Moving out due to child’s behaviour?

[Betteroverhere]

My husband and I have two children. They are very young so I realise this may be jumping the gun but I’m being as honest as I can. My eldest child has a very poor relationship with me and I seem to be a massive trigger for him . He shouts, snatches, openly shows dislike and contempt for me - shouting get off me, get away, those sorts of things. I

I have just reached my peak with it and I’m upstairs in tears.

I think it might be best for everyone if I moved out. Not necessarily forever but I do feel it might be best if I wasn’t here all of the time. Has anyone ever done this?

I'm really sorry things are so hard, OP. I have no helpful advice except to say try to be kind to yourself - I've found with my (often challenging) DC that sometimes the path of least resistance (allowing DH to do all care for a weekend, letting him have a little more slack than feels right) sometimes reaps rewards. You are still a person, and you matter too.

Sending you a gentle hug and hoping that better days are on the way for you <flowers>

It sounds like your problem is a live-in Disney Dad.

Tell DH to pull his finger out and start doing the hard parenting part like telling them no, and to make himself scarce at bedtime - after he's been the one to make DS brush his teeth - no matter how much DS cries and screams about it and wanting Daddy - so you do the storytelling and tucking in and cute bonding activities.

Your DS is going to protest A LOT at this at first but I really think it has a chance of working. If Daddy's not an option then DS will just have to deal with it, even kicking and screaming.

OP,

My child was on the phone to his dad in front of me at 4 saying he hated me and why did his dad leave him with me. 😬 He had a small operation at 2 and woke upset screaming for his dad. Wouldn't go near me. All the nurses noticed. It was so weird at the time to understand it. He just pushed me away screaming. It was horrible.

My son is PDA Autistic. No rocking, no flapping, no lining things up. Just something very different and highly oppositional. My son never came to me for comfort ever! I often thought in my head I can't stand you. I didn't, I was just so hurt and devastated and could not understand why I was being ' treated ' this way. Our bond grew alot after this age and nothing like that at all after age 3.

I'm sharing this very unpleasant truth with you because I think people need to realise that in these situations it is absolutely soul destroying. And these dark feelings can happen. But things really can and will get better. By age 5 it was much different.

I'm not worrying about what you'll do tbh. Part of me understands why you're getting frustrated with some posts right now.

I think when you’ve personally known someone who flipped and killed their 3 year old (out of the blue, to those of us who knew her) you would maybe understand why I have answered the way I have.

DH won’t change. If I was going to enforce that I’d have to end the marriage and I don’t think that would salvage things with DS.

@Pantaloons99 thanks. I think people didn’t realise that I’ve spent pretty much all evening with my son being foul to me. The trigger was I asked him nicely to take his muddy boots off: he refused so I took them off for him. He lay there kicking at me screaming no get off, get off, I want daddy. I put him in his room for two minutes (I do this for kicking, it’s one of my few non negotiable do not cross the line boundaries.he comes out of his room resumed the verbal abuse, get off me, won’t let me wash his hands. Get away from me, etc. Finally watching TV and he’s snuggled up to dad, thought he might be a bit more willing to talk, asked him if he wanted a hug and out came the abuse again and I just snapped. Not literally but something in me snapped and I came upstairs feeling so angry. And I posted on here.

I removed myself and I posted on here because I knew I was losing it.

Anyway it is how it is. It probably won’t change. It’s just fucking shit!

And I always do the bath and bedtime stories because I want to have time just us but I didn’t tonight as it’s pointless.

It’s a terrible story but actually behaving the way you have towards me is more likely to cause harm to a child.

Posters who showed empathy and kindness have calmed me down and had me feeling a bit more optimistic. Only a bit, mind.

Posters who attack, who bark orders at you, who say they feel sorry for your child - they just shut you down. So you come away feeling worse and then what could happen?

If you are genuinely concerned for a child, the best thing you can do almost every time is support its mother.

Things can very easily end up in maladaptive patterns, where a routine that worked becomes unhelpful etc, and it vcan be v hard to see the wood for the trees.

One thing that helped me was the notion of love being a verb as well as an adjective. Whilst the emotional feeling of love isn't there at the moment, you are loving your son on all the caring actions you do for him.

Are you managing a good sleep/eat/fresh air routine for yourself yet, since your second baby was born?

I didn’t attack, bark orders or say I felt sorry for your child. I said I wished your child well. I do.

Generally speaking I’m at the bottom of the pile 😂 which is how it is with two little children and I don’t mind. I know I am in the trenches.

It is hard though. For the first two and a half years it was hard. He woke a lot at night until he was 18 months then started sleeping through but woke at 5 and only wanted me and I was okay with that and then he started sleeping until 7 and actually being sort of easy in the day and sleeping through at night and now it’s daddy, only daddy. And I honestly don’t mind that, it’s when it’s combined with ‘and you get the fuck away from me mum.’

