Had enough of DH’s ‘rules’ and angry outbursts

[sweetpea36]

Apologies in advance for the long post.
As an example - recently DS (aged 8) had taken my iPad up to bed without asking and hidden it, DH had apparently told him before that if he did that again he wouldn’t have screen time the next day. He came down and told me this, I said I wasn’t keen to limit screen time the next day as I’ve been feeling unwell, have both the kids on my own at home (school hols) and didn’t really want the stress of limiting screen time when I’m not well. DH clearly not happy and asked what I was going to do as punishment, I said I didn’t know. He kept asking, I said I was tired and not well so I couldn’t really get my head round it right now. Then he asked when would I decide then, I said I didn’t know, he kept on and on asking what was I going to do. Eventually I got snappy and said do you realise you sound controlling? He said he wasn’t being controlling & became really angry, told me to f**k off, stormed out slamming the door loudly and left the house. Came back a short time later but didn’t speak to me and went straight to the spare room.
In the meantime DS came down asking why was Daddy shouting and slamming the doors. He ended up in bed with me as he couldn’t sleep.
This isn’t the first outburst like this, the other week DH tried to drag DS up stairs to bed when he wouldn’t go up on time. He later apologised to DS & to me saying he was tired and shouldn’t have lost his temper. Also during home schooling, DH texted me when I was out at work (I’m in a key worker job) saying he couldn’t cope with DS - they argued over some homework and he was so angry he left DS on his own and went for a walk, he was out less than 5 minutes but I was angry he’d left him alone in the house. Again he apologised to DS later.
Then there was the time last year we were on holiday, he wanted to have a ‘no screens on holiday’ rule before 5pm. I let DS play Pokemon on my iPhone for 10 mins when DH had gone running and I was in a cafe having lunch with the kids, he was so furious he was in a bad mood with me the rest of the week and refused to be affectionate in any way for the entire holiday!
He seems to have a big anger problem around the kids and rules, he wants set rules for screen time, bed time and how much sweets or biscuits are eaten.
I don’t know if I should be a stricter parent, but I end up being less strict just to balance out him and his rules. Is it confusing for the kids if I don’t follow the same rules as him? I’m actually really fed up of living with all these rules and angry outbursts and think he’s being controlling.
I think his frustration comes from a place of wanting good things for them overall, but he’s too rigid about it. A lot of the time he’s actually a lot more patient than me with the kids but he just can’t stand it if the rules aren’t stuck to.
Would appreciate any balanced views if anyone managed to read all this, as I just don’t know any more.

OP it's very difficult to tell. I think it would be a good idea to have a chat with a domestic abuse organisation to discuss. For example, you feeling upset and in a fog when trying to discuss issues, could be a triggered response from your childhood. You might find it difficult to be an adult in confrontational situations and be a 'helpless child' as you're triggered and having a flashback.

Everyone is tetchy and on edge due to COVID and your husband is around more and more irritable than usual. You two need to find a middle ground where both of you agree on a way going forward, you need to keep those disagreements away from the children and present a united front to them so they know where they stand. Your husband can't keep storming around like a toddler, so he needs to work on strategies to decompress before he gets to that stage.

Family Lives are running parenting courses: www.familylives.org.uk/how-we-can-help/online-parenting-courses/ It might be an idea to give them a ring as well for a chat.

You have married a new version of your Dad and he is working his magic on you as well. You can't see this due to the large amount of FOG you grew up in. You have just successfully minimised your entire thread. I'm not judging you because I also came from a similar childhood and I have also repeated my childhood relationships. Non of us are immune to it. Just wake up and see what you have Infront of you. Please access therapy for yourself and start looking at the damage that you are passing down to your children. If what I am writing now makes you angry please ask yourself why. Good luck OP. Please stop the cycle.

@Leafy12

You have married a new version of your Dad and he is working his magic on you as well. You can't see this due to the large amount of FOG you grew up in. You have just successfully minimised your entire thread. I'm not judging you because I also came from a similar childhood and I have also repeated my childhood relationships. Non of us are immune to it. Just wake up and see what you have Infront of you. Please access therapy for yourself and start looking at the damage that you are passing down to your children. If what I am writing now makes you angry please ask yourself why. Good luck OP. Please stop the cycle.

