Anonymous wrote:

The only thing that actually helped us was working 1:1 with a psychologist through an official parent training program.

OP again, this is a great suggestion — how did you find this specialist?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for the helpful replies. To clarify I am a SAHM, we have two kids. I should have added it was the toddler’s bedtime when they left for urgent care and I’m always the one to put him to bed and I nurse him before he goes down. If I’m not there, he won’t go to sleep until I come home, so I thought it would be more stressful on my husband to stay with the crying, not-sleeping toddler than take my daughter to urgent care. Yes, I am working on weaning my toddler so bedtime can be done by anyone, we just haven’t quite gotten there yet.

I’m regards to the nosebleed, I was the one to get up with him when it happened but this one was worse than usual and I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop and the toddler was scared and crying loudly, and that woke my DH up when he came storming in angry that he had been woken up, instead of being supportive or caring. I am always the one to wake up with the kids at night for whatever reason. I am the default parent in all medical stuff, bedtime waking, discipline (bc misbehaving stresses DH out), and I generally keep the peace at home and try to keep everything low stress. But I resent that I can’t even lean on DH in an emergency, or to just provide basic parental care when it’s needed without worrying about how he’ll react.

Also DH works from home at a cushy low-stress well-paying job so I can’t blame work stress. We have some other stressors going on in our lives right now but they are affecting us equally and I’m managing not to lash out at the kids.

You've created a not great dynamic in your house. I'm not excusing your husband's behavior because yelling at a toddler (how old are we talking?) about something they can't control isn't ok, but it seems like you're one of those who has set themselves up as the everything parent and your husband isn't prepared to step into a parenting role. I'm not saying that's your fault, but I do think you need to be acutely aware of this situation because expecting him to handle things when he never handles things isn't going to work. It's one reason why my husband has done everything I've done for our kids for the last 12 years, minus breastfeeding (but he fed them bottles so we each fed them half the time except once he went back to work and I was still on maternity leave although then he still fed them when he was home). There's nothing one of us can do that the other can't. That's not your setup so you may need to make some changes if you want your husband to be a parent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does every DH have to be the main parent. You're the main parent, OP. Just do the parenting and let him do the 1billion other things that also have to get done to run a family.

I know people are bristling at this. But honestly, as a strategy it worked really well in my family. I did nothing but kid stuff and my spouse did everything else except that spouse did childcare drop off and pick up because my commute was longer. We had very little conflict because we each did our part to make the family work. And we were both pretty happy about it. I can't remember the last time I did yard work (besides my garden), took the car for service or an oil change, found a plumber, washed a car, cleaned my house and whatever other billion things it takes to keep a house running successfully. Even though my kids are grown, I still don't do these things. My spouse wasn't a bad parent, but wasn't a good caretaker until they got a lot older. The difference between me and OP is that I could count on my spouse in emergencies.

How did your kids feel about that? I'm glad your situation worked out for you, but I can't imagine having only one parent doing the parenting.

The only thing that actually helped us was working 1:1 with a psychologist through an official parent training program.

Anonymous wrote:OP my husband can be like this but it has gotten better in the last two years. My breaking point came when our kid, who was 5 at the time, was diagnosed with ARFID which is an eating disorder that presents as "picky eating" but is actually serious -- she would gag on food or throw it up due to the smell or texture of it, and she was not trying to be picky but could not control her aversion. It was and still is a very hard thing to parent through, but DH made it much worse because he'd blow up at her for not eating even after she'd been diagnosed and we'd learned that conflict and confrontation over eating would only make it worse. When he did this I'd feel so abandoned because I was also very frustrated but working really hard to control it so I could give her what she needed, and he wasn't even trying. So my efforts were for nothing and she was getting more and more stressed about food anyway.

