Yes agree a change can be refreshing, its a positive suggestion which may help matters too !

Good luck

Have you tried talking things out?
What about a weekend away? Would that help?

dontworrydarling wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 1:26 pmI'm afraid I tend to agree with Wong and noodle fan that it helps to think back to what put him in a good mood in the old days, before children. don't start by paying out cash to private counselling, as first option.
also I wouldn't really think that activities on his own would necessarily help. He may already feel a bit lonely in boring hotels on business trips.I don't know many men who like them.
Also to a competitive guy who is successful career wise, quitting his job is not an option for him or anyone around him, though reducing the business trips may be or changing role, may be.
Sounds trite but getting out in nature also helps, rather than cafés and newspapers which keep you in 'work' mode often.

May I say this is dangerous territory. As funny as it may sound the sex thing, I would never advice anyone to offer their bodies to calm another person. We may make an effort for the other person but sometimes if the effort is too big we feel taken advantage. This may have consequences on the mental health of the person making too much of an effort. 

The husband may be angry but there is a high price to be paid by the spouse who has to always be on guard and controlling that anger. Someone controlling an angry partner and trying to protect or control kids behaviour, is always in constant tension and fear. I cannot imagine something less arousing. 

As I said, we adults have options, kids do not. We can divorce an angry partner, kids cannot 'divorce' an angry parent, at least not easily. In the interest of the kids, he needs to learn what is acceptable and, preferably, kind. 
 

I'm afraid I tend to agree with Wong and noodle fan that it helps to think back to what put him in a good mood in the old days, before children. don't start by paying out cash to private counselling, as first option.
also I wouldn't really think that activities on his own would necessarily help. He may already feel a bit lonely in boring hotels on business trips.I don't know many men who like them.
Also to a competitive guy who is successful career wise, quitting his job is not an option for him or anyone around him, though reducing the business trips may be or changing role, may be.
Sounds trite but getting out in nature also helps, rather than cafés and newspapers which keep you in 'work' mode often.

Completely agree with the last 2 posts

His behaviour is grim. We all have a hard time with young children; it does get easier I promise.
But shouting at them because of work related stress is just awful. You are his precious family not his punching bag. The children won't always be little.

Eek - some of the messages here makes me think I’m reading a housewife conversation from the fifties!
Why on earth would you have to try to find a solution for your husband’s mood?! We are all responsible for our own behaviour and actions and to understand that they also affect people around us. This is 2022 after all.
You need to have a frank conversation with him and make him understand that this is not ok. Not a moan or an argument but an actual calm adult-to-adult conversation where you both are on the same level. Not you finding a solution on how you can make him happier. Often we all take the rubbish from our nearest and dearest but it’s not our job to just stay there as their emotional bin. Especially your children. It might be that he’s just got used to the fact that he can behave like this towards you and your children and needs a little shake to see what his behaviour is causing.
I totally think that as partners we should be supporting each other but if your work or other parts of the life are making you miserable and stressed, it’s for you to sort out yourself, never your partner.

This is a man who shouts at his children in the short hours he is with them.

There is being grumpy and there is also being depressed. And there is being bread winner and there is being the bread winner and still having reasonable relationship and parenting boundaries. While your husband may excuse his own grumpy behaviour to himself because of his job and earnings, if grumpy is your default at home, that also sounds / looks like someone who is clinically unhappy.

If I was this man’s friend or mum or dad, I would not want you, his wife, to cushion him from real life or from the reality of having a young family, just to buy him more time in this state. He needs to look at his actions and the impact they are having, and he needs to recognise that shouting at his kids is a phase that he must get out of now.

However much he earns or travels or works, if he is unhappy / depressed, and takes it all out on those closest to him, having more lie-ins and Saturdays with the newspaper won’t fix that or the relationship strains, it may just contain it for a bit longer.

It’s not healthy to work away a lot of the time and then come home and shout and shout, to the extent that your husband / wife feels she or he has to protect the children from it.

How you go about getting him and you some help for it, is up to you. Perhaps he could speak to his GP, get some talking therapy and look at his work options seriously. If he wants to change.

But please don’t try to fix him by walking on eggshells around him and letting him lie in and by avoiding any topics or events he finds stressful. You will end up by losing yourself in it - especially then if it doesn’t work and he carries on carrying so much stress home and shouting at the children and you.

StressedHusb wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 4:10 pmOh I am very much a woman thank you. I also have a job that would quite easily support my family without my husbands income.

All I have set out is how I recognise what my husband needs. I very much look after myself too and do not appreciate your immediate assumption about my circumstances or that my husband comes home to a home cooked meal, his slippers and pristine children.

Apologies. I am just very surprised that if you are also a full time working parent, you are happy for him to go and play golf one of the two days he is off. Golf takes most of the day, doesn't it? And my comments, btw, were not directed to you in particular.

