My son hates his dad, our family life is hard

[Whereisthesun33]

There's me and my husband, our son 12, and daughter 9, who all live together.

I feel like every day our lives become less and less enjoyable together because of the non existent relationship between my son and his dad. (My husband)

So my son and I have similar personality, we are short tempered , will argue etc but then it's over with quickly, very loving, bubbly, chatty etc wears emotions on our sleeves.

My husband and daughter are similar personalities, quiet people, keep emotions closed off.

My son has innatentive adhd. He has never been naughty, never been a problem to take out etc, he does well at school and gets lots of praise from them. He just struggles with his focus and sleep. When he was younger he was more bouncy and energetic but that has gone now really. He talks a lot, likes to be centre of attention, and is quick to argue back over something he disagrees with.my husband struggles with all of this.

Over the years ,a gap started to widen between him and my husband. My husband would be quite strict with him , and would /does punish him if there is a need for it by removing the PlayStation or not letting him out with friends. Obviously son hates this and every time it happens causes a bigger gap between them. Son struggles to take accountability for his actions so just sees it as his dad being horrible to him. They also argue alot. As he's getting older he's started to almost square up to his dad during an argument or say things with real venom. He basically tells his dad he doesn't care for him.

He often says to me that he thinks his dad hates him, shows no interest in him, doesn't like his personality, is only negative towards him. Son tells me that he hates his dad, doesn't love him at all, and will leave our home as soon as he is old enough to do so and basically never wants to see his dad again after that.

What makes it worse is that his sister is (at the moment) a very well behaved and loving child. She has never had to be grounded or anything and she is very loving towards her dad ,they cuddle every day and have a very strong bond. My son sees this as them being treated differently.

I won't lie, I do make a lot of excuses for my son. I feel he needs extra support from us due to his adhd and he does so well off praise,love and attention.i have a lovely close relationship with him. i think I over compensate for the lack of this from his dad and I think that I've made things worse.like I'm the good cop and dad is the bad cop now. My son has also told me I should divorce my husband and live separately so he doesn't have to see him. this is based on him not being able to do want he wants all the time and have rules .I've started to feel on edge in my own home as I know we are one moment away from an argument at all times. It happened last night over some roller blades son wants to buy Some this week with his own money, husband wants him to wait a while. All hell broke loose and it ended up with kids upstairs and me and husband arguing. We now aren't speaking to each other. This happens a lot.

I am so sick of this and don't know how to make it better. Husband spends zero alone time with son, doesn't take him out or anything.if they are home alone together they don't speak. Husband has lost the will to even try he says. I don't know what to do . It's even the same if are on holiday or days out together. It's overshadowed by them two not getting along. If I take the kids out myself we always have a lovely time with zero incidents or stress

What does your H say when you approach him and say you're hoping that you two can work together to help this?

I didn’t call you a dick. I was referring to the dh. And I stand by that.

He shouldn’t be picking on his son like this. It’s totally inappropriate and is just making the son feel completely unloved.

I think it's important to establish if H has checked out of wanting a better relationship with his son permanently, or if that's temporary exasperation.

This was hard to read. Your DH is actually quite emotionally abusive to your son. The way he treats him makes it clear that he is disapproving and contemptuous of your son’s entire personality. Just imagine how it must feel to live with someone who feels that way about you and is in a position of power over you. Who you can’t escape from. And to top it off you have to watch them being the loving, supportive, proud, affectionate parent that you need them to be, with your sibling. And yet all they can do when it comes to you is nitpick, criticise, pick fights and lay down arbitrary rules about every tiny thing to keep you forever in the wrong. If this were a romantic relationship everyone would be calling it what it is and saying LTB.

It may well be that some of DS’s behaviour is challenging but where is his incentive to be good? Where are the healthy boundaries? Where is the actual parenting? He’s in trouble for not walking in a straight line just like he’s in trouble when he actually misbehaves. How the hell is he supposed to know what constitutes good and bad behaviour when everything he does is bad in his dad’s eyes? This is so, so damaging.

Your son is begging you to support him and put an end to this. He couldn’t be much clearer. He must be incredibly hurt that you could love and prioritise someone who treats him this way. It’s up to you what you do. But listen and believe him when he says he will be out the door as soon as he’s old enough.

