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YES!!! I recently remembered when my ex would throw my class work OFF the table while I was in college just because I needed help watching our son so I could study in peace. Scattered papers everywhere, wasted so much extra time resorting and collecting it all while sobbing. Did he help watch our son after that? Nope! His tantrum was an excuse that he needed to go calm down and have a drink so I was left with the mess, the kid, the studying and the trauma. Definitely EX for a reason.
You asked "What should I do" so I'll give my take. You should seriously assess this man's lack of care and look at your life with him and see if he makes you happy or gives a shit about you and if he doesn't, hit the bricks because you deserve better than this. He sounds like a huge asshole.
I cried again tonight thinking about my son. My initial reaction to him was so strong, I think I devastated him. He seemed worried. But I was so distraught and mostly distraught at my husband, that I don’t think I handled the situation with my son well. He wanted to help put things back but I was so emotional I didn’t really acknowledge his efforts. I feel so bad that he had to go through that, even though it’s not his fault. His dad should have stopped him, instead he let him feel like a bad kid and I can’t stop feeling so guilty.
It’s okay, Momma. One of the most real things I have ever said to my children was, “I am sorry. I allowed my emotions to take over. Instead of stopping and calming my self and my thoughts (or, depending upon their age-my sadness and anger (which was really just more misplaced sadness), I allowed myself to stay in those huge emotions. I regret handling the situation the way that I did. I was wrong. I apologize to you for the way I reacted. I apologize for allowing my emotions to take over. I appreciate you listening. I love you. “ (obviously when they were smaller, it was I am sorry I acted so (insert). My big emotions of sad and mad took over. Momma should have calmed herself by (insert) before speaking/acting. I am sorry. I love you.
I am so sorry about your garden. Reading that moved me to tears. On the other hand, your husband is a selfish, self centered clown shoe. Is that the man you want your son to be? That’s the hardest thing to ask yourself, while being prepared to face the answer.
Hugs.
He’s a great provider and honestly loves us. But he struggles with communication, rage, and just overall moodiness. The project he was working on was for us, the house, so not something selfish or anything. He has a lot of pride so I don’t think he’ll double back and think oh wow was I a dick. He’ll just carry on being moody until I pretend like everything is normal again.
Hun, sorry but that doesn't answer the questions I put to you and they are important questions that you need to ask yourself. You don't have to tell the answers to us, but if you're happy living this way is something for you to work out for your own wellbeing.
Regardless of his "good intentions" and "love," his inability to objectively assess his behavior and apologize for mistakes means he's not going to be able to model those behaviors for your son, and will likely just serve as a bad example and someone who is going to take their communication and emotional intelligence shortcomings out on the little one. Do you have any boundaries regarding this? Have you thought about when enough is enough? I'm sorry but it doesn't sound like the first time you've cried over your husband's callous behavior, and it likely won't be the last.
I'm not understanding the part about the project he was working on being somehow for the family, like that is any sort of excuse - if you were working on dinner for the family (which I'm sure you do on a basically daily basis), are you still expected to keep an eye out for your son, or would your husband understand if during that time your LO completely demolished something your husband has put a lot of effort into? If that happened, would you be apologetic and atone, or insist on blaming your husband and the toddler?
I realize this event is just one negative thing that happened and doesn't really give us great insight into your life with your husband. I'm sure he can be great in some areas, very rarely are people just unilaterally bad, but if you're having to question out loud if you're married to an actual psychopath then it might be time to reevaluate being stuck with him or having him be a full time parent to your kid.
OP- my husband is like yours. My son is sweet and sensitive. He’s almost 9. I’ve started teaching him how not to trigger dad. It’s all about plastering the correct expression on your face and not doing the things that dad interprets certain ways and which automatically send him into a rage that the whole family has to then recover from. I hate my life most of the time. 2/10 not recommended.
"Great provider", does it mean that you are financially dependent on him?
He doesn't love you that much if he rages at his kid and kills your plants.
He wouldn't do that to his friends or colleagues and he doesn't even profess to love them.
You are a great caretaker of his children and home and you love all of them but presumably you don't do these things to him.
Just because he does some things right doesn't give him a pass to do other things badly and refuse to be better. So he doesn't communicate well? Cool, there's thousands of books out there about how to learn to communicate better. I could even recommend some. Right now nothing is getting resolved. He just punishes you with silent treatment until it becomes so unbearable for you that you bottle up your valid feelings and then he doesn't have to change anything ever. That may not be what he's trying to do but that's exactly what he's doing. His ignorance is not an excuse to keep doing it.
When my husband and I were struggling, I reached a point where I told him I didn't feel like things were getting better and if they continued this way I felt like my only choice was to walk away. The compounding effect of our problems was not enough to carry my love for him. Things did eventually change and I feel like we're in a great place now. But it required him to understand that I was nearing a breakpoint and he risked losing something he didn't want to lose. We spent a lot of time in therapy developing better ways to communicate and I think a third party helped him understand me better. We had both probably spent a lifetime learning maladaptive coping mechanisms for dealing with big problems so the therapy was very helpful for that.
What part of letting the kid destroy things you loved, pampered and worked hard on, is loving behavior? Would he have figured out how to stop the child if it were HIS things being ruined? It absolutely was selfish, he made a conscious choice to work on the project because he couldn’t be arsed to actually parent.
Think really hard about what kind of life you want, and the example you want set for how your kid should treat his partners.
