How do you deal with a spouse who undermines your parenting every step of the way?

[Anonymous]

When you ask your husband why he doens't want your child to learn basic life skills or basic tasks or know how to be responsible - what does he say?

[Anonymous]

I remember telling my kids, when they were toddlers and we first took them shopping with us at the mall,

"if you get lost, you can find a police officer or a firefighter, and ask that adult for help finding mommy or daddy.'

- after which my wife immediately felt the need to interject:

"But, some police officers might have bought a fake uniform to wear, so they might hurt you instead of helping you find mommy."

I remain flummoxed to this very day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would argue with my husband. You have an obligation to make sure your kid is raised well. If that means I disagree with my spouse then so be it.

My husband and I parent slightly different but we believe the same basic things. Kids need chores and responsibility, kids need consequences.

Ideally you should have investigated your husband's values before you married him. I do have an adult cousin who hated his mom for having so many rules when his dad did not. He said his mom was not cool.

As an adult he thanks his mom. Weirdly he raises his kids the way his mom raised him, not his dad. Loving but not overly permissive.

It’s not even about the chores so much as the undermining. I have a pretty terrible relationship with my exDH but I learned to step back and not undermine him when he was disciplining or working with DC on something, even if I disagreed. I only intervened when they started to dysregulate. Even now I try very hard not to put myself in the middle. Partly because I have a big rule against fighting in front of DC if avoidable. partly because I don’t think I actually have all the answers in terms of how to parent.

[Anonymous]

I unintentionally married this type of jerk too, OP. Please ignore the idiots shaming you. It is not something I could have forseen.

What has worked for me is having a separate conversation with your kid when the POS is not around. Have a 'punishment' that the kid agrees to beforehand and enforce it. So many strikes and kid loses something they care about. The kid needs to buy in to all of this, well before a situation occurs.

My kid respects me in a way that he does not respect his hot mess of a dad. He really understands why we do what we do.

[Anonymous]

Sit down and have a conversation about each family member’s responsibilities and what the consequences are for not fulfilling them. The dog is your dog, just accept that and move on. This is why we don’t have a dog, because as much as I love dogs in every family I know, the mom does 95% of the dog tasks.

Have your child responsible for things that impact them. They don’t do laundry? They don’t have clean clothes to wear. They don’t pack lunch, they eat school lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry. That sucks.

I am a stepmom and my husband thinks his late teen kids should do zero chores. I think it is really poor parenting. I've always thought that I was the mom I could have raised them to do better, but it had not occurred to me that even if I was the mom the dad might try to undercut me and be the good cop!

Hasn't he ever heard the phrase "happy wife happy life"??

He should be backing you up.

I think you should tell DH and the kid that you will no longer be caring for the dog and that if they don't step up and care for the dog, you will re home her.

Why did you marry him if you disagree with his parenting? Serious question, this is always baffling to me.

I assume they didn't have kids before getting married. People change their minds and are more agreeable at the beginning.
Aren't you lucky you both figured it all out and he kept his word. Mine stopped talking. Imagine that. Silent treatment all the way. You think we discussed it before and I was fine with it?

[Anonymous]

The dynamic between you and your husband would drive me crazy. But your kid will be fine. He will not never keep his word because dad didn’t make him take care of a dog he promised to help with (which was dumb to act on such a promise from someone so young because they don’t likely have the capacity to think it through). He will not never follow through or be responsible. You’re trying to turn this into a catastrophic and life altering event for your kid when it’s just a frustrating husband problem.

[Anonymous]

OMG this could have been written by me. Looking back, I see the insidious, infinite effects of this and I should have left my husband 15 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Your kid is going to be okay. OP. Lots of teens don’t do chores and they turn out okay. Does he do his homework, show up on time when he needs to, say thank you when you make him a snack? If so he’s got the building blocks.

The dog is now yours. Congratulations! You are a dog’s favorite person.

Maybe ask your son to do tasks that you control entirely or that impact your son, and when your husband isn’t around. So ask him to come do the dishes while you are cooking - right in the moment. Or if you are doing his laundry, teach him how and then tell him he is responsible for it. If he drives, put some money in his account and give him the shopping list. Do these in the moment as opportunities allow, not as a standing chore you need to nag about.

[Anonymous]

You need to take this conversation out of the moment. Pick a calm time when your kid is not around, and have a conversation. Not accusatory, not a fight, not an "I'm right you're wrong" but a conversation.

"I've noticed that we seem to be on different pages with our parenting lately. For example, it seems like I'd prefer to push Larlo towards doing chores and cleaning up after himself, whereas it seems like maybe you think this should not be a priority for him? Have you noticed this?"

