I’ve been with my ‘d’H for 8 years. Married for 5 of those. I had a 3yo child already when we met (no dad involved) and in hindsight we moved too fast but I was pretty young and lonely and I didn’t know better. Well I was probably a bit selfish. he met dc within a few months, moved in within a year and we got engaged after that. He didn’t have any experience with little kids at all and I think he did do his best but there were incidents of him being too strict with dc from as early as year 1, I remember him saying to me he didn’t know if he could be with someone if he wasn’t also allowed to parent their kid. (This was well before we were married.) I remember nasty arguments he would have with me in front of dc from the first or second year and I’d be really upset as I loved him and was scared to be alone. I’m sad to say I put myself first. It’s been a constant theme, what will happen is dc will do something (either an accident like falling off a chair and he will tell her off for messing, or she might be grumpy and he will punish her too harshly or say something harsh) and I will step in if dc is upset, to defend. Then he will get extremely angry with me and shout at me, storm off, disappear for the rest of the day, Etc all in front of dc. He says I don’t co parent with him and I don’t ‘listen’ but when I try to explain it’s my instinct to protect dc he just won’t hear it. Also in terms of co parenting I do all homework, shower, bedtime story, taking her out, organising her life, buying her stuff…. He doesn’t bother to do that. He just wants to ‘co parent’ via discipline.
dc is a good kid, shy and kind, no behaviour issues.
It’s happened a few times in the past month - he nearly left our holiday recently because of it - and last night when she was grumpy/tired after we ate out and we’re going to get some cake he was like ‘you don’t deserve cake’ and said she was ‘bad’ which made her cry. I hugged her and asked him not to say that as it wasnt fair. He then called us both ‘ridiculous’ and stormed off. She asked me if it was her fault. She kept saying ‘he’s in a mood’ when we got home. He took me in the next room to shout at me when she was watching tv then told me he wants a divorce. That it’s my fault and that he acts the way he does because I make him. He said he was going to take all our joint money as ‘he made most of it’ (I work ft but much lower paid) and that he won’t leave so we will have to. I asked him if he could stop doing this around dc and he said he couldn’t. He said it’s a ‘personality clash’.
Then after I got incredibly upset, hours later, he said he ‘can’t’ do that to dc so he will stay for her and ‘pretend he’s died’ as his opinions clearly don’t matter.
why is it like this? Ironically he has been pushing me to have more dc for ages but when he acts like this around mine I just shut down. He is volatile and can’t help moods and sulks and he doesn’t care how it harms dc.
what do I do? Is it my fault? I literally have no idea anymore. I hate to see dc upset and harshly/unfairly treated. I can’t help protecting them. I can’t just bite my tongue and talk about it later when it’s like that. I want dc to know someone has their back.