Here's what helped:

1) I point it out, but do so later when things are calm. So if he blew up at her at dinner, in the moment I would either ignore him or just say "I'll handle it," address DD's needs, and move on. But then after the kids were in bed, I'd turn off the TV and explain calmly that it sucks for me to have to be the functional parent in those moments, and that what I really want is a partner to go through it with me, instead of another person whose emotions I have to manage. I really worked to not get overly critical or blaming in these talks. I used lots of "I" statements and explained why the situation was hard for me or what I wish I got from him, instead of saying "you do this, you do that." That helped him hear me better.

2) He went to therapy and worked on anger management. This is critical. It could be therapy, a meditation practice, a parenting class. Just anything to show he's working on it. I remember at one point talking to my DH about this and he said "I just don't handle stress well," and I pointed out that there's no way for me to eliminate stress from our lives and that it's unfair for him to expect to be exempt from the stress of being a working, middle class parent while I take it all on. That helped him realize that every time he just can't deal with a situation, that's yet another thing I have to do. That's when he started to realize this was a problem he needed to solve and not a "take it or leave it" situation. I didn't threaten divorce, but I did tell him that it was very hard for me to imagine spending the next 40-50 years of my life with someone who simply cannot handle stress, because I expect there to be some stress during that time.

3) As my kids got older, I got them involved. I guess this could be controversial, but the truth is my kids are pretty emotionally intelligent and good at naming their feelings and talking through how to deal with them. But my older kid definitely struggles with blowing up when she gets frustrated, and IMO that has to be addressed head on. So as I worked with her to build up her tolerance for frustration or distress, I used situations with DH and I as examples and she started calling out DH when he did exactly the thing she was working on getting better at. This was hard at first but then great. Sometimes DH and DD will get upset with each other and have a little mini tantrum (not as bad as they once were) but then they will come together, apologize, and talk about what the each could have done better. Without any prompting from me. It was great.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Troll OP post

Totally. It’s like a bingo card. Mommy Wars? Breastfeeding? Lazy husband? Just needed a MIL mention to really round it out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for the helpful replies. To clarify I am a SAHM, we have two kids. I should have added it was the toddler’s bedtime when they left for urgent care and I’m always the one to put him to bed and I nurse him before he goes down. If I’m not there, he won’t go to sleep until I come home, so I thought it would be more stressful on my husband to stay with the crying, not-sleeping toddler than take my daughter to urgent care. Yes, I am working on weaning my toddler so bedtime can be done by anyone, we just haven’t quite gotten there yet.

I’m regards to the nosebleed, I was the one to get up with him when it happened but this one was worse than usual and I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop and the toddler was scared and crying loudly, and that woke my DH up when he came storming in angry that he had been woken up, instead of being supportive or caring. I am always the one to wake up with the kids at night for whatever reason. I am the default parent in all medical stuff, bedtime waking, discipline (bc misbehaving stresses DH out), and I generally keep the peace at home and try to keep everything low stress. But I resent that I can’t even lean on DH in an emergency, or to just provide basic parental care when it’s needed without worrying about how he’ll react.

Also DH works from home at a cushy low-stress well-paying job so I can’t blame work stress. We have some other stressors going on in our lives right now but they are affecting us equally and I’m managing not to lash out at the kids.

You've created a not great dynamic in your house. I'm not excusing your husband's behavior because yelling at a toddler (how old are we talking?) about something they can't control isn't ok, but it seems like you're one of those who has set themselves up as the everything parent and your husband isn't prepared to step into a parenting role. I'm not saying that's your fault, but I do think you need to be acutely aware of this situation because expecting him to handle things when he never handles things isn't going to work. It's one reason why my husband has done everything I've done for our kids for the last 12 years, minus breastfeeding (but he fed them bottles so we each fed them half the time except once he went back to work and I was still on maternity leave although then he still fed them when he was home). There's nothing one of us can do that the other can't. That's not your setup so you may need to make some changes if you want your husband to be a parent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does every DH have to be the main parent. You're the main parent, OP. Just do the parenting and let him do the 1billion other things that also have to get done to run a family.

