Husband gets violent when our children scream or cry

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We have 2 children, DS is 18mths and DD is 6.5. Both have lovely sunny natures and would not be considered difficult children. I was always more in favour of having children (particularly the 2nd) than him but he is a great dad and does wonderful stuff with both of them that I would never think of. He has always struggled when they cry or particularly scream, it gets into his head, hurts his ears he says (he wears earplugs when putting DS to bed if he cries). He is also prone to depression now and then -on the one full day (ever) I left him minding both of them in March (Easter) while I was at work he was on the Samaritians website that evening and retreated into himself. Over the past few months there have been times when one or both DC is being difficult/crying/screaming and he has lost his rag. Not directly at them or me, but with anger directed at objects. Last year when he had both of them for a few hours one morning they both did something to annoy him and he smashed a fruit bowl and some mugs onto the floor - my daughter still talks about this. At Easter this year when he had that bad patch he nearly put his fist through a wall and nearly broke the kitchen door he slammed it so hard so many times whenever they made too much noise. Yesterday morning he was doing the nursery and school run (I rarely ask him to do both but I had a deadline in work) and my son apparently screamed for half an hour after I left for work, DD then yelled at him when he picked her up from school later on (she was exhausted after her school trip) and that evening DS screamed at DD when she took at toy off him in the garden - at which point DH took a shovel and bashed it against a wall very hard a number of times, partly smashing the chalkboard on it. He then stormed off without a word. DS and DD stood in the garden watching, DD gave DS a hug while DS just stood watching and then put his finger to his lips in a sssh motion. Obviously that was a bad day but it scared them. His anger is never directed at us, just at objects. He is not one for talking about it afterwards, besides, I don't know what to say as I feel it is my fault for putting us in this situation, he could happily have not had children. Is this reasonable behaviour? Do I just weather the storm and hope it will pass when they are a little older (he was not like this before we had kids)? Does he need help? He is scaring DD and I am worried what kind of impression it gives to both of them if they remember this when they are older.

Omg this is awful to read, your poor poor kids!

Kick him out or take the kids and move away from him, he is violent, he is scaring your children, your 18 month old is already adjusting his behaviour to avoid an outburst from his father - 18 months!!
He is not a good Dad, he is doing unspeakable damage to your children and ruining their childhood
Protect them - get them away

My father was like this when I was a kid - he was kind, clever, encouraging, insightful, fun as a parent, and really loved us, but he also was quick to anger and smashed quite a lot of stuff as a kind of punctuation. I never got to keep a favourite mug for very long. This was frightening for us as kids, but as a previous poster has said, I think it also bore out in our behaviour as teenagers: certainly as I became an adult, I was shocked that other families did not have the atmosphere that mine did, and I've worked hard to do better in my own life. I should add that my father also suffered from depression.

I think your partner desperately needs to seek help - I can really sympathise with how terrible mental illness can be, but it's not safe or healthy for the kids to be around, and he needs to find a way to get a handle on his stress and anger. He may well feel overwhelmed, but to be quite honest he as the adult is better-equipped to deal with his emotions than the children are, and if they are not always able to moderate their behaviour, he is. I don't think you need to kick him out, but I think he needs to commit to finding coping strategies.

Op your children are not safe to be left with your dh. Leave now and never let him have them on his own again.

Please don't let him have unsupervised access to the children, he can't be trusted.
Please ask him to leave until he has sorted his issues out.
Your 6 year old is still talking about it years later
What will you do when she mentions it to a teacher believing it's normal behaviour, after all it's what she's used to. How will you prove you didn't know about his abuse?
I know it must be hard for you, not pretending it's easy, and I really feel for you.
But you have to put your children first, and like a pp said if I was told as a professional or heard your dh like this, I'd be reporting too.

By staying, you are colluding.

If he has a health problem Hyperaccusis or Misophonia that makes noise unbearable then he has to get help for it.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/hyperacusis/
www.misophonia.com/

Children make noise and if he can't cope with that then he has to leave and get treatment. What he can't do is blow up violently because he can't cope, that is making his children suffer because he won't deal with his issue.

@IdaDown I agree.

A unanimous response, OP.

This isn't reasonable. At all. Your children are probably very frightened of him now even if they don't show it most of the time.

Your husband requires a proper mental health assessment. Urgently so.

