Anonymous wrote:First of all, people, of course this is a real post! I can't believe some of you live in a bubble where things like this don't happen. All the feelings and reactions (of OP, DH and DC) are not unusual in the "real world", although might often manifest themselves in slightly more subtle ways.
OP, you've already received some good advice here. You have to open your mind to the fact that your job here isn't to "punish" DH, but rather to help DC make sense of what happened. And to work with DH on your family dynamic. Adults make mistakes ALL THE TIME. Your DH is also allowed to make them. It was absolutely not right for him to use insulting words. But that reaction came from somewhere, and the words were triggered by something (beyond DC's behavior). The more you understand what happened, from DH's perspective, and what he is dealing with, the better you'll be able to deal with your own pain and to forgive him. As for your DC, he needs your help (and if possible, that of DH) to talk through this, process it, ask questions, accept that adults can sometimes also do and say hurtful things, and understand that it wasn't his fault. Putting your focus on anger towards DH is only going to distract you from that task.
Yes DC will remember the insults forever, but you have the key role here in determining how he makes sense of this, and how incidents like this shape him. I would also very much recommend seeing a therapist to help work through your feelings. From your description it seems that this incident was unexpected, but it is very likely part of a pattern of behavior that may very well intensify. So you need to figure out a way deal with this consistently.
People aren't surprised that DH swore at his kid. People are surprised at the way that OP is describing and responding to said offense.
First of all, it's totally not clear what even happened. But let's say DH said: "Stop being a little asshole" or something.
Is that ok? No, it's not. But saying he gets no Father's Day present is sort of a bizarre response to that.
I think that's why people feel like this is is a troll.