I know people are bristling at this. But honestly, as a strategy it worked really well in my family. I did nothing but kid stuff and my spouse did everything else except that spouse did childcare drop off and pick up because my commute was longer. We had very little conflict because we each did our part to make the family work. And we were both pretty happy about it. I can't remember the last time I did yard work (besides my garden), took the car for service or an oil change, found a plumber, washed a car, cleaned my house and whatever other billion things it takes to keep a house running successfully. Even though my kids are grown, I still don't do these things. My spouse wasn't a bad parent, but wasn't a good caretaker until they got a lot older. The difference between me and OP is that I could count on my spouse in emergencies.

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for the helpful replies. To clarify I am a SAHM, we have two kids. I should have added it was the toddler’s bedtime when they left for urgent care and I’m always the one to put him to bed and I nurse him before he goes down. If I’m not there, he won’t go to sleep until I come home, so I thought it would be more stressful on my husband to stay with the crying, not-sleeping toddler than take my daughter to urgent care. Yes, I am working on weaning my toddler so bedtime can be done by anyone, we just haven’t quite gotten there yet.

I’m regards to the nosebleed, I was the one to get up with him when it happened but this one was worse than usual and I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop and the toddler was scared and crying loudly, and that woke my DH up when he came storming in angry that he had been woken up, instead of being supportive or caring. I am always the one to wake up with the kids at night for whatever reason. I am the default parent in all medical stuff, bedtime waking, discipline (bc misbehaving stresses DH out), and I generally keep the peace at home and try to keep everything low stress. But I resent that I can’t even lean on DH in an emergency, or to just provide basic parental care when it’s needed without worrying about how he’ll react.

Also DH works from home at a cushy low-stress well-paying job so I can’t blame work stress. We have some other stressors going on in our lives right now but they are affecting us equally and I’m managing not to lash out at the kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So OP is a SAHM and she makes her DH get up in the night for a nosebleed????

I am trying to imagine being married to a man so wimpy and delicate that he couldn’t do that without issue. Omg.

Needing sleep is a standard issue requirement for all adults. The one who has to drag his ass out of bed and be presentable at work is the one who gets to have an issue with getting up for a nosebleed when the SAHP should be able to handle it herself.

Funny how nobody cared about me needing to drag my ass out of bed and be presentable at work when I was a new mom.

lol right?? Somehow moms who literally gave birth and nursed around the clock fewer than three months ago are routinely able and expected to get to work.

I mean also my Dad came home from those monster ober 24 hour medical resident shifts and still played with us and did Dad stuff. Who are these weak men who can't deal with a bloody nose at night? Pathetic.

Some people never develop distress tolerance. These behaviors get passed down through generations. If your parents didnt' demonstrate an ability to deal with something like a bloody nose in the middle of the night, where will you learn? I had to learn it as an adult through therapy and reading books and observing other people and practicing. It sucks. But I did so before becoming a parent.

Anonymous wrote:Troll OP post

Anonymous wrote:A few things.

1. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this.
2. A six year old showing up with a concussion and a visibly angry/inappropriately behaving parent could easily have triggered a mandatory report. CPS could give a crap about the inconvenience your DH experienced. When you discuss this, I would point that out to him.
3. I’d be recording this. Swearing at a toddler who had a middle of the night need? That’s got “something he’s going to deny later” all over it.
4. Sorry but you have to be the medical-matters parent because your husband is literally neglecting them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So OP is a SAHM and she makes her DH get up in the night for a nosebleed????

I am trying to imagine being married to a man so wimpy and delicate that he couldn’t do that without issue. Omg.

Needing sleep is a standard issue requirement for all adults. The one who has to drag his ass out of bed and be presentable at work is the one who gets to have an issue with getting up for a nosebleed when the SAHP should be able to handle it herself.

Wow, women who stay home with kids don’t need sleep? Amazing revelation!