I agree with everyone else who says the problem is your DH, not your son. You yourself say days out without DH are much nicer. I also think that when your son says he hates his father, that is because it looks to him like his father hates him (and it does appear that way although hate is perhaps too strong a word).

Fwiw, when you stand up for your son, you are doing the right thing. Child Protection professionals take a dim view if you do not - it's called 'failure to protect'.

I worry too for the relationship between your dd and your ds. With one being so obviously your dh's favourite, it would take a very gracious ds not to be resentful of dd. Your dh's favouritism will almost certainly extend to grandchildren, in that he will favour your dd's children due to have totally ballsed up his relationship with his son.

Wow your husband sounds very controlling and constantly on his back - leaving on a rail, not walking in a straight line. No wonder he hates him!

Children living in coercively controlling households, where there is psychological or emotional abuse are often misdiagnosed with ADHD, because their nervous systems are in high alert all the time and they're always full of adrenaline.

Also this. I've seen many dc referred for ADHD assessment only to be diagnosed with Attachment Disorder in recent years with more knowledge on the subject

Sigh... I kind of recognise this and can see us going this way. It's not at that stage yet but DS is 11 and, like yours OP, has inattentive ADHD but isn't 'trouble' with it, though finds school quite difficult despite being bright. DH has realised he probably has ADHD as well - do you think your DH might?

I have seem some parents with ADHD talking about how flaring anger/difficulty managing anger is a problem for them when parenting. DH is very understanding about DS's problems when calm, when, for example I tell him how much evidence there is that being called 'lazy' is something that really crushes people with ADHD, but if he loses patience with DS, he won't listen to any reason about it and goes for the punitive without thinking about the consequences, eg imposing a screen ban for a week when it's the start of the the holidays and we both have to work so no screens is kind of extra impractical. Or starts using the 'lazy' label, although I think it's finally sunk in as he does seem to be stopping doing that now.

Like your situation, he's bad cop and I'm good cop. And sometimes DH punishes DS for things that aren't really his fault and DS finds difficult - eg DS sits staring at a blank page for an hour rather than starting homework. The thing is, until we find out a different way to do that, IMO, the only solution is someone literally checking on him every 10-15 minutes - DS doesn't want to be staring blankly at a page, but he needs some chivvying to do it because he can't focus.

I think when things are calmer we need to sit down and talk and try to regroup. At the moment we are blaming each other for everything.
I've stayed with husband through this because I don't want son to have to go and be with his dad on his own. I feel its better I'm with him to support when needed.
I believe there is still time to turn this around if we all want the same thing and work towards it . We seem to have got into a loop of repeated behaviours and responses that need to change.

The good news is, at 12 no one is actually going to force your ds to be with his dad even if dad tried to insist on it. Only he can turn this around but it sounds really ingrained to the stage he's irrational about the annoyances most of the ones you've listed which are totally normal behaviour.

I think the more you rush to your DS's defence, the wider the gap will be between him and your DH. If you think your DH's approach is too tough, you must find away to agree on what is the best approach with him, you probably both need to find a common approach and therefore compromise. Once you and your DH are on the same page and back each other up, your DS will no longer coming running to mum for sympathy when dad has been 'tough' because you will be saying you agree with dad. It is the good cop bad cop divide that seems to be causing the problem here.

That's a pretty big if.

If it turns out your husband does not want what you want, what will do then?

The controlling part jumped out to me about your husband. As long as your son wasn’t getting in people’s way or cutting them up so what if he wasn’t walking in a straight line?!

My mother was always very controlling of me when l was a child and constantly corrected me for minor minor things. Ironically other family members and school would comment on how well behaved l was. Probably because they weren’t so controlling and micro-management with me!

Does your husband every listen to you and acknowledge maybe he got it wrong with being overly harsh towards his son?

This all sounds so hard. I really think family therapy is the way to go as I am sure this is having an impact on all of you.

Problem is, love is believed through actions not words. The op and her husband can tell their son her husband loves him all the time but if it isn't evident to their son through her husbands actions then her son will never believe it. More than that, he may end up feeling totally invalidated.

Op I agree that you need some external support/professional help as a family, something like a parenting course or family therapy to help you all. At the end of the day, none of you feel supported by each other.

Is there a chance that your DH is also neurodiverse?
It might explain his rigidity and difficulty with transitions that your son's adhd creates.