At least 90% of the posters were supportive and you came across as petulant shutting them down and saying things like you have to stop yourself from hurting him and you don’t even think of him by his name anymore. You literally posted on here because you needed support and the internet can only do so much and you’ve been sign posted to tons of different ways you can access this. I get you’re upset but this is a three year old child, still a baby really, who’s had to learn to cope with the addition of a sibling very recently I think? And he’s got his mom accusing him of hating her. He’s just a child! You’re the adult, you have a duty to get the help you need and improve things for you AND your child

I think it is far too early to say whether there is a personality clash, to be honest. It does sound like your DS’s behaviour is very difficult and you are having quite a normal reaction to being the responsible parent all the time, and your DS being a regular three year old who doesn’t get this, just sees Daddy as more fun (because Daddy doesn’t enforce the boundaries and be the one who makes sure teeth get done and all these things).
It seems quite a normal reaction to go, oh well, if Daddy is so great, and I am so awful, then I will leave you to it! Especially after two straight days of it, when you are already tired.
The thing is, as you say, it’s not like you can just bugger off and take the baby with you, and it’s not like you really want to not be here anymore (things will get better, honestly).
i am trying to remember the books I found helpful - I think one was called ‘the out of sync child’ - and then there was one called Raising a Sensory Smart child, which was about the kind of externalising behaviours and the triggers and then how to respond.
Then I also wonder about the changing dynamic - if it is you and the DC during the week, how is that? - and is it the transition to DH also being there?
I don’t really expect you to answer these questions, I just know that my DS massively struggled with transitions.

Anyway I do appreciate the responses from some but I’ll be honest some particularly persistent posters are really making this an u helpful thread. Finger wagging at someone for being petulant when I’m as low as I can ever remember is really not what I need right now so I think I’ll hide the thread and just move on.

I haven’t finger wagged, I’ve tried to help. I’ve said I get it and I do. I get how you feel but I don’t get why you’re so insistent on not doing anything about it.

https://pinkymckay.com/go-away-i-only-want-mummy-or-daddy-when-your-child-prefers-one-parent/

this might be an interesting read too

Let me be absolutely clear @LittleSparklyStar : your posts are not remotely helpful. They are lecturing, rude and littered with judgement. The fact you actually think they are helpful is laughable.

@Talulahalula thank you.

Ah yes, it really is when they are tiny!

I think it is hard to imagine how hard it can be to feel the stinging rejection from your beloved tiny child unless you've, unfortunately, experienced it. I would not wish it on anyone.

A mum that I met through Surestart used to say "your children can take you to places that you never thought you'd go", and she wasn't wrong.

I haven’t been rude or judged you at all except when you used the laughing emoji which I think is disrespectful.
I wish your child the best and I hope for his sake you sort things out

I never thought this would happen. I knew id get moments of I hate you, door flaming and so on but I didn’t think it would be ongoing if that makes sense.

And I am aware that it’s just becoming a horrible pattern. DS screams at me to get away, he wants daddy to take him for a wee. We need to leave the house so OK - fine, whatever. So I get the baby ready and into the car. And that or things like that happen constantly throughout the day so I have the baby and DH has DS. So baby adores me and cries if I leave the room so I have the baby …

But I don’t know what to do about it.

I am never this rude but for gods sake will you just leave me the hell alone

Having seen your updates I have to say it's really obviously a Disney Dad problem.

Why would DS go to you when you make him do things and Daddy lets him do whatever he likes? You make him take his boots off, Daddy does none of that and snuggles up to him on the couch. It's blindly obvious what the problem is.

A GP or health visitor won't fix this. Since you live said LTB is not an option, just stop doing the parts of parenting your partner won't.
If you left, this is effectively what would happen anyway.

So just do the bit where you don't sort tell him to take his boots off or tell him he can't eat only junk food for breakfast or sort the medical stuff. Tell your husband you've quietly quit and stop taking on all that burden. Just see what happens.

You have to do what you have to do to get through the day at this stage, and sometimes that means taking the path of least resistance!

How would it feel to NOT do anything about it for a while? Focus on other stuff, do all your loving care as you normally do, but in a more emotionally detached way? Take the pressure off yourself and your son for a bit?

I'm so sorry you're having such a hard time OP. My 3 yo is awful and often screams for her daddy and rejects me and that's painful enough, let alone it being 24/7. My friend's son at 3 appeared to hate his dad (incidentally also for around a year after his sister was born). Constantly pushed him away, said he hated him, told everyone he hated him and he was a bad daddy etc etc. It broke his dad's heart and he ended up travelling a lot more gor work as a result as he found it so hard to cope. Now aged 4 1/2 all back to normal. I wish you all the best in getting through this immensely hard time - no advice here, just solidarity.

Incidentally you can access mental health support much more easily through the postnatal route than normal ones so if your baby is less than a year old I'd contact your perinatal mental health team and see if they can help you. They are much better funded than normal adult mental health services.

Sorry a bit of advice snuck in there at the end 😅

The problem is @Wavywoo it leads to problems. I mean … let’s say I just don’t intervene, let DS eat junk all day. It’s Sunday. I’ve got both children alone all day tomorrow so DS behaviour and sleep is affected and that impacts me not DH.

I don’t think he means to be a Disney dad but he just doesn’t get why some stuff is important.