DH and I both had difficult childhoods but in very different ways. I was in foster care and adopted at 10, he lost his Dad at a young age and was raised by MIL who was/is very controlling and manipulative. When I first became a parent I had so many moments where I would doubt myself and not know what I was doing, but over the years my confidence and trust in my parenting has grown, and now I'd happily say I'm a good parent to our DC. I always assumed DH felt similarly.
We have two DC - DS1 isn't his, but they've known each other for most of DS1's life. We have DS2 together. Recently DH has found it a struggle with both DC to relate to them, to listen to them and to give them boundaries without it resulting in the DC getting cross and DH getting frustrated. There's no aggression on either side or anything that would signal massive red flags, but he doesn't listen to them, and it's a bit soul destroying to watch all of them clashing and needing me to resolve it - a little like having 3 DC, to be honest.
This weekend we've been madly busy with things and the DC have been tired - this morning DH spoke to DS2 about his iPad and rather than saying "finish the bit you're on" said "switch it off now" which meant DS2 cried and got cross because he lost points on a game. It sounds small and inconsequential but DH is really struggling to parent them without it descending into chaos. We've spoken so many times about picking our battles and how to resolve things without any conflict, but I think his childhood of pleasing MIL means he's automatically expecting the DC to people-please him in the same way.
I know he's the adult and needs to be the one in charge, but as they get older it's almost as though he's just not sure what he's doing. He's lovely and kind and funny, but I genuinely am struggling to work out why suddenly he's so lost with parenting. We've always parented as a team, we don't have behavioural issues with the DC and they're great children most of the time, so why is he struggling now, and how do I support him?
I know when he lost his Dad there was no support for him. It was very much pull up your socks and get on with it, and I suspect he's never really processed it - this tends to be his coping strategy now. But I'm worried that his emotional health will suffer if we continue down this path without helping DH. I'm far too chicken to post in AIBU (and it's not about who is/isn't BU) but I'm struggling to hold the tree of them together. Any advice would be enormously appreciated.