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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Pp’s that clearly share my pain…do you ever consider your dh’s behavior to be abusive?

Perfect parents, please chime out.

-op[/quote]
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.[/quote]

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