Well said.

@Leafy12

You have married a new version of your Dad and he is working his magic on you as well. You can't see this due to the large amount of FOG you grew up in. You have just successfully minimised your entire thread. I'm not judging you because I also came from a similar childhood and I have also repeated my childhood relationships. Non of us are immune to it. Just wake up and see what you have Infront of you. Please access therapy for yourself and start looking at the damage that you are passing down to your children. If what I am writing now makes you angry please ask yourself why. Good luck OP. Please stop the cycle.

I grew up with a very stressed and angry Dad

What Leafy12 said.
But just the sentence above from your most recent post really stood out to me. This is what your husband is.

@Leafy12 nothing anyone has said has made me angry, apart from with myself for not seeing more clearly how bad things have got. The past year just seems to have been a blur of juggling home schooling, work, Covid stress (work in healthcare with some v vulnerable people - so very lucky to have a secure job, but also been a stressful time) not even having time to stop and question what’s going on.
Also DH is not like this all the time, he’ll have periods of being completely calm and normal then I start thinking I must have imagined it all (if he was constantly angry would never have married him and had children!)
But maybe I do also minimise it because it seems ‘normal’ to me due to how I grew up. I could not tell my dad if I was upset by something hurtful he’d said as it’d just make him angry. He hated anyone crying. My dad is still around and is so much nicer and has massively mellowed in his retirement.
But what I’m questioning is, is my husband angry and stressed because I’m undermining him on parenting rules? Seem to be different opinions on here. And why I can’t seem to have a normal conversation with him about it. Thing definitely need to change, at least if we went to a counsellor we could have a calmer conversation. When we went before he was always really calm and reasonable in the actual session, so it was much easier to talk to him. On the other hand I felt they never really saw the true dynamic, as neither of us ever got angry or upset!

Your husband sounds like my dad was, not great when children don't do exactly what they were told. He has to learn that children are not black and white in their behaviour but varying shades of grey, and often will defy logic, so sometimes you need to bend with them.

He is the adult and he cannot go stropping off because he cannot handle his own child. You all, including the children, need to sit down and set out an agreement about screen times and you need to buy Kindles or an i-pad that you pick up and put away when the time is up. He needs to understand that if we go into yet another lock down, your children will need to access the curriculum digitally. As a couple you need to agree a way forward and try not to undermine each other or he will alienate his own children.

You need to address this now as it will get worse once they start secondary school.

But if he has always been angry and like this how can it be you undermining him

And when he grabbed your DS you were not undermining him

When he went out and left your DS alone in home schooling because he couldnt cope you were not undermining him.

And both of those show a man who cannot cope at the moment - your involvement in them was minimal

But so far your poor DS has been dragged along and left alone

@sweetpea36, ok then know that reading your thread I have been so angry even if you aren't. He sounds horrendous. If I was going to abuse someone I would do it like he does, burst hot and cold so they are left questioning themselves and unsure of anything. I would also behave impeccably with a counsellor as I would be terrified to show them the 'real me'. That was my childhood too so once again I see how we are trained to react in utter confusion and placate the poor, abusive man who can't control his temper (poor him...) and then is just so, so sorry later. I'm sorry you can't get angry, because I would be furious if my children were being treated like this. I don't think you need couples therapy, please don't do that, take yourself to a therapist and try and unpick some of this stuff.

And no, you are not undermining him. You just think differently to him. Once again you have been trained to think that if you disagree you are in some way at fault. Am I undermining you as I happen to disagree with you? He has you exactly how he wants you. My Dad did exactly the same to my Mum and I see if over and over again in relationships. It doesn't make it ok.

He's behaving like he's the CEO of a company and you're an employer. Or he's the boss and you're the nanny (though I wouldn't expect a nanny to stay for more than 5 minutes if they were treated like this )

The reason you can't be arsed to enforce his rules is because you're not his employee and you don't agree with them, not because you're a bad parent. You are equals in your relationship and your parenting but he wants to dictate to you.

