I need some outside perspective in my relationship. I’m not sure if I’m overreacting or not. Me and my partner have a 2.5 yr old boy. My partner is in his 50’s and I am in my 30s. I come from a childhood of relative ease and privilege compared to him, where he has come from a childhood with some degree of hardship (poverty, abuse, although a very loving family). He also has adult children, so has raised children before. I think sometimes he expects our boy to be like his previous boy was, and it unsettles him when he is so different. I also have a history of being with abusive partners, I have PTSD, maybe this clouds my judgements.
We are having some seriously different perspectives in parenting. Most of which is fine, us having differences in general parenting styles is fine with me. A few things I cant stand though are things regarding our child’s emotional health and consent. Also phone use around our child.
My partner likes to rough house with our boy, which is great, most kids love that. But our boy gets upset when he feels trapped or stuck, he gets upset, starts to cry and tells him ‘no’ repeatedly. He is happy with most other forms of play though, like climbing on his dad or flying around the house or being upside down etc. My partner keeps trapping him though, and not stopping straight away when our boy says no. It’s getting to the point our boy is avoiding him and getting panicked when dad wants a hug or to play. For clarity, he isnt pinning him down by holding his arms and legs down or anything, its just when he grabs him to tickle him, or pretends to squash him, or does anything that controls my boys movements, making him feel stuck. Any time I try to mention it my partner gets defensive. It happened again last night and when I tried to talk to him he literally made an annoying interrupting noise any time I tried to speak until I gave up. It shocked me how childish he was being and I was so angry.
He also has problems with his phone use. He seems to constantly be in his phone lately. I can tell our boy feels disconnected from him when he does so, as do I. I don’t care if he does it when our kid isn’t around, I just wish he would stay off it around him. I get it, he works full time in a stressful field and wants to switch off. I do the same thing, just not around our kid. Yesterday he was sitting watching something not age appropriate and our boy was standing and watching his phone as well. I mentioned it wasn’t good bedtime material. A few minutes later they were still watching. I tried to coax our boy away but the phone was still on and both still staring, so I reached out and turned it off. My partner was angry and glared at me. I hate how it feels knowing he prioritizes his show over me and our kid. He often has his headphones in and doesn’t hear us or see us.
Just today, he was sitting outside with our boy on his phone. Our boy came up to him and bit his shirt, and accidentally caught his stomach (he has been pretending to be a monster and eat me by biting my clothes). It obviously hurt/scared my partner. He grabbed him and flicked him on the side of his ear multiple times. At that point it wasnt a reaction from being hurt or frightened but a decision to discipline by hurting him. Our boy came in crying and i said to my partner ‘just because he hurt you, doesn’t mean you get to hurt him’. He acted like he hadn’t done anything at first, until I told him I had seen what had happened. I don’t think he realized I had been watching the whole time. I’m so angry. It obviously didn’t hurt much but I still hate it.
A few things like this have happened before and I cant stand it, I’m very against any kind of physical punishment, my PTSD is a big part of that.
There have been so many of these small incidences since our son was born.
In-between times he’s a great dad and a great partner, i love him very much. He is great with cleaning the house, doing the washing, he gets baby up every single morning and dresses and feeds him breakfast. He plays with him and reads to him and does silly voices. He takes him out in the weekends to give me a break. He’s usually gentle and funny and loving. We’ve been together for ten plus years now and he’s always been my best friend. We have been to therapy about this stuff, and while it was hard for him he agreed to try and do better. And he did for a few weeks and then it started again. When I try to talk to him about it he feels nagged and like I’m picking on him, insulting his masculinity and ability to be a father. He gets defensive and shuts down even further. I dont know what to do. Am I overreacting? These are not the only incidences, but in between he’s great.
When this stuff happens it makes me rethink our whole relationship. It makes me lose trust and respect. I need to do what’s best for our boy, and I cant keep tiptoeing around my partners feelings.
I’m asking him to come to therapy with me again next week, and hopefully things improve… but I don’t know. I send him videos with parenting advice, thinking maybe hell listen to experts instead of me. I got a really great, easy to read book for him about it, but its been on his nightstand for 6 months unread
It feels like he doesnt care enough to put his phone down to try reading it.
Does anyone have any advice? What is happening here? I don’t really have any close friends to talk to so perspectives would be great, especially other men. Stressed out to the max.
My advice? Thats abuse and your kid at 2.5 shouldnt be scared of his dad at ALL.
the way I would tell him to get out if he cant stop picking on a toddler so fast. What the hell
I was so traumatised from tickling as a kid I managed to just turn it off. Instead if being ticklish i just get a weird feeling of pure dislike for whoever is touching me
I dont like physical contact either. If someone tries to force it on me It triggers flight or flight. Direct result of boundaries being constantly disrespected as a child
The ear flicking is messed up. Here he could be charged for that
Edited-spelling errors
Any advice you get from reddit will likely lead you in the direction of torpedoing your relationship. Consider speaking to someone IRL that you trust.
