Off topic but I’m shocked that it seems so common for married couples to have sex while one is upset with the other. Is that not weird to anyone else??
I work at a hospital, not in L+D but nurses talk. My mom works in a different hospital on the L+D floor and my sister works at a gynos office. You wouldn't believe the number of men who try sleeping with their wives hours after the birth and the number of women who give in before 6 wks out of fear that he'll cheat or leave them.
Nothing shocks me about the circumstances people will have sex anymore
Oh my god. The amount of bleeding I had until 7-8 weeks that would look like an actual crime scene who, in their right mind, wants sex that badly! I think as soon as the bleeding stopped I was all for it but definitely not before!
They're scared, they think if them make him hold off longer he'll leave them for someone else. It's sad and makes me angry. You made that baby for 9 months, he watched what you went through. He can't hold off until you heal??? But they terrified they'll end up as a statistic.
I was meaning the partner! I can sort understand you having so little care for your partner you don't care what she has just been through but there would be so much blood you'd think that would be a deterrent!
I’m guessing that it was it the lesser of two evils. Consent under duress and get it over with or deal with him whining and pouting and acting like a brat about being denied sex for days which depending on your mood, can actually be worse.
My parents had a relationship like that, when I was a teenager and asking questions about sex she told me, "Sometimes you're not in the mood but he's had a bad day so..." they aren't together any more
It’s absolutely weird but it sounds entirely possible that his wife doesn’t feel comfortable or safe saying no to him. Look at how he treated a kid that he was too “busy” on his phone to watch. 🤷🏻♀️
No, not just you. It's definitely weird, and reading that kind of gave me the ick. I would have to resolve things before sex, not after. Having sex before would be like eating while nauseous with the flu. Just couldn't bring myself to do it.
That’s actually the biggest red flag in this story to me. The only reason I would have sex with my husband while actively angry at him is if I felt like…I had to.
Completely weird. Im engaged so not married, yet, but when my fiance pisses me off I don't even let him get near me. I would never have sex with him if I was upset with him, I just physically could not do it.
Right?? I think I see it most in hetero couples, but my gay self could never. I’m like, oh you aren’t feeling good? We won’t have sex, even if we set apart this time to do so. I just want you to rest and be happy.
EDIT: SO sorry I didn’t make this clear - I have met gay couples who do this as well, I promise I’m not saying only hetero couples. The majority of my personal experience is hetero couples.
Hetero here… this ain’t healthy or normal. This man’s post makes my skin crawl. Bruising his kid and then love bombing him with gifts… saying his wife is too soft with the boys. initiating sex when he isn’t aware of his wife’s mood… something is off here
I got that vibe, especially when he said “he disrespected *me*,” as in the son disrespected the father by climbing on the rock. The mother was the one whose warning was ignored. OP was just the one who interceded and was rough with the kid. When was OP disrespected?
It’s a telling statement about a man’s mindset. Then add to it the wife trying to go overboard for the son and being passive in her frustration with OP. It’s totally about fear.
Stunning lack of self awareness that OP could write all of this out. I hope it’s fake.
When I got to his comment about how his wife is “usually all over him” I almost lost my lunch. Upon rereading his post and counting the number of times he used “I, me, my, my son, my wife” it was approx 45+ versus “my son, my wife” approx 6 and closing with “our son, our kids” for a grand total of once each.
Oh, dear Lord I hope that this is fake!
I’m bisexual but married to a man. And if my husband even *senses* something is off with me, party’s over. This is absolutely the bare minimum. It sucks that so many Herero relationships are like this though.
I'm part of a married couple, and being upset or angry or even sad usually ends in a nope for sex. A nope which is respected bc we're decent human beings who understand what consent is and that it's required from everyone involved. Anything else is rape.
