How do you stay neutral when spouse gets locked in power struggle with tween?
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Anonymous
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OP, you need to grow up.
Parenting is tough. |
Anonymous
I’m one of your fellow travelers, and yes, I do consider screaming at kids and trying to win a power struggle with harsh words to be abuse. My DH is following in the footsteps of his dad, a very good guy generally who thought this was an acceptable way to interact with DH when he was angry or frustrated (though not with his younger kids, interestingly). I am in some ways sympathetic to DH because no one in his family ever stepped in to shield him or tell his dad to cut it out, so he grew up thinking this was normal, and since he turned out great in most objective respects, why change. As I noted above, it took around a decade for my DH to understand at some level how dysfunctional and counter-productive his super-aggressive behavior is. He would still never acknowledge that he has some anger and anxiety management problems, but he blows up much less often than before and will sometimes apologize when he does. I’ve worked with the kids on reading the room too. Not that I would ever want them to walk on eggshells, but as they’ve gotten older, they recognize that their dad predictably gets wound up in certain scenarios, like before any travel or departure for an event if kids are running late. They recognize that if they choose to argue or push at those times there will likely be some fireworks. I’m pretty content with how things are now, but that’s in large part because DH is a very thoughtful and loving spouse and parent 95% of the time, up from a low of maybe 80% during the more stressful earlier years of our marriage. I have my flaws too, of course, fortunately not in the same areas. |
Anonymous
This is me too. Sorry I’m not gonna support DH’s silliness. I call it like I see it. |
Anonymous
10:29 here. I think you should trust yourself more and have confidence in your interpretation of what's going on. I suspect the reason you feel the way you do when witnessing these interactions is because you remember what it's like to be on the receiving end. Your tween is likely feeling the same way even though it may present differently. As far as freezing, my advice would be to have a discussion with your husband in a calm moment. Tell him it's triggering for you and that you don't want your tween to feel like you did growing up. Try to get his agreement on a signal that you would give when you see the situation spiraling so that he and the tween could have a cooling off period before engaging again. Have a similar discussion with your tween so that, hopefully, one of them will have the presence of mind to disengage when this occurs. At first, it was me jumping in (I'm more of fight than a flight person) and going toe to toe with DH. Yes, it was hard on our relationship but, as I told him, I have to protect the kids. That really, really pissed him off because he didn't believe his behavior was damaging. I would then ask him to think about what would drive me to jump in knowing how it affected our relationship. Yeah, he'd sometimes say that I'm overly sensitive because of how I grew up. It told him that gave me more insight into the impact of his behavior. Yes, I'm sensitive to it but there is a reason - and I definitely never want our kids to ever feel even a fraction of what I felt. It took a while but it's worked. Now that the kids are older, they're able to speak up for themselves and I think that's a really helpful life skill. HTH |
Anonymous
Sometimes I think it's emotionally abusive. And honestly if it had been when my son was little, I'd have said we're out of here. But now, 20 years into the marriage, it's a lot harder to "just divorce". I'll tell you there are times I wish my DH would do something really cut and dry, like have an affair, substance abuse, something concrete I could run to a lawyer and say start proceedings. But this is much more vague and I don't want to upend my kids' lives if on the balance things are okay. It's really hard and the "you just tell him to act better" comments are so naive. |
Anonymous
| This thread makes me feel much less alone! |
Anonymous
Me too. Thank you. -op |
Anonymous
Is this a joke? |
Anonymous
| OP, you are your own person. You will have your own reactions. You can not help that. You should not have to try .. as long as you are not actively undermining your spouse. Unless there is abuse, or misbehavior endangering health or something illegal, nothing should be this intense. I think for ordinary tween-teen-your adult issues, starting at about 13, they can fend for themselves. Above all, they will have their own relationship. For good or for bad. Temporary or long term. It is not on you to manage their relationship. |
Anonymous
| Bumping this up as we are having lots of DH and DC (teen) conflict in the house, and sometimes I feel like I’m the only adult in the room. |
Anonymous
10:29 here. Tell us more. |
Anonymous
Thanks 10:29, it was actually your original post that seemed to describe my DH too. DH is authoritarian, unhelpful and not productive in communicating with DC. He’s emotionally distant and yells at my DC on certain topics, which only upsets DC. DC has been having mental health challenges, but DH doesn’t get it or know how to deal with it. Heck, I don’t either but at least I don’t ruffle feathers and try to be supportive. When they interact on those topics, DC breaks down, DH is distant and won’t engage. At this point, it’s easier for them not to talk. At some point, I hope they can repair their relationship, maybe with some family therapy. But my first priority is to help DC’s mental health. |
Anonymous
| Such a good thread. Lots of us in the same boat. |
Anonymous
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At our house, both DH & I have had times where we are locked into arguments with our DC (17yo), and to be fair, sometimes we get into it with each other too.
The three of us (parents + teen) agreed that if we see the other two in a pitched battle of wills, the third person can tell the other two to take a beat. The topic is instantly shelved, but open for further discussion when tempers are cooler. It works. And it doesn't make anyone feel like they are the perpetual referee. |
Anonymous
| I tell my spouse privately that he approached it the wrong way. Sometimes men don’t know about child development, and we need to teach them. (At least my husband!) I don’t pretend to “go along” - it’s okay if you disagree. He’s wrong to think you need to be on the same page. |