Anyhow, I see a lot more golf and skiing trips being taken by dads than mums. And personally, I found being a parent a lot more stressful than any city job... I wonder if the husband's stress actually comes from parenting rather than his job... in which case, as I said, maybe not have kids unless you really really like parenting...

Oh I am very much a woman thank you. I also have a job that would quite easily support my family without my husbands income.

All I have set out is how I recognise what my husband needs. I very much look after myself too and do not appreciate your immediate assumption about my circumstances or that my husband comes home to a home cooked meal, his slippers and pristine children.

Here I am feeling for the women in Iran risking their lives to be able to show their hair, and I get to read the answers on this post encouraging the patriarchy...

Has he thought about quitting his job? Like most women do who cannot balance a powerful job with family obligations? May I remind us that the most powerful women on the planet (Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Tsai Ing-wen) have been childless for a reason? 

Women with powerful jobs and small children dont get to rest or play golf. They dont come back in the evenings to a clean house, a ready meal and the newspaper. Women either cope or quit. If we cannot cope with the stress or it is affecting our kids wellbeing, we quit. We put our priorities right and usually small children wellbeing comes first. And that is why there are so many more men in powerful jobs. We keep hearing that we cannot have it all but men think they can? Why? Why do they (and some women here) think men are entitled to a better treatment? Why are we enabling that unfair treatment that only damages our career prospects and that of our daughters?

My advice: get him to go to counselling to manage his stress or quit. If he cannot manage his stress he is not the right person for that job. If he really wants lots of money and the only way to get it is to have a stressful job, he should not have had kids, as we must not mistreat them. Condoms are cheap. If your husband quitting and finding a less stressful job does not cover the bills then you have to get a job yourself, or lower your bills. Your kids happiness should not have to suffer because of your overstretched lifestyle. 

Re getting a job: get it anyway, even if part time. Men have not got a good record of being grateful. If he leaves you or you leave him, any money he has to share in the divorce settlement will be ‘you taking him to the cleaners’. He wont remember those Saturdays playing golf or you controlling his temper and shielding it from the kids… And if he gets run over by a bus, what will you and the kids do?  Both spouses working always makes more sense. If one loses their job or has an accident, there is still one salary to look after the kids. 

Re the sex answer: we all need that, and as long as you also get pleasure then great… 

Above all, lets not lose perspective. We adults have options, kids have not. The priority here are the kids happiness and wellbeing, and the example we give them, specially about gender roles, for both girls and boys… Try sharing the weekends. He gets his lie in on Saturdays and you get it on Sundays. Get him the kids on his own on Sundays. He should be rested and will get him to forget work for a day. Sometimes we people are better when there is no one there to care about our moaning. 

If you get him out of family responsibilities, the very few times he will have to deal with the kids he will feel entitled to be an arsehole and you would have enabled him.  And he will be like that with the kids if you divorce. He needs to know what behaviour is acceptable AND free from social services intervention…

StressedHusb: I dont believe you are a woman. 

As an occasionally stressed husband, I can relate to much of this and to many of the helpful posts in reply - especially the wise words of StressedHusb. 

There are so many things at play, in theory: his work environment; the home environment; how he feels in this moment, at his stage in life. I have a friend who travels constantly on business and I have noticed that he expects to live his life on a much more 'adult' level all the time, thus making fewer allowances for the constant interruptions and peccadilloes of children. I have had my fair share of time at home with kids, but I can get grumpy when 'adult time' seems to be forsaken. 

I think that if he is constantly working and travelling in order to bring him the bacon and you divide your share of family responsibilities in reasonably equal measure, then he is to some extent entitled to be less than bright and shiny if he doesn't feel that the other half of the bargain is being fulfilled. He may also be much more detached from the world of fatherhood than you realise. 

Maybe you need to organise some enforced time together, but away from the children, so that you can talk and express your concerns. Allow him to walk a mile in your shoes - and also listen to his concerns, try to put yourself in his shoes. Good luck. 

Do you have times when you are alone with your husband when you could sit down and have a chat with him to tell him how you are feeling. Maybe you could go out on a date night with him without the children and have a conversation. Or you could get someone to look after your children and go away for a nice relaxing weekend with your husband. Are you always disagreeing with him? You should find out what your rights are by going to a family lawyer.

dchwong that made me chuckle - but maybe he’s pretending to be grumpy more than if you didn’t use those tactics

I try and have sex with my husband when he is in that mood. Honestly, it works! Alongside all the other suggestions, this one gives instant results
for us both. There is no quicker way to show appreciation, love, care and increase self esteem for a stressed primary financier. Cheaper than counselling too hee hee

I have been through this exact scenario.

It turned out to have its roots in a chronic lack of Vitamin D. This made him extremely tired and unable to cope

I would strongly advise a blood test.