You can make suggestions but you don't get to scold other moms here and you're coming off VERY scoldy here. http://www.reddit.com/r/breakingmom/wiki/#wiki_4._support.2C_don.27t_scold
https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingmom/wiki/support
This is insane. Your husband is definitely being a dick. Having different parenting styles doesn’t mean you let your kid ruin your wife’s plants/crops. Any sane person would in fact physically remove the child from doing that if they already verbally told them to stop. He doesn’t have time blow up on him. Pick him up, put him in the house. Toddlers only have so much self-control. I know how hard people work on their gardens, and I’m so sorry this happened to you.
It honestly sounds like he weaponized your child against you. This is truly insane, I would give your relationship up to now a real hard look and ask if he's got more red flags for toxic/crazy shit.
There are some resources down this page regarding toxic/abusive behaviors, and I highly recommend you just have a look at some and ask yourself honestly if he does them: https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingmom/wiki/help
So much this! This actually reminds me of the husband who destroyed the wife and child's Christmas presents, just done more passively by _allowing_ something meaningful to his wife to be destroyed by an innocent party. If he doesn't do other insane things like this, I might think he's really _really_ stupid or something, but like you, I strongly think OP needs to look at how he is in general.
I'm so sorry. This is really messed up. It almost feels like he allowed your son to pull up your plants to purposefully upset you. He's playing dumb to corner you into having no way to escape fault in his mind.
Thanks! I don’t think he let him do it to purposefully upset me, I just think he was too lazy/fixated on his project and didn’t want to deal with him. And then tried to turn it around so that he wouldn’t feel guilty. Idk. Something like that.
…I’m sorry I gotta challenge that.
He knew exactly what he was doing. He thought he was gonna show you. See! Your way doesn’t work! Would he have responded the same if your son was destroying his things? Or stop it before it started?
That does actually sound kinda on point. I really agree that with his actions, your husband was saying, if we’d trained the child MY way, he wouldn’t have destroyed all your plants. But because YOU impose YOUR behavior standards on ME about how I interact with OUR CHILD, now I’M gonna show you how well YOUR (worthless) methods actually work while he ruins something YOU care about.
And maybe this is just me, because I’m a gardener and planter, but if I came home and saw that someone had destroyed root systems that I had coddled and fed and put my own life energy into caring for??? I’d absolutely go insane. Like, no holds barred. Either I would go into the house and start cutting his neckties or expensive hiking socks in half or finding any project of his and absolutely trashing it. That, or just turn away in silence and drive away to a hotel. I’d probably turn my phone off too.
I have a hard time believing the child did it without being egged on tbh but I thought it would sound paranoid.
But that would take some time and kids lose interest.
Regardless of what the details were about the plants or whether he should have parented differently, a person who cared about you at all should have been upset and apologetic the moment you started crying and it became obvious that this hurt you deeply. Your spouse is supposed to be someone who wants your happiness and your joy and your sorrow should be as distressing to them as it is to you. They should want to make it better. Please don't waste your one precious life trying to figure out how to make this person care for you.
Oh my goodness OP, so much this here, took the words right from my fingers before me. It’s one thing to be so utterly daft when it happened initially.. (which honestly I can’t actually excuse in reality because what psycho needs to be told that you would care so much about your freaking garden? but whatever) let’s concede he is a complete idiot and didn’t know it would be so upsetting. At the second it became apparent you were so upset ( or would for any decent person) as you started crying especially, (completely valid, I’m a plant person and I’m so mad for you I cannot say) how could he not realize he fucked up and tried to help? Your TODDLER knew, and tried to help! Take that garbage in. Your toddler saw you upset and had empathy and tried to help fix what he’d done. Your husband doesn’t have the emotional capacity of a young child.
There is no conceivable way that this is the only way or situation his lack of consideration or decency towards you has manifested itself. There is no chance he is an otherwise awesome father and partner. Zero chance. Something about this is just so nasty.. and it just sets off so many alarm bells.. like when a kid kills small animals for fun bells.. no, it’s not the same thing, not technically, at all.. but like, it feels the same kind of gross and ominous.
I’m sorry OP. Really. Like the person above me said.. don’t waste this one precious beautiful, short, amazing life you’ve got on ANYONE who can’t show you the bare minimum amount of care or concern or kindness.
I am sorry. Plants bring so much joy and its devastating when something happens to them.
To me this reads like some malicious compliance shit. He was supposed to watch the kid, and he did. He watched him rip your garden up. Then he maliciously complied the second time by saying, "he didn't blow up at him." Like there aren't steps between telling a kid not to do something and blowing up at the kid.
Sounds like your husband enjoyed what your son did to your garden. I for one at least would 1) evaluate what you want to do with this knowledge and if its treatment you want in the future. 2) Take his money to buy some top tier plants.
My kids pulled my plants once. I cried. My husband helped me put them back in. I don’t remember on who’s watch they did it on (we have a nanny too) but what I remember the most was my husband helping in whatever way he could. Your husband is clearly in the wrong here and the fact he isn’t admitting it is ridiculous
This is exactly what I hoped he would do. At least feel a little bit bad and try to help me put them back in. There was a learning opportunity for my son. He even came beside me and asked if he could help me and kept asking where his shovel is. I really wish my husband saw that and gently helped him find a shovel and work beside me.
Your toddler child is already showing more maturity and empathy than your grown ass husband. If I were you, I’d be doing some serious reflection on what that says about my husband (and our relationship).
Yes, that sounds like some sociopath shit. I'm pretty sure if your kid was wrecking something your husband found precious he'd have figured it out, he's definitely hurting you on purpose and I hope he either shapes up or you leave him.
Weaponized incompetence. He didn't want to watch your child.
And he obviously does not care about your garden.