He’s not listening to your sweet reasoning and correction attempts.
When you see him being an ass hat of a parent, trapping your son, applying physical punishment or letting him watch content you don’t want him to: ACT IMMEDIATELY.
Pick up your child. Pull him away.
Tell your child ” it’s okay sweetheart.”
Tell your husband.” I told you not to do that anymore. I meant it.”
If he starts getting upset, ” we can talk about it when baby is in bed. I’m not arguing in front of him.”
You are #1 in care of your son. He’s proven his judgement sucks.
You’re never going to have the same approach on parenting. I don’t know him but he may have the opposite opinon to you and think you’re coddling the child. I know he isn’t communicating well, but raising a kid is the most important thing you’ll likely do together. You both need to find a medium to communicate, one where he opens up and shares but not feels like he is being lectured to or nagged at for having differences of opinion. Outside help with therapists or a trusted family member or friend to be an impartial referee may help.
Guys will typically roughhouse more. He should stop the roughhousing where the child shows any distress though. I roughhouse with my daughter all the time and powerbomb her onto the bed etc. she loves it. I need to stop if she is getting over it or over stimulated and too rough in her response as she sometimes will hit my wife too hard if they roughhouse later on.
The ear flicking thing isn’t good, my daughter bit me yesterday in a similar circumstance and she was just a bit over excited. Likewise as when she is getting too rough hitting or kicking I have to correct her behaviour by reminding her to be “Gentle”, “Don’t kick” or “Soft Hands” but not injure her in response.
Best of luck in raising the little one!
I imagine you two will have wildly different parenting styles. You are different generations. Things that were acceptable and normal in my grandfathers day (grew up in the 30s/40s) would horrify parents of toddlers today. Im in my 40s and im sure my upbringing (Which was rough and piverty stricken) would horrify people. The concept is society gets better as time goes on. I had it better than my grandfather did and my nieces and nephews have it better than I did.
But your partners expectation of child rearing would be more in line with you parents standards not yours. Do what you think is right for your child. But in 60 years what you do will most likely seem barbaric to your great grand children. Best of luck.
>our boy gets upset when he feels trapped or stuck, he gets upset, starts to cry and tells him ‘no’ repeatedly
aren’t these the most explicit signs a 2.5yo can give to an adult to make them understand that they’re not feeling comfortable with whatever the adult is doing?
>Any time I try to mention it my partner gets defensive
that’s highly concerning… he wouldn’t get defensive if there wasn’t anything to defend.
>He seems to constantly be in his phone lately. \[…\] I get it, he works full time in a stressful field and wants to switch off.
there’s other ways to switch off, like, all the ways he would if his phone was lost, or as he had done for most of his life, since he is in his 50s and that smartphones haven’t been around since too long.
>he was sitting watching something not age appropriate and our boy was standing and watching his phone as well
i won’t bother to make a search and find you links to prove this, but at 2.5yo, your kid should absolutely not be watching stuff on a smartphone, even when that’s someone else’s smartphone, even when he’s not holding it, definitely not before bed, and whatever “not age appropriate” thing he was watching, even less.
>He often has his headphones in and doesn’t hear us or see us.
it’s concerning how he is disconnected from you and your kid, either being on his phone, either with his headphones… sounds like he doesn’t care much about family time…
not sure if that means that he isn’t present with you, hiding something from you, too much in his head (you mentioned a stressful job), or that he’s a bit depressed or whatever, i don’t want to assume anything, but there’s something off around that.
>He grabbed him and flicked him on the side of his ear multiple times.
what, the, massive, actual, fuck!
this guy is a fuckin’ dad, and should be learning about education and children behavior!
since he loved being on his stupid phone watching stuff all day, maybe it’s time to ask different youtube channels for some advice, listen to podcasts or anything.
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>A few things like this have happened before and I cant stand it, I’m very against any kind of physical punishment, my PTSD is a big part of that.
well, PTSD or not, this is very clearly abusive. and if your partner continues to be abusive this way, your kid will develop C-PTSD, be sure of that.
>When I try to talk to him about it he feels nagged and like I’m picking on him, insulting his masculinity and ability to be a father. He gets defensive and shuts down even further. I dont know what to do.
he’s got to grow up, seriously.
on the side of that, explore communication techniques so you can make it easier for whatever you tell him to be received better.
\- learn about “non-violent communication”, how it works and why it works (stating a fact, communicating how that makes you feel, your request/need, how that would make things better) etc.