Either way the issue should be between you and your DH. Either he gets help with his parenting or maybe your DS should move in with his grandparents. Your DS cannot help how his brain is wired but your DH absolutely can help how he parents.
This is a really toxic and damaging environment for your DS.

Given that you are apparently also quick tempered I suspect your DH is struggling significantly. He has always had to be ‘bad cop’ because you wouldn’t, and the more you shrug and let things slide, the more directing he has felt he has to be.

Now you’re all stuck in roles that aren’t good for any of you. He can’t relax (not just about rules - everyday dealing with both of you is likely stressing him out beyond his capacity to deal). So he’s picking up on everything and anything. He literally can’t see the wood for the trees anymore.

You think that your days out together without him are fine - but we have no idea if that’s just your internal dynamic as a three and perhaps everyone around you on those days would disagree and think DS is a horror and you’re failing to rein him in. We just can’t know.

This is above mumsnet’s pay grade. You need to communicate better with each other. You are urgently need family counselling.

I think this is the most clear and reasoned response.
Everyone wanting to paint dad as controlling and abusive probably haven’t stopped to consider how hard it might be to live with two people who are are quick tempered.
OP feels on egg shells, dad might well feel the same. He probably also feels a lot of responsibility and stress over teaching his ds appropriate behaviour, some of what OP described doesn’t sound all that appropriate for a boy of that age, he’s not a little boy anymore. And OP wants to let a lot of it slide. It’s hard when one parent feels all the responsibility.
Professional help for this family is probably required.

I expect that those saying DH is right have absolutely no experience of parenting an ND child. Your DH sounds like a controlling arse, he has given up on parenting his child because DS isn't a robot and won't be controlled. It sounds like your DH isn't interested in listening or learning about DS and the impact ADHD has on him and ways to positively manage his behaviour - he just wants to punish and punish him till he submits.

Does he always have such little empathy? Does he have any remorse? Does he ever think he's done anything wrong? Does he only like people who tell him how great he is (ie your daughter)? Does he find it easy to just drop people, even his own child? Does he rate himself and his opinions very highly? If so I'd say he's straying into narcissist territory tbh.

You DH needs to start reading up on ADHD and learning about the impact of it and positive ways to handle it. He is the adult here. I doubt he will though because he thinks he knows best. You can't fix him, I doubt he'll be interested in getting outside help as he doesn't see any issue with his behaviour (although maybe he'd go if he thinks they're going to 'fix' DS and prove him as being right all along).

Good luck I think you're going to need it, I really hope you don't lose your son because your DH is a controlling bully.

There is a danger of being so accommodating with the ADHD that there is no discipline at all. Unfortunately, whilst your DC might love you for this parenting style you are setting them up for failure in their adult life.

This is a worrying reason to stay with a partner. I wonder if on some level you are frightened of your partner.

Agree with other posters though - it's above the mn paygrade to advise on this - it's so subjective. But only staying in order to protect a child from 1:1 time with the other parent is concerning.

My son has ADHD and we experienced a lot of behaviour you describe. He is now a well balanced yiing man working FT in a chosen field.
Did your DH go to the same training sessions about ADHD as you?

Or if in a queue we would stand and son would sit on the metal bar or something, husband would tell him off about it. - what a fusspot your OH is! This is definitely not ignoring the small things! No wonder your son is irritated by it all. I have to think if were being scrutinised every second for some small thing that qualified as out of order in your OH's book, I too would explode.

You need to farm your children out somewhere for a day and have a serious discussion with your OH in private. Tell him how unhappy you are; that you cannot let the situation run on as it is. One major parenting error is to expect children to behave as small adults - they are not just just smaller in size, but smaller in experience and ability to adapt to the world and its constraints and rules.

What happens in this scenario is that the child starts to deliberately do small things that he knows will annoy his Dad. If his Dad shows no affection or understanding or support, why should the child try to please him? If there is never praise forthcoming, but only irritation, why would he bother to try and play by the rules? He knows he can't win under any circumstances.

Your son is going to be an impossible teenager if you do not get on top of this soon.

Your DH sounds like he does not love his son, worse than that sounds like he dislikes him too. If your DS has saved his own money for skates then how he spends his money.is his business and your DH is just being a dick. Sounds like he wants to wind your son up. What reason does DH give that son can't spend his own saved money on skates. It seems a reasonable thing to spend it on. Don't stop supporting your son because he needs your love.