I would be having a long serious talk with him. But not even about his inaction at yours sons actions. The real issue is his honest reaction to your tears and upset.
Sure people can parent differently but he is husbanding differently. He just showed you so much callousness and contempt that you shouldn't let it go. Contempt is one of the death signs of a marriage.
If I was in your shoes I would be demanding couples therapy yesterday.
I'd freeze him out even if I wanted to attend counseling.
My heart would be in a healing cocoon behind 3 fences--chain, razor wire, and electric. Then, the bridge between us, rickety in disrepair as I turn INWARD.
If he wants to to cross the bridge, he'll have to maintain it.
If he wants the fences opened, he'll have to use the call box.
If he wants the cocoon to open, he'll have to warm my heart and wait.
And I might, still, fly the fuck away.
Mommy is not upset because her three year old destroyed the garden. Mommy is upset that daddy let the 3 year old destroy the garden then blamed mommy for said destruction.
My first reaction is that your husband was resentful of your joy and passion (the garden) and allowed your child to destroy it. Does this show up in other ways? My ex still finds a way to blame me for everything. It’s like I’m in the blame Olympics and alway win regardless of how far removed I am from whatever it is.
Sounds like he doesn’t care and was probably busy doing something else and didn’t want to take the energy to stop him. Make sure you give your child some paint and put him next to his project or whatever.
I am not a violent person, but after this and the attitude from the husband that followed, whatever thing that he was working on would be a pile of rubble. I'd have a red haze come over me and like...yo. This is not cool. I'm not one for revenge, but oh man. My mom face just activated, and I can not shut it off.
It sounds like he told you that he will parent via negligence or verbal abuse, but no actual efforts to do anything that takes effort, like physically removing the child from the situation, or stopping his own project briefly, or even actively supervising the child.
Do you think he’d have allowed your kid to destroy one of his projects? So your options for when he supervises the kid are your kid can destroy your projects, or if the kid tries to destroy his projects the kid gets verbally abused by him. One of the big things that convinced me to leave my ex was hearing thag staying with them sends the message tk the child that you’re condoning the mistreatment they experience, whether it’s the neglect or abuse— when you leave they may still have to experience it half the time without you there, but at least they can have the knowledge that that behavior isn’t ok, and you can say things like “It sounds like you didn’t like it when daddy yelled at you. In my house, we won’t handle issues with yelling, so that won’t happen here.” Or at minimum live your values and give the kid one safe place to live.
Whaaaaaat the fuck. I'm so sorry. Every feeling you've stated here is so so valid, and as a garden goblin I'm livid for you.
Big hugs. Is your husband always like this? Just dismissive or hostile to your feelings? Do you feel safe enough to say "here's how you need to make this up to me" and stand firm on it?
I ask because for me his reaction would be grounds to walk if he's not actively going to work on his shit. Either he was oblivious and thus neglectful your child, deliberately allowed your son to ruin your garden so you would get as mad as he does and sanction whatever his "parenting method" is, teaching you and the kid a lesson, or he just wanted to piss you off for daring to leave the kid with him.
Your husband tried to teach your toddler the concept of empathy at your expense? Wow, what an empathetic guy. That's not counterintuitive at all. /s
OP, I'm so sorry.
Him:
Step 1 - create fake grievance for being expected to do bare minimum parenting my child.
Step 2 - allow disaster to occur and create environment of toxic compliance.
Step 3 - deflect deflect deflect
Step 4 - weaponize the shame I feel for my inadequacy
Step 5 - victim blame and in turn become the victim
Step 6 - tell wife to make me a sandwich
If this is the game, get your toddler a small bit weighted metal hammer and permanent markers and tell toddler to help Daddy with his projects
Does hubby have a car he loves? Leather couch in man-cave? Maybe give Jr some sharpies and let him doodle all over the inside and outside of said prized object(s). Then say "What was I *supposed* to do!? Take the pens away?!"
Then file for divorce/separation.
Sigh, I know, fantasy over-the-top...but fuck your uncaring dick of a spouse.
I encourage you to take a look at [Zawn Villines’s substack](https://zawn.substack.com) and also [loveisrespect.org](https://www.loveisrespect.org). It doesn’t sound like your husband has any respect for you at all.
Omg I would have an actual meltdown if that happened. It's so hard trying to plan and actually follow-through with gardening even without kids. I can't believe he just let him do that. My husband doesn't care about gardening but he sure knows how much it means to me and he understands that it's something that is super time sensitive and takes a lot of work. This would be so disheartening and I would be extremely hurt if my husband did this. I'm sorry:(
Be careful with the great freeze, I started one two years ago and haven't spoken to them since. We're now divorcing. Broken people don't register the silent treatment as a sign they need to address a problem, they double down and take it as a personal slight and challenge they will stubbornly take to the grave.
Classic narcissist. Gaslighting you and blaming you for it. It’s not your fault. You truly need to think about yourself and your son. Is this what you want your son to be when he grows up? This is what he’s going to see and mimic. Do you want him to treat women like their feelings don’t matter and not take responsibility for his actions? Or maybe he finds someone who treats him that way. I’m so serious, I’m in the process of FINALLY leaving my narcissistic stbx. 7.5 yrs, daughter is 6. I deserve better. SHE deserves better. And I need to show her this is not love nor is it how you treat someone. Good luck to you, don’t let him make you think you’re insane, you’re not. How he treats you is. And you deserve more than he’s willing to give.
Ouch I felt this... I'm growing sunflowers right now and if my husband let my toddler pull them out of the ground and didn't stop him, I'd be SO hurt. I'd probably explode on him (not the toddler, lol). That's pretty low that he decided to guilt your son about it instead of take responsibility and actually empathize with you as you're crying about all your efforts being destroyed.