\- i know it’s difficult, but try to avoid using “you”. see how differently you react if you hear “you forgot to add the salt on the table” versus “we forgot to add the salt on the table” from your partner, friend, whatever. the first feels like you’re the problem, the other is a shared responsibility, it doesn’t matter who was supposed to bring the salt. what matters is to minimize the odds of the other person feeling picked on.
>Am I overreacting?
i would say the opposite, you’re under-reacting here!
i mean, i understand that being a mom is already a lot, and clearly, it’s not like you’re doing nothing about it, you did amazing trying to talk to him, going to therapy, sending videos, writing this post etc… just, you’ve got more work to do to solve this, unfortunately. the wellbeing and whole future of your kid depends on it.
seek for more help, he absolutely needs to grow the f’ up, learn parenting and be a better dad and partner.
>These are not the only incidences, but in between he’s great.
him being great in between doesn’t diminish how incredibly hurtful the things you mentioned are for your kid, let’s make that very clear.
hope that helps, and most importantly, that he will grow up a little and start to do better very soon! good luck!!
The father of your child is probably a good, decent person, but not mentally energetic enough to engage his child. He only knows now his own physical energy, or lack thereof, combined with his rough-housing. This does not in and of itself make him a bad man. But it does limit his emotional intimacy and connection, there are in essence physical barriers to his openness, ie he’d rather share his ‘quality time’ or engagement with his phone.
How can you fix or help this? Awareness is the first step, you should, in the least, express your desire that he be more emotionally engaged. But you should also understand too, that men, especially as they approach ‘middle age’ have learned to dis-engage themselves and ‘let go’ of the process or events occurring around them. It’s, in a way, the release of control.
Your middle aged ‘partner’ (not a fan of the word, personally) needs to be incentivized for his engagement with the child. His self-confidence and requirement as a father needs to be fostered as much as the child needs to be fostered. Is that fair? Not necessarily but it is needed and will need to be monitored.
What he needs to hear and appreciate is that his son has value, and that he needs to extoll what value he has left in him upon his son. He, in a way, needs to relearn that having an expectation leads to better things for all, and that your relationship as a mother and wife is also dependent upon these things.
Talk to a professional ASAP. I am not gonna try to convince you of anything, ill leave that to the professionals.
He seriously needs to listen to you/ your son when he says NO/STOP etc. You do not want your son growing up thinking its ok to keep pressing matters when people tell them no/ stop/ they don’t like something. Everyone’s got boundaries and they all need to be respected. Like even when I get my son in a laughing tickle fit , as soon as he says stooop!(crying laughing even) I immediately stop and say ok.(he usually wants to play again immediately but I won’t just assume)
Fuck, this post got me triggered.
I don’t know you or your partner. Maybe he’s sweet, maybe he’s a good person. I do not know, you have to judge it yourself.
But whatever you do and whatever you decide you need to know one thing.
Your child’s safety and wellbeing is the priority.
You’re the adult, you’re the mother, you’re responsible for this child. He can’t speak up for himself or defend himself. His comfort and safety is entirely on you.
I don’t care if the guy gives you butterflies or whatever. He might be the sweetest love bug to you, but it doesn’t matter if he’s not good for the child.
I’m not sure if that’s even the case with you. I’m only writing this because so many women think along the lines ‘Oh but I deserve happines too’. Yes you do. But until that child is all grown up and out of your house, the child’s happiness and safety should be the priority.
From today’s point of view , my childhood would be considered highly abusive . What you are describing would be like a non event for my generation . And although I don’t agree with everything my parents did , I also don’t see much benefits in the modern style parenting . Nowadays kids and youngsters don’t seem any happier and stronger than we were, quite the opposite . Somebody told me that they went out for a meal with their family and their 12 year old boy accidentally bit his tongue (no blood ) and cried his head off . She said that as much as she loves her grandson , she had to try very hard not to laugh . She sometimes compares her Ukrainian grandchildren with her British ones and although the ones in Ukraine have much tougher upbringing , they seem much happier, more resilient and supportive of their parents than the British ones. You and your husband are of a different generation and you need to remember that. So instead of always telling him what he does wrong , try to compromise a little and don’t get upset every time your kid gets upset . Being on the phone constantly is a different matter , that’s just many people’s modern day addiction and I am guilty of this myself . Maybe agreeing on some phone free time would be a good start .
The picking on him… I would expect he would notice it is affecting his relationship and adjust it. He has other children, so it’s not like this is new to him.
It sounds like he is an engaged parent. and just needs to find a better way to decompress. If that is the case, then working toward that end would probably be a more beneficial path. If you are still seeing the therapist, that is really the better place to get advice.