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Dear Care and Feeding,
My husband and I have a 3-year-old, “Jack,” who is a pretty good kid but is definitely a toddler. The problem is that my husband has zero patience and a short temper and is easily stressed. This means I spend a lot of time refereeing fights between Jack and his father.
Jack does something not great but fairly typical for a 3-year-old (e.g., crying because he wants something he can’t have), and I respond by calmly saying no and sticking to it. But then there’s a tantrum, my husband gets mad, and if he is already stressed about something else, he will snap and tell Jack to shut up or yell at him or (more rarely) call him names (“brat,” “moron”). This leaves me wanting to comfort Jack, even though I don’t want to reward bad behavior, and then my husband says I am making him the bad guy for not backing him up. He also says I can’t tell him not to yell or not to tell Jack to shut up, etc., in front of Jack—he says I should talk to him about it later instead. But I want Jack to know that no one (not even his dad) can treat him that way.
I have tried to talk to my husband when he isn’t angry about why we can’t scream at our son or call him names, but he thinks it isn’t a big deal and says I need to back him up, since “siding” with our son turns it into us against him. I honestly have no idea what to do at this point. It doesn’t happen that often, but often enough that it makes me worried about his relationship with Jack and also our relationship. It is also just exhausting. But my husband really doesn’t think he is in the wrong, so I am not sure what I can say.
—No, You Shut Up
Dear No,
Your husband is entirely in the wrong. He’s being abusive to your son, and is this close to being abusive to you, too. If I were you, I’d get out of that marriage, and fast. It doesn’t matter how often this happens—it matters that it happens at all.
If you won’t leave, you must insist on counseling for the two of you. If your husband refuses, that lets you know that nothing is going to change. Are you willing to put your child at risk in this way for the rest of his childhood? This situation is not going to improve. If he rages at a 3-year-old, he will rage at a 15-year-old. I can promise you that if you stay and accept the status quo, Jack will never forgive you for not protecting him. And I’m not sure you’ll ever be able to forgive yourself.
—Michelle
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