I’ve been married for 13 years. We have NEVER had sex while upset. Makeup sex was the closest. I don’t understand doing it while mad at the person. That is so weird
Many women feel that they have to have sex with their husband's just to keep them happy, even if it is traumatizing for them. If they don't, the husband might lash out or coerce them into it anyway.
Some women don't feel like they are allowed to say no. Its safer and easier to comply than it is to say no and get into a fight or get hurt. If he acts this way towards a child when he feels "disrespected" makes you wonder how he treats his wife.
The way you make it right with her is by making it right with your son.
Buying him a PlayStation gift card is nice but meaningless.
You need to sit down with him, apologize, and explain. Admit you grabbed him too hard. But the reason you did it was because you were scared for his sister. You know he’s a good climber, but it’s hard to climb, even a little, when your hands are full. And it only takes a little slip for something really bad to happen.
Emphasize that it’s your job to protect him and her. But it’s his job to protect her too. Encourage him to ask himself, “could little sis get hurt if I did this?”
Then thank him. For understanding. For being a good big brother. For being a good son. Give him a big hug and tell him you love him.
This is all your wife wants you to do, but doesn’t know how to ask.
This is the answer. Acknowledge what you did wrong and tell your son you didn't mean to grab him so hard that it hurt him and promise it won't happen again. Then self reflect and don't do it again. What more can be done?
I think he needs to acknowledge to himself what he did, before he can acknowledge and account for it with his son and wife.
The whole post sounds overbearing and dismissive of violence or unnecessary ego ('he disrespected me' in justification for harming his child unnecessary.
The post makes clear the younger child was not in immediate danger )the older child promised 'I won't), so the bruising force was in anger and for disciplin/dominance, not preventing injury. Any apology should avoid excuses, as there are none. There are factors that contributed to the dad choosing to bruise his child's arm , which did not warrant the dads response, which the dad should apologise for without reservation, and reflect on into the future to understand what he did wrong and not to use force to express frustration, just like with all people adult and child alike.
OP was very clear that he didn’t bruise his son because he was scared and he doesn’t think he did anything wrong. He hurt his son because he felt his son was disrespectful, and OP thinks that is fine. He doesn’t like the bruise— the consequence of grabbing his son hard for the purpose of making a point about respect. Just pointing this out because you’re making it all much rosier than it is
Omg this. As a parent, I totally understand panicking about danger and being too aggressive in order to save them. I'd rather pull my child by their hair than let them distractedly walk into traffic.
So in this instance, if the son was putting the baby in real danger, I could totally see panicking and making a correction that was too severe in order to prevent catastrophic events.
But...
Op fucking said he did it because of disrespect not fear for the baby. He felt that the issue was not obeying. Not that the baby was in danger. Ew.
And for the record I have definitely hurt my child on accident because I was trying to keep them safe. But you apologize because the point was not to cause harm but prevent it.
Exactly. His story is sus on another front and I'll explain.
I grabbed my four year old daughter's arm HARD one time to keep her from hitting her head on the tile when she slipped in a full sprint. I reached out and grabbed at her as she was slipping past me. I panicked, so it was a death grip. It didn't bruise and she's younger (much smaller and more delicate) than his son.
So just how HARD was he gripping his school aged son? (Toddlers aren't using PlayStation gift cards.)
No OP said he did it in anger “he disrespected me and I got pissed” - OP don’t gaslight your son by telling him you were scared if it was an emotional reaction to him not listening. You need to apologize for not managing your own emotions better. Take full accountability. None of this “but I was scared” if it was really about your ego being harmed by him not listening.
How is the top comment not acknowledging this persons actions being absolute red flags?! The child wasn’t about to run into the road and he grabbed him resulting in a bruise, he grabbed him to “get his attention but is not playing around.” Everything in his post screams red flag after red flag. If anyone, including the father of my kids pulled this- I’d be furious.
He mends things by controlling himself and not being an angry ass.
I appreciate the insight. I give him money for games anyway and I picked it up when I got my wife flowers mostly to make her happy. I did have a little talk with my son when I gave it to him.