It sounds like he feels he has to be strict because you are not rather than the other way around - the clue is in your not wanting to think about it right now comment. In doing so, you are setting him up to be the baddy and undermining him with the children - no wonder he is frustrated. It would be helpful if you could set the rules together and then stick to them, but that would require you to do some of the more difficult bits of parenting. YABVU.

Sweetpea

You have written about him before now and he was abusive towards you at that time too.

The only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none. Your H has infact been abusing you for years and now he is further starting on your children.

Women in poor relationships often write the good dad comment when they can think of nothing else positive to write about their man. He is NOT a good father to his children if he abuses you as their mother (and in turn them) so openly so the fact he takes them for walks etc is irrelevant. I would think your own father did similar on occasion too and I dare say you wouldn't call him a good dad.

We learn about relationships first and foremost from our parents, look at what yours taught you. Those lessons have remained with you to this very day and now a similar dynamic is being played out, this time with your children being where you were as a child. He knew about your childhood and has further capitalised on your own poor boundaries (these were messed up because of what you saw at home) by abusing you further. You were targeted by him.

You have a choice re this man, your children do not. Make better choices for you and they; your only real course of action now is to firm up plans to divorce him. Such men do not change and your man here is basically a copy of your own abusive father. Yuor mother had a choice too re her man; do not make the same mistakes she made in staying with him.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. Like you yourself did, they are currently learning a lot of damaging lessons about relationships and they could well go onto repeat those as adults.

Abuse too is NOT about communication or a perceived lack of, its about power and control. And your H wants absolute over you all; he is the dominator in your house and someone who controls the whole mood of it. His niceness towards you on occasion is really part of the nice/nasty cycle of abuse which is a continuous one.

Joint counselling is NEVER recommended where there is abuse of any type within the relationship. You are not emotionally safe enough to undertake any form of joint counselling with him; he would completely dominate the sessions and try to get the counsellor to take his side. You would have no say at all. I would therefore urge you to contact Womens Aid and discuss this with them further.

Your thread that began on 30-Nov-11 is still there along with the replies to it including my own. He has not changed fundamentally in all the years since.

DP is slightly more rigid than me about these things. Fine by me but I will not tolerate him demanding a punishment that it falls to me to enforce.

Also, he can't 'ban' stuff on my watch. If he decides that from now on, DS isn't allowed x before dinner, that starts on his watch.

He tried many times to say 'we shouldn't be letting him...' when in fact he was sitting on the sofa and not stopping it either.

He's a brilliant dad but if he has random, spontaneous 'rules' he can impose them himself.

Wow, your DH sounds like a prize idiot.
Who sets a screen time rule when on holiday and then fucks off, so they don’t have to supervise an alternative source of entertainment?

Your DH shouldn’t make up arbitrary rules if he’s not prepared to police them.

FWIW, since lockdown. I haven’t imposed any screen time limits and just ensure we stick to a set bedtime routine instead.

Honestly, I would never tolerate anyone wanting to control me or my children and having angry outbursts when the arbitrary rules are not automatically obeyed.

It is Abuse and I think you need to very seriously re-evaluate this relationship. Do you really want your children to look back and remember growing up in a dysfunctional and abusive household?

Couples counselling or a parenting course together. Somewhere you can talk to each other with someone else present to help if it gets hard. Then you can come to a consensus on the rules, and work as a team, rather than at cross purposes. But I think there also needs to be a rule about not letting the kids go against what the other parents has said until mum and dad talk together.

Thanks @AttilaTheMeerkat - I didn’t realise the post would still be there but remember writing it. Things have been up & down over the years, but when the children were only babies he had a serious illness, is now recovered but still gets fatigued easily and has to manage it. I let a lot of behaviour go thinking it was due to the stress of that & having very young children at the same time.
Now I feel this will only get worse as the kids get older and more independent (as people have said).
I’m really sorry if I made anyone feel angry, upset or triggered anything with my post. I was meaning I wasn’t angry at any of the comments - not that I’m not angry with the situation! I do feel angry with him, but that is only making the situation worse so I’m trying to find ways to calm things for us all as a family.

