinking it was ok for him to hit other people who did not do as he said/did things he didn't like etc.

I didn't even realise this until about 10 years after I left him, by which time I had been physically abused for years by him. Arbitrary slaps for nothing at all (ie smacked round the head while I was driving because he thought I was in the wrong gear for the speed), pushes, shoves etc. when I confronted him just before leaving, and said he was violent, he laughed and said that a few slaps is not violent.

But its not the actual physical pain inflicted by the slaps or shoves,its the feeling of walking on eggshells not knowing when its going to happy -which is what your husband is doing when he smacks the children without time out or warning.

My DP knew nothing of this past when I met him. However one day he smacked our DS1. Just once. For really not much at all (taking too long to get dressed). I was absolutely hysterical whilst telling him why I could not and would not tolerate ANY physical punishment EVER of our boys as I will not take the risk of them growing up thinking its ok to smack/hit/physically abuse another person.