As I expected, the weekend was harder to get through than the week. Was I dreading the weekend because I knew I’d be spending more time with the kids than on weekdays? Or was I dreading the weekend because I knew it’d be time with the kids and their mum all together?
Saturday morning I had to seperate 2 fighting kids. I was trying to do the laundry and couldn’t focus on diverting them into a productive activity. I got flustered because my wife was awake lying in bed as is her usual weekend morning wont. I removed the iPad and took my daughter to the park as an outlet for my/her/our frustration. My sone went to ground and wouldn’t go, but daughter was happy to get out of the house for a while.
We had a nice time together- unfortunately she didn’t want to kick footy for long and then she explored the playground (not so frustration-alleviating for me). Still my daughter and I were getting along well. When my wife showed up so we could go vote was when my daughter turned. She became sooky, tired, grizzly, etc. I got frustrated with that and angrily tried to snap her out of it bus, as vowed, I did not raise my voice.
I had a very acute awareness of the anger building. It is a thing I do to try to ‘rescue’ my wife from badly behaving children. I jump in and seperate them from mum, and if I can’t get my own positive relationship back, I turn nasty, blaming the kid for the conflict with mum - that it’s their misbehaviour I’m cross about. Sometimes it’s physical mistreatment: grab, snatch, grip, squeeze, pull * and it was again Saturday. I tried to grab my daughters hand and my plan was to squeeze tight. Luckily she evaded my grip.
Sunday I took my son to Officeworks for a school project and when we were out my wife and daughter had a screaming session one against the other. I returned and offered to take the kids by myself to the birthday party. My wife stayed home and later revealed that she could feel herself become calm the minute the kids were gone.
Our outing was fine and I could also feel a lack of tension. Some missing anxiety of conflict. I felt I knew that if I asked the kids to do something, they’d comply. We had a disagreement over the playroom as we were leaving but they were ok with it. If my wife was there we’d have all been in conflict over it I reckon. Me, her, them.
All these conflict have a common antagonist. š This reveals an unhappy truth that I will have to face at some point soon...
* nb: never hit, smack...