Does he smash up stuff and walls when his working collègues make a noise? Let me take a guess... no he doesn’t! He is an abuser. Your poor children if you think he’s a good dad when you can’t even leave them with him for half a day. Think about this, if you got run over by a bus tomorrow and spent three months in hospital, would your children be safe with him?

He has an element of self control as he is not directing his anger at a person so is venting to himself. Unfortunately it may be that he doesn't realise how scary he is being none the less and needs help with his anger. I agree with other posters that he's not safe to be left alone with the children, this behaviour is damaging and the potential for it to escalate is high as he's losing control. He needs help. The noise may be sensory processing disorder, I have it and struggle similarly with noise and cover my ears if things are too loud! It sounds like his outbursts are triggered by stress which needs managing probably through a doctor or psychologist. Please stop blaming yourself and assuming he didn't want the children. They're here now and he needs to be everything he should be regardless!

Does he behave like this outside the home and family? At work does he smash things when people annoy him? I bet he manages to control himself then. He does this because he wants to frighten you and the children, he wants to control your movements i.e that you should not leave him looking after the kids.

I'm hypersensitive to noise and so far have managed not to scare any children. He needs urgent help, or you need to leave with them.

What this is teaching them is to be as quiet and compliant as possible to avoid triggering daddy's terrible temper. It teaches them their own feelings and boundaries should be set aside in favour of whoever is scariest. This is not healthy, for both of them but especially for your daughter.

I hope you're still here OP and reading this.

What happens when your son or daughter get annoyed at the noise the other is making, they pick up a shovel only they hit their sibl8ng across the head instead of hitting the wall because “we watch daddy hit things when he’s angry”.

Wake up.

LadyCarlotta Speaks sense

some people who struggle with noise are going to react more at home than at work because the noise they can't handle is children screaming - that doesn't happen a lot at work.

it's possible he's genuinely having a crisis caused by not handling the usual noises children make rather than setting out to be abusive - it's clear he needs urgent help.

TokenBritPoshOfCourse Fair comment on your MH issues but MH covers a large range of conditions, here it seems to me we have a physcial problem causing a behavioural problem.

I only hope it gots sorted as as soon as before anymore damage is done!

He's a shit father. Your children will be damaged by this. Really they will

I am not one to tell people to leave! But a young child and a toddler witnessed their dad (a person who should be their safety net) last control with a shovel? Not even a slammed door! A shovel!! Seriously you need to leave or get him to leave. If you still want a relationship with him then that should only be done after he gets help and has changed. Your first step is accepting this is not something your babies should be seeing. Your next step is to get him away from the children, until he gets proper help and it is successful!

My dad used to act like this hitting walls and smashing plates when we were small children when he was angry at us, we were all terrified of him. He eventually hit my brother so hard he knocked him out after my brother annoyed him making too much noise while he had a head ache. It took him doing that for my mum to finally leave him.

We don't see him now that we are adults. It has always stayed with me I don't ever raise my voice now.

Op my XH was like this. It's one of the reasons hes an ex

I'm so sorry. This is terrifying. My children lived with a similar experience. They are damaged. We are not together now but I left much too late.
Ring Women's Aid or find a local Domestic Violence organisation to help you get your head round this.
It will not get better.

My husband has both depression and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. He wasn't massivley in favor of having a kid before we had DD. He too finds the noise and stress of a child difficult to deal with. And then the comparison ends. When he is finding it tough he either controls himself or asks me to take over before going off to get a little headspace. When it became particularly difficult last year he went to the GP and got both counselling and medication to reduce his anxiety. He is very clear that this is his problem to manage and that he doesn't want it to impact me and DD. Of course it does sometimes and there are some things we do to reduce the noise that exacerbates his stress (e.g. DD wears headphones when using her tablet in the car as without the noise makes DH's head wobbly!)

You need to ask your partner to leave and to get help for his anger management issues and his anxiety / depression. I would not allow him to return until he could control himself (if you are interested in continuing the relationship?) To be honest if my husband behaved like this - no matter his mental health issues I'd not want to continue our relationship.

Some hyperacusive people create more noise to cover the noise that triggers them. For example for DS we were advised to try headphones with music, because that distracts the brain into hearing a 'safe' noise rather than the triggering one.

But as above, even if there is a real trigger for this behaviour, the behaviour itself is abusive.