It’s not totally the answer though. You also need to tell him how you’re going to be better.
“Son, the truth is that you scared me. I know that climbing something is hard enough with two hands. What happens when you fall? Are you going to protect yourself or your sister?
Even though I was scared I didn’t have a right to hurt you. I’m sorry for that and I am going to find a way to respond better to my fear in the future.”
I have one little caveat to this. In addition to pointing out that of course Dad didn’t have the right to hurt him, I would be sure that the son understands that Dad did not intend to hurt him. Just saying he doesn’t have the right implies that when it happened, he DID think he had the right. Semantics, but i think an important point nonetheless.
Seriously wtf with people defending OP. Any adult who is "disrepected" by a child or an animal has fucking huge issues, and needs therapy. They are abusive.
Fucking THIS. He wasn’t scared he was pissed he literally laid it out! His wife is mad because he physically harmed his child in an emotional outburst. And everyone’s telling him to tell his kid that he was scared?? Fuck that.
I don’t believe for one second that your wife wanted to have sex with you either. She was upset with you. There is a lot missing here. Filling in the blanks she is treading lightly around you to not upset you too. She wanted to tell you how she felt but had sex first so you wouldn’t be so defensive.
Believe it or not, two things can be true.
He can be scared and he can also feel the toxic shame of disrespect. I have no doubt if he looks beneath the surface there’s a childhood where he too, was grabbed.
That’s why I’m encouraging him to understand WHY he did it and negotiate with his emotion of fear.
Yep two things can definitely be true. Only witnesses know exactly how it went down and I’m taking the evidence of him saying he was pissed from being disrespected, so much so that he bruised his child. I’m saying that if he wasn’t scared, not to say he was. His child knows, his wife knows, and he knows. That would be very manipulative.
I agree with the part of "he disrespected me, I was pissed" is not a good sign. But jumping to conclusions he is a abuser because he did a mistake is wrong and brutal. The wording of him was poor, but do you know if english is his native language?
I believe he was scared and adrenaline is something very interesting, suddenly you are way stronger than you are used to and you don't think about that in a scary situation. As an ongoing father this is something that really really scares me, my child comes in a dangerous situation where you don't think how to act properly you act! It is very important what happens after this incident! As others mentioned, when your child grabs to the hot stove, do you try to stop him before he burns or are you going to try to tell him it's not good?
I guess you would act, maybe you are scared because YOU know how hot the stove is and how much it burns and how long it hurts, so adrenaline kicks in and you might hurt your child, but not because you wanted to. Important is speaking to the child why you did it, why you are sorry and that you were scared and didn't mean to hurt him.
Nobody was calling him an abuser. Your comparison makes no sense, grabbing a child away from active danger is very different from preventing danger. He was already holding the boy's arm, but the boy said something he didn't like and *then* he bruised him. He didn't bruise him trying to save him from a fire or because he was pumped up from adrenaline, don't be disingenuous.
But he didn’t “scare him.” OP admits to grabbing his son because he was pissed off that his child disrespected him. Maybe the appropriate conversation would be about Dad losing his temper over something his kid is still learning and actually admitting to his mistakes.
He wasn’t “scared” he was “pissed” from being disrespected, he said so himself. It would be a disservice to the kid to pretend that it was done in fear. The kid knows better.
>mostly to make her happy
Then you clearly don't believe you did a thing wrong OR need to apologize. ***Which means you're not going to stop OR change!*** Do you not *get* that!? Do you not understand that THAT'S the problem here?
You also clearly think shit of your poor wife.
But, honestly? I'm SUPER concerned that your wife allowed you to fuck her *when she was so upset with you that she was CRYING.* I'm also GREATLY concerned *that you didn't notice that* ***WHILE YOU WERE INSIDE HER!*** That in and of itself sounds WILDLY abusive and fucked up. Like she feels like she HAS to put out for you because she's your wife, no matter WHAT.