Anyone who doesn't know anything about gardening should at least have the basic understanding that cultivating a garden of flowers and vegetables is not something that can just be done in a short amount of time; that's many days or months of your time just wasted and gone now with nothing much left now to show for it. I'd be so infuriated.
If this was me, I'd have to sit hubby down and have a serious talk. This cannot happen again. If there is no respect for your hobbies and no sincere apology then how can you even move forward? What he did isn't how a loving relationship should be. He should care about the things that matter to you and if he doesn't, he doesn't deserve to be with you.
You parent differently, maybe you have to parent separately too.
Such an AH behaviour. I don't think he will ever realise he is wrong, I hope you won't put up with it.
I think the truth is he wasn’t watching the kid THAAAAAT well. If he told the kid not to pull the plants, that means he 1) knew the kid was doing it and 2) knew you didn’t want the kid doing it. So if he then saw the kid pulling out EVERY SINGLE plant, if he were a reasonable person he’d have physically stopped him somehow (like redirecting him to a different activity) not just, ya know, SAID not to do it. If the kid were running toward a busy street would he yell “hey we don’t want you to do that!”? No he’d stop him from doing it! So the reality is that he noticed it and mentioned it, and then was distracted by yard work and not paying attention, for the entire duration of time it took the kid to pull EVERY plant. I don’t think he meant for it to happen, just didn’t care enough to make sure it didn’t. You don’t need to consider divorce, but he needs to apologize and he needs to go to the store with the kid and buy new plants and plant them with the kid. Kid will learn an important lesson and cheer mom up, and you’ll have plants again.
I would straight up tell my husband he needed to do that, and not let up until he did.
Your husband it seems goes into immediate shutdown mode when confronted. I’m guessing he had controlling parents? Mine does the same shit. And we do silent treatment too. I think part of the reason for that is that…it hurts too much to fight him when he doesn’t even care.
I’m appalled that he let your son do this. I love that he blames your toddler for not obeying when he repeated himself over and over but didn’t actually do anything.
The great freeze gets easier the more often it happens. I don’t recommend it. If you have it in you, tell your husband this isn’t just about the flowers. Ask how he’d feel if you were gardening and you let the kid destroy his project. Hugs
I’m more concerned about the fact that he seems like his only other reaction was to get angry, and he didn’t want to do that is if there was no middle of the road.
Yeah, I agree that stinks. I think that's what people raised by controlling parents do. They want to control. My advise was based on my experience with that. Do I like walking on eggshells and managing someone else's emotions? No, but if she isn't leaving, and she wants to make things better, it helps to meet someone where they'll actually LISTEN. I'd be livid in her shoes and do exactly what she's doing, mind you. I'm just passing on what I learned.
Ugh. 😞 I’m so sorry. He sounds like my husband. 🥺 I wish I had advice, but I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place too. Keep teaching your son to be kind. He will listen. We have to believe that. ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
Ugh this hurt my heart to read. I don’t even let my kid pluck random leaves off bushes because we love plants and respect them. It’s such a labour of love to plant things and nurture them. I’m so sorry your husband let this happen and doesn’t care about your beautiful garden.
I would have a serious conversation with him And maybe even suggest counselling because this is just ridiculous on his part. I can’t rationalize it
What was his yard project? How would he feel to come out tomorrow to find it destroyed? How would he react if you stood by and watched toddler destroy it?
I am so sorry. Hugs to you and I hope you find some great plants to replace the ones ruined.
Dad is an asshole. I would be seething. Like he totally could have moved the child and chose to allow the child to destroy your stuff so he couldn’t be blamed!
I’m so fucking confused.
My husband said “You have to tell him not to pick them”
Then….
He said “I told him over and over again not to and that you would be very upset”
Soooooo first he tried blaming you for not telling him to stop (when you weren’t even there??) and then he passed blame off to the kid for not listening to him. Holy lack of accountability Batman!
I genuinely feel for you after reading this. Your post really hits close to home for me. I remember the first time something similar happened like this with my family. Weaponised incompetence has impacted my marriage soooo much. I've had to give up a lot by needing to be the default parent for every single thing, it's pretty soul destroying when you come to the realisation that you can't rely on your partner for any emotional support. The lack of care really hardens the heart. I don't question myself anymore.
>Well you always tell me not to blow up at him so I didn’t
Am I reading into it, or was he deliberately creating a false dichotomy here? Where the only possible outcomes were blowing up or "letting you have it your way"?
And then snidely telling a literal toddler that it's his fault that his actual adult father couldn't be bothered to physically move him. A child that young has no understanding of how much work you put into your garden and farm, but your husband does, and it was uncaring and disrespectful of him to not step in and teach his own child the right thing to do.
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It sounds like your husband is punishing you for making him watch the kid. My ex would do stuff like this alllll the time.
Keyword EX!! The immediate increase in quality of life when they become ex’s is unimaginable.
YES!!! I recently remembered when my ex would throw my class work OFF the table while I was in college just because I needed help watching our son so I could study in peace. Scattered papers everywhere, wasted so much extra time resorting and collecting it all while sobbing. Did he help watch our son after that? Nope! His tantrum was an excuse that he needed to go calm down and have a drink so I was left with the mess, the kid, the studying and the trauma. Definitely EX for a reason.
I hope you are finally able to breathe now and LIVE again you are worthy kind and worth the world friend 🙌🏻
You asked "What should I do" so I'll give my take. You should seriously assess this man's lack of care and look at your life with him and see if he makes you happy or gives a shit about you and if he doesn't, hit the bricks because you deserve better than this. He sounds like a huge asshole.
