Reply to Husband needs to be better father - how to articulate, or maybe I shouldn't?

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[quote=Anonymous] I want to explain to DH how I'm feeling but I can't get it out the way I want and I can't get anywhere with him...

Our children are 8yo and 5yo. My husband is responsible and hard-working. He's reliable, dependable, trust-worthy, intelligent, etc.  I'm grateful for those qualities and I let him know that. However, I feel that he's really lacking in the emotional bond and other parts of fatherhood, but I'm having trouble explaining it and getting him to see what I see. He helps with child-related tasks such as giving them breakfast, taking one of them to school, helps with bath/books/bedtime, comes to their sports events, etc. So he's there and he's helping, but he's kind of clueless when it comes to the emotional stuff. He doesn't know how to discipline effectively, he doesn't spend any time reading about or researching child development/parenting/dealing with issues related to our kids (ADHD for example, or my daughter dealing with hurt feelings and bullying at school). He doesn't know how to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with the kids. He butts heads constantly with my son, to the point where my son almost doesn't want anything to do with him. He never thinks to take my kids to do anything special, or even just a trip to the park unless I suggest it and arrange it. He doesn't contribute in any way to building family traditions or helping to make holidays/birthdays special. He makes no attempt to be involved in or interested in their schoolwork or progress at school. I'm just tired of being the one to have to build the family alone - I want a partner in it, and it makes me so sad to see that my kids aren't being taught by or led by a strong father-figure teaching them how to be good and loving human beings in conjunction with me. My dad was/is amazing. He was such an important part of my childhood and who I am today. We're so close, and it makes me sad that my husband isn't more like that. Maybe that's wrong of me.

Let me give a very small example: he had a VERY slow work day and was able to be home in the afternoon, which is unusual. Instead of getting involved in the kids' homework and after school stuff (which he saw me dealing with), he sat around doing his own thing. Then at 5:15 he announced he was going for a run, which then interferes with an opportunity to be with the family for dinner. Often he has to miss family dinner for work, and I understand that is not his fault, but here was an opportunity to be part of our family dinner, and he decided to run (something he had time to do hours before and didn't, btw). He's never thinking about the kids, but always thinking about himself. This is a very minor example, but it really frustrated me.

Am I expecting too much? How can I make this better? I was thinking maybe family therapy.[/quote]

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