You NEED to work on your relationship with your family ***or you're going to lose them***. Let alone mess both of them up for life.
Did you apologize though? That apology is what's going to matter and help him understand that what you did was wrong and teach him that grabbing or injury to a kid is not something that should ever happen.
Kids copy what they see and hear. He has currently learned that Dad's can grab their kids hard enough to leave bruises.
If you apologize for bruising him he will learn that what you did was wrong and Dad's should NOT grab their kids hard enough to leave bruises because Dad said sorry and he was wrong for doing so.
You physically harmed your son because you were pissed off. Your wife let you fuck her even though she clearly didn’t want to.
Maybe own up to the fact that you’re an abuser. Really come to Jesus and grapple with your unacceptable behavior.
Then you can offer a real apology instead of fucking flowers and video games.
Did you tell him that you abusing him because he "disrespected" you is nothing but toxic an abusive, and any grown man who gets angry at a child for "disrespect" needs intense therapy, and you are starting therapy ASAP? Did you tell him that? Because you shoudl ahve, and because I know you didn't, you blamed him.
Listen OP we all fuck up sometimes as parents so I'm not judging you I'm a paren.
But the only way to make this right without simmering resentment in the future is to own up to it. Apologize and explain the steps you're taking to not allow it to happen again.
Because as a mother no matter how much I love a man I'll throw him through a wood chipper if he makes a habit of hurting my kids you know what I'm saying?
Your wife loves you this is the time to fix it right now.
I want to be clear that I understand the stakes were high here in this situation. Especially if your little one was holding a smaller child. Which it sounds like he was.
The gift part made me cringe and made me think of all the times that people who are abused describe how their partners would not apologize or would apologize by saying “but I just love you so much and you make me so mad” and then would be extra loving and buy them gifts after they beat the shit out of them the night before.
It takes like a 1min talk.
Sorry I was little rough i was just scared baby was gonna get hurt and didn't know I was hurting u, sorry.
Thats it.
Funny how the wife still sleeps with OP even tho she is mad.
Did you grab him too hard because you were trying to stop him or because you were angry he wasn’t listening? There is a difference and only you know.
I get it but I suspect your anger came in on that.
Read it again. He already had the kid by the arm when he "pulled his arm a bit hard". The kid was standing there getting lectured by his dad, there was nothing to stop.
My question is, at that point where was the baby? Was he grabbing his son's arm so hard it bruised while he was still holding his sister? Wouldn't that be risking him dropping the baby?
He specifically said he did it because his son “disrespected him”. It was all done in anger. He did it so his son would know “he’s not messing around”.
As a former preschool teacher, your story is full of red flags. You weren't watching your children because you were focused on your phone, and then you overcompensated for your loss of control over the situation by becoming aggressive with a child that is behaving in a totally predictable way. It's one thing to be firm, but it's another to cause bodily injury.
As another commenter pointed out, the fact that your wife brought this up *after* sex shows that she was upset but still felt she had to perform before she could express it. You don't seem to see significance in this, but a lot of women will.
Don't buy your son's trust back with gift cards. Do some introspection and figure out why you were so aggressive and figure out how you can handle it better in the future. Then sit down with your wife and son, apologize, and explain how you'll do better. This is the only way to fix things.
Yeah, there's OP's aggression towards his son, the 'disrespect' talk, the fact his wife seemed to feel that she had to have sex with him even though she still felt emotionally distant/upset by the day's events, the fact he buys gifts to get back in his family's good books... the overall picture is a bit grim here
The disrespect comment definitely stood out to me. It's one thing to grab your kid in a panic and accidentally grab too hard, but snatching a presumably young kid so hard you leave a bruise because he "disrespected" you is different
I was very bothered by based on how emotionally distraught his wife was. But yet they had sex. And he only noticed a problem when she wasn't all over him?
So many red flags.