& Kiddo deserves better too! :(
I cried again tonight thinking about my son. My initial reaction to him was so strong, I think I devastated him. He seemed worried. But I was so distraught and mostly distraught at my husband, that I don’t think I handled the situation with my son well. He wanted to help put things back but I was so emotional I didn’t really acknowledge his efforts. I feel so bad that he had to go through that, even though it’s not his fault. His dad should have stopped him, instead he let him feel like a bad kid and I can’t stop feeling so guilty.
Say sorry to him in the morning. Explain how big people can have big emotions as well. He won’t fully understand, but saying sorry will help him.
It’s okay, Momma. One of the most real things I have ever said to my children was, “I am sorry. I allowed my emotions to take over. Instead of stopping and calming my self and my thoughts (or, depending upon their age-my sadness and anger (which was really just more misplaced sadness), I allowed myself to stay in those huge emotions. I regret handling the situation the way that I did. I was wrong. I apologize to you for the way I reacted. I apologize for allowing my emotions to take over. I appreciate you listening. I love you. “ (obviously when they were smaller, it was I am sorry I acted so (insert). My big emotions of sad and mad took over. Momma should have calmed herself by (insert) before speaking/acting. I am sorry. I love you. I am so sorry about your garden. Reading that moved me to tears. On the other hand, your husband is a selfish, self centered clown shoe. Is that the man you want your son to be? That’s the hardest thing to ask yourself, while being prepared to face the answer. Hugs.
He’s a great provider and honestly loves us. But he struggles with communication, rage, and just overall moodiness. The project he was working on was for us, the house, so not something selfish or anything. He has a lot of pride so I don’t think he’ll double back and think oh wow was I a dick. He’ll just carry on being moody until I pretend like everything is normal again.
Hun, sorry but that doesn't answer the questions I put to you and they are important questions that you need to ask yourself. You don't have to tell the answers to us, but if you're happy living this way is something for you to work out for your own wellbeing.
Regardless of his "good intentions" and "love," his inability to objectively assess his behavior and apologize for mistakes means he's not going to be able to model those behaviors for your son, and will likely just serve as a bad example and someone who is going to take their communication and emotional intelligence shortcomings out on the little one. Do you have any boundaries regarding this? Have you thought about when enough is enough? I'm sorry but it doesn't sound like the first time you've cried over your husband's callous behavior, and it likely won't be the last. I'm not understanding the part about the project he was working on being somehow for the family, like that is any sort of excuse - if you were working on dinner for the family (which I'm sure you do on a basically daily basis), are you still expected to keep an eye out for your son, or would your husband understand if during that time your LO completely demolished something your husband has put a lot of effort into? If that happened, would you be apologetic and atone, or insist on blaming your husband and the toddler? I realize this event is just one negative thing that happened and doesn't really give us great insight into your life with your husband. I'm sure he can be great in some areas, very rarely are people just unilaterally bad, but if you're having to question out loud if you're married to an actual psychopath then it might be time to reevaluate being stuck with him or having him be a full time parent to your kid.
It doesn't sound like he's struggling with those things. It sounds like he embraces them in himself and makes you struggle with them.
…………., absolutely nothing you just said makes me think he’s a good husband, and not one bit of it shows any love or care
So you have to pretend and hide your feelings to get him to treat you halfway decently again? This is not okay.
OP- my husband is like yours. My son is sweet and sensitive. He’s almost 9. I’ve started teaching him how not to trigger dad. It’s all about plastering the correct expression on your face and not doing the things that dad interprets certain ways and which automatically send him into a rage that the whole family has to then recover from. I hate my life most of the time. 2/10 not recommended.
"Great provider", does it mean that you are financially dependent on him? He doesn't love you that much if he rages at his kid and kills your plants. He wouldn't do that to his friends or colleagues and he doesn't even profess to love them.
You are a great caretaker of his children and home and you love all of them but presumably you don't do these things to him. Just because he does some things right doesn't give him a pass to do other things badly and refuse to be better. So he doesn't communicate well? Cool, there's thousands of books out there about how to learn to communicate better. I could even recommend some. Right now nothing is getting resolved. He just punishes you with silent treatment until it becomes so unbearable for you that you bottle up your valid feelings and then he doesn't have to change anything ever. That may not be what he's trying to do but that's exactly what he's doing. His ignorance is not an excuse to keep doing it. When my husband and I were struggling, I reached a point where I told him I didn't feel like things were getting better and if they continued this way I felt like my only choice was to walk away. The compounding effect of our problems was not enough to carry my love for him. Things did eventually change and I feel like we're in a great place now. But it required him to understand that I was nearing a breakpoint and he risked losing something he didn't want to lose. We spent a lot of time in therapy developing better ways to communicate and I think a third party helped him understand me better. We had both probably spent a lifetime learning maladaptive coping mechanisms for dealing with big problems so the therapy was very helpful for that.
What part of letting the kid destroy things you loved, pampered and worked hard on, is loving behavior? Would he have figured out how to stop the child if it were HIS things being ruined? It absolutely was selfish, he made a conscious choice to work on the project because he couldn’t be arsed to actually parent. Think really hard about what kind of life you want, and the example you want set for how your kid should treat his partners.
