vote on my marriage

[littlegreyrabbit]

Ok - an honest gut reaction needed here please. If you and your dh had damaging arguments where dh was spiteful, aggressive and unfair to you (and brutally unfair and critical to just one of your children) but was a lovely dad for the rest of the time. Would you divorce your dh if this happened...

once every 3 years
once a year
once every 3 months
once a month
once every 3 days
every day

(needless to say wont go to counselling blardy blarr )

flip
tears coming
i hate having to stand between them too
am so sad for our dcs

why can't they take a deep breath and look outside themselves before they do this stuff?

after saying it to him so many times he just thinks i'm "soft on him" -- do you get that?

Irecognisethis

your sucky up talking made me smile with recognition too though - Oh dh he looks up to you so much, you are so important to him - women's wiles, eh?

I get - 'you're always on his side never my side. When we had children we agreed never to undermine each other but you always let ds1 off lightly when I.m punishing him.'

My answer: 'I promise I will back you to the hilt with the dcs if you are fair and reasonable with them but you cannot ask me to back you up if you are being unfair or the punishment is totally out of proprotion to the 'crime'.'

Doesn't seem to go through his thick farking ears though.

We are having the same conversations with our dh's

yes it's better to be a united front as parents
but I CANNOT be a united front with that

I even tried being stricter with him to take dh's heat off
but it just got worse

I've got to go

night rabbit will look out for you
I'm someone else by the way, but not someone you know anyway I don't think
sleep well.. hope you have a good Sunday

Not sure about that sixspot, surely if it's known that he may not be trusted with them they will take that into consideration and he would have to be supervised at least for a while, or ordered to have counselling perhaps. The courts must have loads of experience in this kind of situation.

night recognise - it's helped to know that I'm not the only one in the world trying to work this one out.

I'm someone else too but I'm not going back to being her. I felt a bit too recognisable with my old name.

Sleep well and thanks.

Chunky - I honestly don't think the courts would take him being a shouty dad into consideration. As I say he is never violent so nothing that would 'stick' in court.

Christ - I'm talking about court.

Bloody hell, how depressing, all these damaged people ruining their own childrens lives. I mean your dh's by the way, I can see how once you're in it seems impossible to get out.
LGR, it sounds like you want out. Your kids won't blame you for leaving. They might resent you for staying.

I would ask him to seek help, there are groups for men specifically that help them keep being a positive impact in their own lives, eg near me there's one affiliated to Relate, which may be a ggod place to start.

last time this happened I said I wanted us to go to relate. Dh agreed but said he wanted to be given time to think about it because he had changed and he was going to change and I would see how he was going to be a different person from now on.

hmphh

It's not just shouty though is it, you describe it as aggressive and brutal behaviour, not forgetting ds2 cowering in the corner. I'm not an expert, but if it's worth leaving him for it's worth them taking it seriously. You could get advice though on that before you make any decisions and try the trial separation thing to shock him into making big changes.

thanks to all on this thread. I need to go to sleep now -not sure if it will be in the same bed as snoring dh though ...

On women's aid there's a big check list for domestic abuse perhaps if you went through this with your, mainly, reasonable dh he would get a little shock about his intimidating behaviour. Perhaps your ultimatum could then be get help or leave.
I understand what you mean about not protecting your child when their father is being frightening and see that this may lead them to believe your not protecting them and I think you're right.
Relate do do sessions over the phone if you want to talk through stuff and you can do this or attend a meeting alone, just to get the ball rolling. You could also email them with an outline of your concerns about your dh and they can advise a group. It sounds as if your dh has some old wounds that need healing before he can see his own behaviour.

Am I the only one who feel I would need more clarification to see exactly how the dh's behaviour - swearing and shouting and saying 'you are never going on the computer- differs from that of the typical Mum going on MN to say "I am always shouting at my dc's"? And who always gets patted on the head and told it's not really her fault?

It may be that the OP's dh is indeed abusive. But if shouting and making impossible threats counts as domestic violence, and if parent and child should be separated after the second incident of this (as recommended by one poster)- what hope is there for most of us Mums to keep our children? Who of us can truthfully say we've never lost it and shouted at our children? The difference is, a lot of it happens (if we are SAHMs) when dh isn't there to criticise our parenting techniques.

I really think we need more information to see if this really does qualify as domestic abuse.

Cory, I suspect there is more to it, but the op may be holding back.

I know what she means though Cory
not abuse in the conventional sense
but a continual belittling, criticising, hurtful, frightful, inconsistent approach to discipline

then the turnaround of being a wonderful Dad

they don't know where they are and it can be very very damaging

Recent studies have found that children tend to be much happier after their parents have separated. Does that help, littlegreyrabbit?

Having a dad like this IS worse than having no dad at home at all.

What about all those couples with children who DID split in the end (myself included). We struggled with the 'is it better to have 2 parents who dont get on living in the same house'....etc etc for a long time before doing it (18 mths for me).

He can say sorry he'll change and he will say it forever...simple fact is..he will NEVER change.

i agree with cory to an extent,although i do feel the op is holding back somewhat.the first post was about 'how often does this have to happen before it crosses the line from occasional angry outbursts(not nice but human and sometimes understandable),to emotionsl abuse?' from what i gathered,but its still unclear how often this is happening.

barnstaple, would you be able to post links to recent studies that you mention please ? I would be very interested to read them.

TIA

gut reation now i have read all the posts - i do think marriage is worth working at - but if you make a stand to not allow this then you have to 'follow' that through tooIf he has said several times it wont happen again but it still does he obviouly has a problem.

How about deciding what you want to happen if it happens again (not just accept)? Could you put some money aside to say go to a hotel for a while or ask him to leave - you could even agree this is what will happen if it does happen again. He will then know what the consequences are too. But you must be prepared to carry it through. If getting him to go to counselling is something you want then make that a condition to you even giving him another chance - let him be the one to book it up not you.

Once you find your own boundaries tell him and make him know them he then has the choice as to what he wants to do.

He may have a lapse but at least if you know he is prepared to walk the walk not just talk the talk it will be a start.

Good luck

do you love him?
Do you have good sex?