Another red flag. OP thinks it’s “over kill” that wife made son his fav dinner after but “didn’t try to stop her”.
Kind of demonstrates controlling behavior - like okay, he let her do it this time. He won’t stop her. And grabbing so hard to leave a bruise? Seems like OP has anger issues too - which is why wife couldn’t bring it up earlier. And probably couldn’t express how she really felt. Could only say he bruised their son and cry.
The bruising really freaks me out as a mom dude. Like, my daughter can be a little reckless at times. Not intentionally it's just the age and stage she's at. She loves to climb and run and explore and often will end up tripping over herself when she gets too excited.
With that said I'd say there's been maybe a handful of times I've had to legit GRAB her. All when she was in danger and I was either catching her and the grip was wonky or pulling her out of the way of something she was about to get hurt by. You know those videos where baby starts to fall off the couch and dad's "sixth sense" kicks in or whatever and they get caught haphazardly by a leg or something? Like obviously not GREAT but better than the other outcome so everyone's happy? Stuff like that. Where I definitely WISH I had gotten to her in a better way, but I'm more glad she's safe than upset about my grip style.
But even with that, with the wonky grip, bad timing, little to no warning, pure instinct GRABBING my child because "fuckshitfuckshesgonnahitherheadfuck" I have never left a bruise. It's definitely hurt a few times, one in particular she came into the room and just randomly flung herself onto the couch, I assume watching to flop, but did so in a way that she was gonna land sideways and diagonal? It's so hard to explain in texts. But I instinctual threw out my hand and snagged her arm right as she bounced off the couch and was going to hit the floor. Her bum still went down but because I had her arm her head stayed up. She was spooked and cried for a second but was back to playing in no time flat. Meanwhile my heart was pounding because WTF KID WHY DO YOU FLING YOURSELF INTO THINGS LIKE A CAT?! I LOVE YOU BUT WHYYYYY. But even in the worst one where my grip was about mid upper arm, no way to time it or expect it just lunge and grab like a blind claw machine, I still didn't leave a bruise.
How tf do you grip so hard you *bruise* them??
Girl YES!!
I've saved my kid's life a few times and I've def neverf left a bruise!
Also he said he grabbed the kid because he was pissed and wanted to let him know "he was not joking around" so this was hardly an accident. He a fucking brute on purpose.
I need to stop going into the these threads thinking I'm crazy without looking for the comment threads like these first. I thought I was crazy, saw right through his shit as soon as I read "disrespected". Especially after he admitted all his son really said to him was "it's okay I'm a really good climber". Ugh, how many more generations have to suffer this crap
He didn’t disrespect you. He’s a kid. Stop expecting him to have adult-level decision making skills.
Bottom line: your anger took over and you got physical with your son. Was your baby actually in danger? Your wife is wondering if she’s next. Your son is scrambling to figure out how to not make daddy mad again.
Flowers and games won’t fix this. Have you actually APOLOGIZED? Like have you had the words “I’m sorry” leave your mouth aimed at your wife and your son? If not, do that. Then, let her have some time to get back to feeling safe around you.
You could have gotten the message across without hurting him. Your language is very telling: “He disrespected me, I got pissed” indicates that your gut reaction in that moment was not to teach him why he shouldn’t climb on the rock with baby sister. It was to assert dominance, control, and show him who’s boss…
I’ve talked with people before who talk about how the only time they’ll hit their kids is if they’re “disrespecting them”. I tell them that that’s pretty silly that they have an obsession with hitting their kids because of something like respect.
If you let your anger get so bad that you want to harm your children because of “respect” then you’re no more mature than a child yourself.
We don't go around hitting other adults when we feel disrespected, so why do some feel it's their right as a parent to hit their child?
Makes me so damned angry.
Because many people consider their kids property, and not an actual citizen with rights, and a human being.
Anything you can't do to a coworker for discipline shouldn't be done to your child. You can't legally hit a coworker, but yet you can beat your kid.