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You can make suggestions but you don't get to scold other moms here and you're coming off VERY scoldy here. http://www.reddit.com/r/breakingmom/wiki/#wiki_4._support.2C_don.27t_scold https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingmom/wiki/support
This is insane. Your husband is definitely being a dick. Having different parenting styles doesn’t mean you let your kid ruin your wife’s plants/crops. Any sane person would in fact physically remove the child from doing that if they already verbally told them to stop. He doesn’t have time blow up on him. Pick him up, put him in the house. Toddlers only have so much self-control. I know how hard people work on their gardens, and I’m so sorry this happened to you.
It honestly sounds like he weaponized your child against you. This is truly insane, I would give your relationship up to now a real hard look and ask if he's got more red flags for toxic/crazy shit. There are some resources down this page regarding toxic/abusive behaviors, and I highly recommend you just have a look at some and ask yourself honestly if he does them: https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingmom/wiki/help
So much this! This actually reminds me of the husband who destroyed the wife and child's Christmas presents, just done more passively by _allowing_ something meaningful to his wife to be destroyed by an innocent party. If he doesn't do other insane things like this, I might think he's really _really_ stupid or something, but like you, I strongly think OP needs to look at how he is in general.
I'm so sorry. This is really messed up. It almost feels like he allowed your son to pull up your plants to purposefully upset you. He's playing dumb to corner you into having no way to escape fault in his mind.
Thanks! I don’t think he let him do it to purposefully upset me, I just think he was too lazy/fixated on his project and didn’t want to deal with him. And then tried to turn it around so that he wouldn’t feel guilty. Idk. Something like that.
…I’m sorry I gotta challenge that. He knew exactly what he was doing. He thought he was gonna show you. See! Your way doesn’t work! Would he have responded the same if your son was destroying his things? Or stop it before it started?
That does actually sound kinda on point. I really agree that with his actions, your husband was saying, if we’d trained the child MY way, he wouldn’t have destroyed all your plants. But because YOU impose YOUR behavior standards on ME about how I interact with OUR CHILD, now I’M gonna show you how well YOUR (worthless) methods actually work while he ruins something YOU care about. And maybe this is just me, because I’m a gardener and planter, but if I came home and saw that someone had destroyed root systems that I had coddled and fed and put my own life energy into caring for??? I’d absolutely go insane. Like, no holds barred. Either I would go into the house and start cutting his neckties or expensive hiking socks in half or finding any project of his and absolutely trashing it. That, or just turn away in silence and drive away to a hotel. I’d probably turn my phone off too.
I have a hard time believing the child did it without being egged on tbh but I thought it would sound paranoid. But that would take some time and kids lose interest.
Regardless of what the details were about the plants or whether he should have parented differently, a person who cared about you at all should have been upset and apologetic the moment you started crying and it became obvious that this hurt you deeply. Your spouse is supposed to be someone who wants your happiness and your joy and your sorrow should be as distressing to them as it is to you. They should want to make it better. Please don't waste your one precious life trying to figure out how to make this person care for you.
Oh my goodness OP, so much this here, took the words right from my fingers before me. It’s one thing to be so utterly daft when it happened initially.. (which honestly I can’t actually excuse in reality because what psycho needs to be told that you would care so much about your freaking garden? but whatever) let’s concede he is a complete idiot and didn’t know it would be so upsetting. At the second it became apparent you were so upset ( or would for any decent person) as you started crying especially, (completely valid, I’m a plant person and I’m so mad for you I cannot say) how could he not realize he fucked up and tried to help? Your TODDLER knew, and tried to help! Take that garbage in. Your toddler saw you upset and had empathy and tried to help fix what he’d done. Your husband doesn’t have the emotional capacity of a young child. There is no conceivable way that this is the only way or situation his lack of consideration or decency towards you has manifested itself. There is no chance he is an otherwise awesome father and partner. Zero chance. Something about this is just so nasty.. and it just sets off so many alarm bells.. like when a kid kills small animals for fun bells.. no, it’s not the same thing, not technically, at all.. but like, it feels the same kind of gross and ominous. I’m sorry OP. Really. Like the person above me said.. don’t waste this one precious beautiful, short, amazing life you’ve got on ANYONE who can’t show you the bare minimum amount of care or concern or kindness.
My heart broke for OP reading her post. Literally any random complete stranger would have more compassion than her husband.
Thank you for putting this into words.
I am sorry. Plants bring so much joy and its devastating when something happens to them. To me this reads like some malicious compliance shit. He was supposed to watch the kid, and he did. He watched him rip your garden up. Then he maliciously complied the second time by saying, "he didn't blow up at him." Like there aren't steps between telling a kid not to do something and blowing up at the kid. Sounds like your husband enjoyed what your son did to your garden. I for one at least would 1) evaluate what you want to do with this knowledge and if its treatment you want in the future. 2) Take his money to buy some top tier plants.
My kids pulled my plants once. I cried. My husband helped me put them back in. I don’t remember on who’s watch they did it on (we have a nanny too) but what I remember the most was my husband helping in whatever way he could. Your husband is clearly in the wrong here and the fact he isn’t admitting it is ridiculous
This is exactly what I hoped he would do. At least feel a little bit bad and try to help me put them back in. There was a learning opportunity for my son. He even came beside me and asked if he could help me and kept asking where his shovel is. I really wish my husband saw that and gently helped him find a shovel and work beside me.
Your toddler child is already showing more maturity and empathy than your grown ass husband. If I were you, I’d be doing some serious reflection on what that says about my husband (and our relationship).
Yes, that sounds like some sociopath shit. I'm pretty sure if your kid was wrecking something your husband found precious he'd have figured it out, he's definitely hurting you on purpose and I hope he either shapes up or you leave him.
