I decided to go out. The children had been begging me to go out walking: to the beach, for a bush walk, so I asked them to come. They turned me down, saying they’d rather watch videos on their iPads instead.
I left anyway, hoping that it’d give my wife a chance to work on her relationship with the kids while I was gone.
I was wrong, so wrong.
While I was out, thereWas an incident with some milk. My wife refused my son a drink of milk, so he helped himself by opening a new carton from the cupboard. This enraged my wife and she screamed at him, apparently.
There was an incident where my daughter threw a knife across the room. She got screamed at for that.
I returned at lunchtime to find them all still in their pyjamas. And all still hostile with one another, especially my wife who was also furious with me for leaving!
Later in the day, I needed a distraction for the kids to divert them while I prepared dinner. I asked them to sit on the couch and read books for a bit. They were scatty about it so I sat with them and had them each read to me. That was fine, they both sat while each read their book. Cool. Then I suggested my wife continued reading them their ongoing chapter book. They got started and the kids were distracted and fidgety and disappeared. She tried to call them back but couldn’t. After that they caused a bunch of mischief in the bedroom. (I don’t remember if they got yelled at for that).
The kids very clearly have a way they behave for me and a different (disrespectful and ‘naughty’) way they behave for her.
I don’t mention these incidents just to point out that my wife is a yelly parent and I’m a good parent. No, it’s to illustrate the frustration I feel at not being able to leave the kids in her care. I feel I can’t leave the house for fear of conflict beginning whenever my back is turned. Sometimes if I even go to the toilet, I can hear conflict eruprlting while I’m on the can! It’s scary to think that the thing that stands between our nice family and all-out screaming war is my temper! This is an ongoing frustration that I face.
