Married for 15 years and I don’t understand my spouse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mother is like you - trust me it’s terrible. You are never wrong, you lash out and can’t deal with criticism. The “why are you standing there...” is classic. I suggest “don’t worry it’s just water- here is a towel let’s wipe it up”

Yes! My mom too. OP reminds me of my borderline emotionally abusive mom. And God forbid anyone stand up to her. Then she just morphed what happened into making her look like the victim (much like what OP is doing). I'd love to get her dhs side of this story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s just water and the kid is 7 so, no, I wouldn’t have been upset. Do you normally get upset at something as innocuous as a spilt drink? If so, you may want to get a better understanding why you have a short fuse. Just saying you love your kids isn’t enough.

That said, your DH isn’t handling this well either and the silent treatment is ridiculous for a grown adult to engage in. Sounds like there is poor communication all around.

I assume your DH and 7 yo were in the midst of discussing how not to spill things and then how to clean them up? Teaching moment? Then stay out of it.

However, if DH was doing nothing to prevent or teach, that is a parenting issue and he needs a parenting class. Perhaps he had an absentee father or 1950s Call Mommy father.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your DH was belittled as a child by his own mother and every time you discipline your child your DH feels bad for his son. He is reliving his childhood with you as his mother and is not acting like a parent or partner. He's acting like he's the child and he wants to get back at mommy by telling you to leave him alone. He needs to grow up. Just my opinion.

could be something like this. Or he wasn't parented at all, just ignored and left to his own devices.

7 yos should know to clean up a spill ASAP. Even pre-school teaches that.

Does your DH have a slow reaction time normally? Is he kind of an absent-minded professor type who can't foresee a child knocking over a tall glass on the edge of the arts table, etc.?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yesterday, our 7-year-old spilled water all over a table covered with books and papers and just stood there looking at it, making no effort to clean it up. I said, “what are you doing? Why are you not doing anything to clean this up?” My husband, who was standing there while all this happening, told me to “just leave him alone.” I said “this is between DS and me, please stay out of it.” My husband stomped off and hasn’t spoken to me since. We had people over last night, and he ignored me the entire time other than the bare minimum amount of communication necessary for it not to be extraordinarily awkward in front of our guests. I tried to talk to him shortly after he stormed out of the room when the incident first happened, saying that I didn’t understand the force of his reaction and he said a lot of things but mainly that he didn’t care if I understood and that I wasn’t going to “make this about him.”

I know that I Sometimes snap at the kids, but I don’t yell or call names and I love those kids more than anything and make sure they know it. My husband loses his patience with them too, just like all normal parents do, but I feel like he holds me to an impossible standard. Yesterday, he said I treat them terribly and he can’t watch it. I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about. I would never involve the kids by asking them, but I know they don’t believe that I treat them terribly. I’m so hurt. My husband still isn’t talking to me.

I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’m sorry for the disjointed and stream of consciousness post. I don’t want to get a divorce and split up my family, but I feel like I’m married to someone who actively dislikes me.

OK, something else is going on here and HE is being passive aggressive and is very angry about something. He does not know an effective way of communicating his wants, needs or emotions (i.e. anger). Something in his has built up and up while he tried to bury it.

Your one example, yes is an example of him doing zero parenting. Did he set you up? Does he want you to walk into situations that he knows will push your buttons so YOU can release HIS anger (i.e. leaving wet swim towels on floor/furniture, leaving big spill on table for you to see/find, forgetting to do things, leaving dirty dishes all over, etc.). He may be a piss-poor communicator who is trying to get you angry all the time. DO NOT FALL FOR HIS ANGER TRAPS. Try to be pleasant and effective with your children, and to him just say, "Honey, it seems like you're angry about something. Hmm." ANd walk away.

If he is ADD or inattentive or passive aggressive, he'll likely explode into a tirade every month or so of telling you off or attempting to blame you for all his mistakes and shortcomings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If my seven-year old son spilled water all over the kitchen table, and then didn’t make an attempt to grab some paper towels to clean it up I would have been incensed.

A seven-year old is responsible enough to handle little matters like this.

It was wrong of your husband to disagree w/you plus telling you in front of your son.

agree and agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be pretty pissed if my DH reacted to spilled water the way you did. You should both take a parenting class.

Really? You think asking a child why they aren’t doing anything to clean up a mess they made us out of line? You and OP’s DH both sound like great parents.

Yea, it's passive-aggressive. I have family who pull this, and it's not that they are legitimately curious why, it's that they feel slighted in some way and lash out. These people always get pissed when you take the question at face value and actually answer it, rather than jumping to attention and doing whatever it is they want.

Better response: "hey sweetie, there are books on the table, could you please wipe up the water now before they get ruined?". If kid doesn't and the books get ruined, kid pays for new books with allowance money. Natural consequences work better than snapping.

It's not reasonable to expect someone to respond so sweetly and with so many words in this situation, especially once the water started reaching the books.

My son (np) spills his drinks a lot due to not paying attention. The natural consequence is that he has to clean it up. If he doesn't move to get a towel, I respond with urgency (without snapping). "Uh oh. Go get a towel, quick." Or "You know what to do. Clean it up."

Op, your response of "This is between me and DS" was the most unusual part of this situation.

[Anonymous]

Maybe DH was embarassed that he didn't notice a bunch of water spilling on books, bills and papers?
Is he usually this unobservant?