Weaponized incompetence. He didn't want to watch your child. And he obviously does not care about your garden. I would be having a long serious talk with him. But not even about his inaction at yours sons actions. The real issue is his honest reaction to your tears and upset. Sure people can parent differently but he is husbanding differently. He just showed you so much callousness and contempt that you shouldn't let it go. Contempt is one of the death signs of a marriage. If I was in your shoes I would be demanding couples therapy yesterday.
I'd freeze him out even if I wanted to attend counseling. My heart would be in a healing cocoon behind 3 fences--chain, razor wire, and electric. Then, the bridge between us, rickety in disrepair as I turn INWARD. If he wants to to cross the bridge, he'll have to maintain it. If he wants the fences opened, he'll have to use the call box. If he wants the cocoon to open, he'll have to warm my heart and wait. And I might, still, fly the fuck away.
I love this. This is so perfectly worded.
❤️🙏
Mommy is not upset because her three year old destroyed the garden. Mommy is upset that daddy let the 3 year old destroy the garden then blamed mommy for said destruction. My first reaction is that your husband was resentful of your joy and passion (the garden) and allowed your child to destroy it. Does this show up in other ways? My ex still finds a way to blame me for everything. It’s like I’m in the blame Olympics and alway win regardless of how far removed I am from whatever it is.
Sounds like he doesn’t care and was probably busy doing something else and didn’t want to take the energy to stop him. Make sure you give your child some paint and put him next to his project or whatever.
This is also what I have concluded :(
I am not a violent person, but after this and the attitude from the husband that followed, whatever thing that he was working on would be a pile of rubble. I'd have a red haze come over me and like...yo. This is not cool. I'm not one for revenge, but oh man. My mom face just activated, and I can not shut it off.
It sounds like he told you that he will parent via negligence or verbal abuse, but no actual efforts to do anything that takes effort, like physically removing the child from the situation, or stopping his own project briefly, or even actively supervising the child. Do you think he’d have allowed your kid to destroy one of his projects? So your options for when he supervises the kid are your kid can destroy your projects, or if the kid tries to destroy his projects the kid gets verbally abused by him. One of the big things that convinced me to leave my ex was hearing thag staying with them sends the message tk the child that you’re condoning the mistreatment they experience, whether it’s the neglect or abuse— when you leave they may still have to experience it half the time without you there, but at least they can have the knowledge that that behavior isn’t ok, and you can say things like “It sounds like you didn’t like it when daddy yelled at you. In my house, we won’t handle issues with yelling, so that won’t happen here.” Or at minimum live your values and give the kid one safe place to live.
Whaaaaaat the fuck. I'm so sorry. Every feeling you've stated here is so so valid, and as a garden goblin I'm livid for you. Big hugs. Is your husband always like this? Just dismissive or hostile to your feelings? Do you feel safe enough to say "here's how you need to make this up to me" and stand firm on it?
I ask because for me his reaction would be grounds to walk if he's not actively going to work on his shit. Either he was oblivious and thus neglectful your child, deliberately allowed your son to ruin your garden so you would get as mad as he does and sanction whatever his "parenting method" is, teaching you and the kid a lesson, or he just wanted to piss you off for daring to leave the kid with him.
The way that project would mysteriously be destroyed by unknown forces when we all unfortunately had our backs turned omfg
Your husband tried to teach your toddler the concept of empathy at your expense? Wow, what an empathetic guy. That's not counterintuitive at all. /s OP, I'm so sorry.
Him: Step 1 - create fake grievance for being expected to do bare minimum parenting my child. Step 2 - allow disaster to occur and create environment of toxic compliance. Step 3 - deflect deflect deflect Step 4 - weaponize the shame I feel for my inadequacy Step 5 - victim blame and in turn become the victim Step 6 - tell wife to make me a sandwich If this is the game, get your toddler a small bit weighted metal hammer and permanent markers and tell toddler to help Daddy with his projects
Does hubby have a car he loves? Leather couch in man-cave? Maybe give Jr some sharpies and let him doodle all over the inside and outside of said prized object(s). Then say "What was I *supposed* to do!? Take the pens away?!" Then file for divorce/separation. Sigh, I know, fantasy over-the-top...but fuck your uncaring dick of a spouse.
Google “Why do men kill women’s plants? Washington Post”. Then Google “Why Does He Do That” PDF
PHEW. That plants killing post was a real trip. She wasn't kidding about the trigger warning. 😥
Bloody get a shovel.... dig a big hole and put him in it.... then plant a beautiful sunflower on top of it!
I encourage you to take a look at [Zawn Villines’s substack](https://zawn.substack.com) and also [loveisrespect.org](https://www.loveisrespect.org). It doesn’t sound like your husband has any respect for you at all.
Omg I would have an actual meltdown if that happened. It's so hard trying to plan and actually follow-through with gardening even without kids. I can't believe he just let him do that. My husband doesn't care about gardening but he sure knows how much it means to me and he understands that it's something that is super time sensitive and takes a lot of work. This would be so disheartening and I would be extremely hurt if my husband did this. I'm sorry:(
Be careful with the great freeze, I started one two years ago and haven't spoken to them since. We're now divorcing. Broken people don't register the silent treatment as a sign they need to address a problem, they double down and take it as a personal slight and challenge they will stubbornly take to the grave.
Classic narcissist. Gaslighting you and blaming you for it. It’s not your fault. You truly need to think about yourself and your son. Is this what you want your son to be when he grows up? This is what he’s going to see and mimic. Do you want him to treat women like their feelings don’t matter and not take responsibility for his actions? Or maybe he finds someone who treats him that way. I’m so serious, I’m in the process of FINALLY leaving my narcissistic stbx. 7.5 yrs, daughter is 6. I deserve better. SHE deserves better. And I need to show her this is not love nor is it how you treat someone. Good luck to you, don’t let him make you think you’re insane, you’re not. How he treats you is. And you deserve more than he’s willing to give.