But I think there also needs to be a rule about not letting the kids go against what the other parents has said until mum and dad talk together.

Under ordinary circumstances I would agree with that - but if you make it a hard and fast rule that must be adhered to at all times, the risk is that one parent gets away with behaviour that is beyond the pale. There were occasions in my marriage when my husband did things that were absolutely unacceptable. If I had gone along with them 'to not undermine him', I would have been complicit in abuse.

And this is why there needs to be flexibility on both sides in how rules are set and adhered to, and I am not convinced OP's husband is capable of that.

Sweetpea

He is depressed because he is angry, not because he is depressed. This man would have behaved the self same regardless of whom he got together with. You are NOT responsible for his choices, moods and actions. He does this because he can; he wants to put you all down to big up his own inadequate bullying self.

Trying as you have done to calm him down or otherwise appease will not work; such men like you describe HATE women, all of them. He is not a good father to his children either nor any sort of a decent H to you. You actually deserve better but its one thing for me to write that; quite another for you to actually believe it for your own self.

What do you yourself get out of this relationship now?. What needs of your own are being met here?. I would state none actually.

Consider what you have learnt about relationships to date and what your children are learning from him and you here. The only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is NONE.

But what I’m questioning is, is my husband angry and stressed because I’m undermining him on parenting rules?
I think it sounds like he gets angry and stressed if you try to bend/change the rules to make your life a little easier e.g. when you wanted to be relaxed about limiting screen time as you're unwell and have both the kids on your own.
In short I think he's being a bit of a tit about it. Shouting and stropping about is unimpressive behaviour in a competent adult. I'd kick his arse if it were my DP.

Er....I am an adult woman and I will be angry if I feel it. I am completely ok with being angry and unlike other people I don't take it out on my kids. You are not responsible for how I feel. Same goes in your marriage.

OP,
What I would ask you to consider is the teenage years to come.

They can be trying and at times teens would really challenge you.

He can't be behaving as he does with them.

It will be horrific for them and they could end up even more damaged and estranged from you.

As this has now gone on for a decade the truth is the damage done to your children will likely remain with them always.

They really need protection from this toxicity.

Please think about it seriously for all hour sakes.

I think it's hard to know how genuinely aggravating it would be to parent alongside you, but his reactions are not ok

Hmm he doesn't obviously react great but I can see his side of things. Just because it's not a big deal to you doesn't mean it can't be a big deal to him. I have this same problem with my partner and daughter with lollies. I have repeated told him to limit the amount of lollies he gives her. Here and there is fine but he brings her 'treats' home nearly everyday. I feel like my opinion doesn't matter at all and like I'm being undermined every damn time when all I'm trying to do is what is best for my child..and her teeth. He probably gets angry because he feels that way too. I'm the more lenient one with screen time but I do limit it because I know DD dad doesn't like her on it much.

@SpringtimeSummertime

Is it confusing for the kids if I don’t follow the same rules as him?

Yes.
I’m not sure the rules are too strict tbh.
You’re definitely not backing your DH up.
Your DS took and hid the had taken my iPad up to bed without asking and hid it Your DH had told him before that if he did it again he wouldn’t have screen time the next day.
So your DS has done this more than once and ignored the warning?
Allowing your DS to sleep in your bed after this incident (with your DH next door) is unbelievable!!
You’re the parents and need to discuss expectations so that you work together.
You are teaching your DS to manipulate and play one parent off against the other!

Allowing her DS to sleep in her bed after this incident (the one where the fully grown man shouted, slammed doors and stormed out of the house before returning and refusing to speak to anyone, thus forcing the continuation of the tense and threatening atmosphere in the house) is exactly what I would have done. The husband chose himself to sleep next door, neither OP nor the child "made" him/didn't allow him in the marital bed. Would you seriously feel comfortable having your child sleep in a different room in that scenario?

Have you read the OP's comment where she explains that she has tried to talk with her husband but he will not talk and just becomes "upset"? This is not a six of one half a dozen of another situation. This is a man who gets so angry he drags small children aorund their homes and also leaves them there unsupervised.