Maybe having food and drink in the living room with the TV on is not a good idea for DH or for son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd be pretty pissed if my DH reacted to spilled water the way you did. You should both take a parenting class.

When my daughter was little if she dropped something I'd yell, "Pick it up!" because she just stood there. I wanted her to stop freezing. Now at 15, she can often catch something mid-fall. She is glad I pushed her through her instinct to just stand there looking at what fell.

All this coddling is way too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mother is like you - trust me it’s terrible. You are never wrong, you lash out and can’t deal with criticism. The “why are you standing there...” is classic. I suggest “don’t worry it’s just water- here is a towel let’s wipe it up”

Project much?

[Anonymous]

Tell the kid what do to I stead of yelling OP. Tell Larlo to get some towels, hand them to him and start wiping up the mess. You and your dh should both be helping him. So the kid knows what to do next time. He had an anxiety response and froze.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell the kid what do to I stead of yelling OP. Tell Larlo to get some towels, hand them to him and start wiping up the mess. You and your dh should both be helping him. So the kid knows what to do next time. He had an anxiety response and froze.

No he knocked something over while watching TV with Dad, and they both did nothing but keep watching TV. The only person noticing the dripping water everywhere was OP when she walked in and Asked "what are you doing".

well the correct answer is, "Watching TV not noticing anything else. Sorry, let me clean that up asap."

[Anonymous]

I commend you! for wanting to keep your marriage together. That’s wonderful!! and it says a lot about you. My husband and I talked to our pastor and we saw a Christian counselor during a really rough patch in our marriage. Do you have anyone like that in your life that you and your husband can talk to? They may be able to help you too. Don’t give up! Your family is worth it. Hugs!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd be pretty pissed if my DH reacted to spilled water the way you did. You should both take a parenting class.

Really? You think asking a child why they aren’t doing anything to clean up a mess they made us out of line? You and OP’s DH both sound like great parents.

NP here. It’s not what was said, it was how it was said. Sarcasm and rhetorical questions with a 7 year old not only has a snide tone to it but it typically isn’t effective. It becomes very obvious when they start parroting back the same tone and phrases to you and then say, “that’s what you say to me”. Then you straddle the line between correcting them because they still need to be repectful to an adult and adjusting your behavior because you realize you don’t want them to be in a relationship some day with someone that speaks to them that way. The way we’ve handled this is to say “here are some paper towels, let’s get this cleaned up.” When they were little and they would get upset because we were upset, I would try to calm everyone down by using the saying about not crying over spilt milk, what’s done is done, let’s focus on cleaning this up and what can we do so we don’t spill x next time.

Both OP and DH have to figure out how to communicate better when they don’t agree with each other about parenting. You don’t want your child to see oh going to this parent gets me out of the consequence or me spilling water starts an argument with my parents and no one is speaking to anyone.

I agree so much. You need to either work this out or go to a professional.

It's okay for parents to have different styles but you should really be on the same team. When one loses it, the other can step in and up. In this scenario, you both could have done better. A 7 year old should not be asked why he is just standing there because that's belittling and not helpful. If he were to take it literally, he would merely answer something that wouldn't solve the present problem anyway. He should be instructed what to do. But I know that's easy to say after the fact, in the moment irritation slips out.

Where your husband went wrong is in not jumping in and helping the child himself if he disagreed with your response. He should also be able to discuss with you calmly at a later time and not do the silent treatment. Have you talked about how to parent your child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s just water and the kid is 7 so, no, I wouldn’t have been upset. Do you normally get upset at something as innocuous as a spilt drink? If so, you may want to get a better understanding why you have a short fuse. Just saying you love your kids isn’t enough.

That said, your DH isn’t handling this well either and the silent treatment is ridiculous for a grown adult to engage in. Sounds like there is poor communication all around.

This is OP. Not to justify my reaction, which I know wasn’t good, but it wasn’t so much to the water being spilled in the first place as it was to DS just standing there while it seeped onto books and summer homework on the table.

To kid: Ok sweetie, why don’t you get some paper towels and clean that up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yesterday, our 7-year-old spilled water all over a table covered with books and papers and just stood there looking at it, making no effort to clean it up. I said, “what are you doing? Why are you not doing anything to clean this up?” My husband, who was standing there while all this happening, told me to “just leave him alone.” I said “this is between DS and me, please stay out of it.” My husband stomped off and hasn’t spoken to me since. We had people over last night, and he ignored me the entire time other than the bare minimum amount of communication necessary for it not to be extraordinarily awkward in front of our guests. I tried to talk to him shortly after he stormed out of the room when the incident first happened, saying that I didn’t understand the force of his reaction and he said a lot of things but mainly that he didn’t care if I understood and that I wasn’t going to “make this about him.”

I know that I Sometimes snap at the kids, but I don’t yell or call names and I love those kids more than anything and make sure they know it. My husband loses his patience with them too, just like all normal parents do, but I feel like he holds me to an impossible standard. Yesterday, he said I treat them terribly and he can’t watch it. I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about. I would never involve the kids by asking them, but I know they don’t believe that I treat them terribly. I’m so hurt. My husband still isn’t talking to me.

I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’m sorry for the disjointed and stream of consciousness post. I don’t want to get a divorce and split up my family, but I feel like I’m married to someone who actively dislikes me.

Leave some mystery poops hanging on the inside of your family toilet. see who squeals first. might be no one...