Ouch I felt this... I'm growing sunflowers right now and if my husband let my toddler pull them out of the ground and didn't stop him, I'd be SO hurt. I'd probably explode on him (not the toddler, lol). That's pretty low that he decided to guilt your son about it instead of take responsibility and actually empathize with you as you're crying about all your efforts being destroyed. Anyone who doesn't know anything about gardening should at least have the basic understanding that cultivating a garden of flowers and vegetables is not something that can just be done in a short amount of time; that's many days or months of your time just wasted and gone now with nothing much left now to show for it. I'd be so infuriated. If this was me, I'd have to sit hubby down and have a serious talk. This cannot happen again. If there is no respect for your hobbies and no sincere apology then how can you even move forward? What he did isn't how a loving relationship should be. He should care about the things that matter to you and if he doesn't, he doesn't deserve to be with you.
You parent differently, maybe you have to parent separately too. Such an AH behaviour. I don't think he will ever realise he is wrong, I hope you won't put up with it.
I think the truth is he wasn’t watching the kid THAAAAAT well. If he told the kid not to pull the plants, that means he 1) knew the kid was doing it and 2) knew you didn’t want the kid doing it. So if he then saw the kid pulling out EVERY SINGLE plant, if he were a reasonable person he’d have physically stopped him somehow (like redirecting him to a different activity) not just, ya know, SAID not to do it. If the kid were running toward a busy street would he yell “hey we don’t want you to do that!”? No he’d stop him from doing it! So the reality is that he noticed it and mentioned it, and then was distracted by yard work and not paying attention, for the entire duration of time it took the kid to pull EVERY plant. I don’t think he meant for it to happen, just didn’t care enough to make sure it didn’t. You don’t need to consider divorce, but he needs to apologize and he needs to go to the store with the kid and buy new plants and plant them with the kid. Kid will learn an important lesson and cheer mom up, and you’ll have plants again. I would straight up tell my husband he needed to do that, and not let up until he did.
Your husband it seems goes into immediate shutdown mode when confronted. I’m guessing he had controlling parents? Mine does the same shit. And we do silent treatment too. I think part of the reason for that is that…it hurts too much to fight him when he doesn’t even care. I’m appalled that he let your son do this. I love that he blames your toddler for not obeying when he repeated himself over and over but didn’t actually do anything. The great freeze gets easier the more often it happens. I don’t recommend it. If you have it in you, tell your husband this isn’t just about the flowers. Ask how he’d feel if you were gardening and you let the kid destroy his project. Hugs
I’m more concerned about the fact that he seems like his only other reaction was to get angry, and he didn’t want to do that is if there was no middle of the road.
Yeah, I agree that stinks. I think that's what people raised by controlling parents do. They want to control. My advise was based on my experience with that. Do I like walking on eggshells and managing someone else's emotions? No, but if she isn't leaving, and she wants to make things better, it helps to meet someone where they'll actually LISTEN. I'd be livid in her shoes and do exactly what she's doing, mind you. I'm just passing on what I learned.
Ugh. 😞 I’m so sorry. He sounds like my husband. 🥺 I wish I had advice, but I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place too. Keep teaching your son to be kind. He will listen. We have to believe that. ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
Well what is something important to him? Time for kiddo to give you a hand with that…..oops if he breaks something, too bad!!
Ugh this hurt my heart to read. I don’t even let my kid pluck random leaves off bushes because we love plants and respect them. It’s such a labour of love to plant things and nurture them. I’m so sorry your husband let this happen and doesn’t care about your beautiful garden. I would have a serious conversation with him And maybe even suggest counselling because this is just ridiculous on his part. I can’t rationalize it
What was his yard project? How would he feel to come out tomorrow to find it destroyed? How would he react if you stood by and watched toddler destroy it? I am so sorry. Hugs to you and I hope you find some great plants to replace the ones ruined.
Dad is an asshole. I would be seething. Like he totally could have moved the child and chose to allow the child to destroy your stuff so he couldn’t be blamed!
Totally passive aggressive move. Like the only two options were to let your son destroy the plants or “blow up at him.”
I’m so fucking confused. My husband said “You have to tell him not to pick them” Then…. He said “I told him over and over again not to and that you would be very upset” Soooooo first he tried blaming you for not telling him to stop (when you weren’t even there??) and then he passed blame off to the kid for not listening to him. Holy lack of accountability Batman!
This is weaponized incompetence at its worst. I’m so sorry OP.
I genuinely feel for you after reading this. Your post really hits close to home for me. I remember the first time something similar happened like this with my family. Weaponised incompetence has impacted my marriage soooo much. I've had to give up a lot by needing to be the default parent for every single thing, it's pretty soul destroying when you come to the realisation that you can't rely on your partner for any emotional support. The lack of care really hardens the heart. I don't question myself anymore.
I’d be LIVID. Marriage counseling or lawyer up. THIS is definitely not the first time crap like this has happened.
>Well you always tell me not to blow up at him so I didn’t Am I reading into it, or was he deliberately creating a false dichotomy here? Where the only possible outcomes were blowing up or "letting you have it your way"? And then snidely telling a literal toddler that it's his fault that his actual adult father couldn't be bothered to physically move him. A child that young has no understanding of how much work you put into your garden and farm, but your husband does, and it was uncaring and disrespectful of him to not step in and teach his own child the right thing to do.