See what he says. Listen, listen, listen. Maybe he thinks you're too hard on Larlo or your tone is too sharp. Maybe he's worried about XYZ other stressor in Larlo's life. Maybe he's seeing something that you aren't (like you always pick a bad time to bring up the chores). Etc, etc, etc. You can also share your thought process - around the importance of responsibility and independence.

See if you can find some agreement or compromise that you're both happy with. Keep in mind, part of this is COMPROMISE. You may decide together about what is most important and decide to let other things go, for example.

And I would make sure to end the conversation with some specifics AND an agreement to not undermine the other in front of the kid - if you need to revisit part of this conversation, you'll do it privately. And if he DOES call you out in front of Larlo, after you've agreed on this, you say "honey, can I speak to you privately for a second?" and you go into another room and remind him. You really want to be a united front with the kid, and that's MORE important (IMHO) than the details of what you're enforcing and what you're letting slide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The dynamic between you and your husband would drive me crazy. But your kid will be fine. He will not never keep his word because dad didn’t make him take care of a dog he promised to help with (which was dumb to act on such a promise from someone so young because they don’t likely have the capacity to think it through). He will not never follow through or be responsible. You’re trying to turn this into a catastrophic and life altering event for your kid when it’s just a frustrating husband problem.

This. I think it’s unrealistic to think that your son would have learned to feed the dog without reminders in a month if your dh had not intervened. That’s just not how it works.

And every kid promises to take care of the dog as a condition of getting one. And every kid doesn’t live up to that promise and the mom ends up stepping in. That happens to all of us!

I agree you have a dh problem. You also have a normal kid doing normal kid things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry. That sucks.

I am a stepmom and my husband thinks his late teen kids should do zero chores. I think it is really poor parenting. I've always thought that I was the mom I could have raised them to do better, but it had not occurred to me that even if I was the mom the dad might try to undercut me and be the good cop!

Hasn't he ever heard the phrase "happy wife happy life"??

He should be backing you up.

I think you should tell DH and the kid that you will no longer be caring for the dog and that if they don't step up and care for the dog, you will re home her.

Why did you marry him if you disagree with his parenting? Serious question, this is always baffling to me.

I assume they didn't have kids before getting married. People change their minds and are more agreeable at the beginning.
Aren't you lucky you both figured it all out and he kept his word. Mine stopped talking. Imagine that. Silent treatment all the way. You think we discussed it before and I was fine with it?

The question was for the PP who is a stepmother. If the man is already a parent, why would anyone go by just a promise? Why not observe his parenting and make your own decision?

[Anonymous]

One thing I have not seen asked: if the kids are not doing chores or cleaning up after themselves, who is? You? Or DH? I would make sure the answer is “DH”. Definitely NOT you. If they make a mess, he should be cleaning it. If the kids are out of clean clothing because they did not do their laundry- that is their problem (and if they want to complain, they should complain to their dad about why their laundry is not done). Etc. Same applies to any other things that DH lets go. If he wants to make that choice then fine- but then HE needs to be the one to deal with any consequences.

I would take responsibility for the dog yourself obviously.

Rest assured that many teens who are messy and don’t do any chores still end up being responsible and normal adults. To me, this is more a problem for the parents. Let it be DH’s problem and not yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kid is going to be okay. OP. Lots of teens don’t do chores and they turn out okay. Does he do his homework, show up on time when he needs to, say thank you when you make him a snack? If so he’s got the building blocks.

The dog is now yours. Congratulations! You are a dog’s favorite person.

Maybe ask your son to do tasks that you control entirely or that impact your son, and when your husband isn’t around. So ask him to come do the dishes while you are cooking - right in the moment. Or if you are doing his laundry, teach him how and then tell him he is responsible for it. If he drives, put some money in his account and give him the shopping list. Do these in the moment as opportunities allow, not as a standing chore you need to nag about.

The first two paragraphs of this post ⬆️ are good examples of toxic positivity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing I have not seen asked: if the kids are not doing chores or cleaning up after themselves, who is? You? Or DH? I would make sure the answer is “DH”. Definitely NOT you. If they make a mess, he should be cleaning it. If the kids are out of clean clothing because they did not do their laundry- that is their problem (and if they want to complain, they should complain to their dad about why their laundry is not done). Etc. Same applies to any other things that DH lets go. If he wants to make that choice then fine- but then HE needs to be the one to deal with any consequences.

I would take responsibility for the dog yourself obviously.

Rest assured that many teens who are messy and don’t do any chores still end up being responsible and normal adults. To me, this is more a problem for the parents. Let it be DH’s problem and not yours.

Edited to add: as for lunches, they can either pack them, DH can pack them, or they can go without. That is between them and DH. You certainly should not do it.