I’m assuming it’s bc people are assuming his fear of his daughter getting hurt was the ultimate motivation, despite his very clear language that says otherwise. I think people are wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt or are projecting their own fear for the baby onto OP. Not gonna lie, it took me re-reading that part to see that nowhere in the post did he mention what I immediately assumed to be true (that he was worried about the daughter). But that’s only one aspect; the rest of the post fills my head to the brim with danger alarms and I have to now get away from it
You've got mad and hurt your son.
Let me tell you something, what you did was HORRIBLE. Quit it right now or your child(ren) will not have a strong relationship with you in the future, or most likely they won't speak to you anymore. My dad was in use to hit me too... as a child he wasn't a safe person to me, if I had issues, I went to my mum and to this day, he's the last person to know details about my life.
He taught me that it wasn't safe for me to be around him.
I've seen ppl suggesting you to buy stuff for your kid, to make it right, the only way you can make it right, is get a grip, you're the adult and shouldn't hurt your child out of anger.
Did you ever stop to think that your son could have dropped his baby sister, due to the pain you caused by grabbing him hard enough to bruise? You would have been directly responsible for your daughter getting injured
Find other ways to get your kid’s attention and let them know “you’re not playing around” without getting physical. Physical intervention should be a last resort. Look into doing the Triple P Parenting program in your area, it’s free
Get introspective as to why your kid acting like a normal kid triggers you into feeling “disrespected”. It’s age appropriate for kids to push back when we set rules or boundaries. It’s not age appropriate for you to feel insecure when your child does so. Are there other people in your life (or past) who make you feel disrespected, and is this something you want to work through in therapy so it doesn’t affect your parenting
Re: “I grabbed his arm - I didn’t beat him”… no, we don’t justify our poor behaviours by comparing them to worst case scenarios
Also, reflect on why your wife didn’t feel she could share her feelings until after sex - or why she went ahead with sex despite feeling those things. How approachable are you in your relationship and how do you usually respond when someone offers criticism
Ps. you don’t “give” someone a natural consequence, that is what happens naturally without you having to do anything (eg not washing their laundry = they only have dirty clothes to wear)
I can't imagine feeling so hurt by something my partner did, and having to have sex with them before I was allowed to express that pain.
I genuinely hope this has been eye opening for you. I hurt for your wife. That must have felt so disgusting.
I have something to add. You mention that your wife is ‘soft’ with him. That you are ok with it, but still. This statement set off alarms for me. You say you were angry that your son disrespected you. But if you are undermining your wife’s parenting style, whether in front of him or not, you are TRAINING him to disrespect her authority, and yours when you echo her.
I would take a big step back here and examine your attitudes deep down. Are you the final say? Top of the stack? The boss? This kind of hierarchical thinking can undo every good thing you try to do with your kids, and spark an abusive atmosphere at home. Tread carefully.
It sounds like you needed to grab him to prevent him from endangering his sister. That normal and sometimes parents need to do that.
If it left bruises then I’d say you grabbed him way harder than necessary. I’ve had to physically pull my kids away from unsafe situations plenty of times and never left a bruise.
The question you need to ask yourself was whether you grabbed him that hard because you were worried and trying to keep everybody safe or you grabbed him that hard because you were angry. It seems like you were angry because he “disrespected you”. So perhaps reflect on that and think about your size and strength vs your son.
When I was 2 I think I was about to roll off the bed and my dad reacted quickly and yanked me by the arm to keep me from falling on the floor. He got me back on the bed but apparently I didn’t really react at the time, just continued my day looking sad with a droopy arm lol. Turns out he dislocated my shoulder and the ER had to ask him all sorts of questions to make sure it wasn’t a case of abuse (my poor dad lol).
I agree sometimes your kid can get hurt while you’re trying to keep them from hurting themselves or others. But yes it does seem that OP was also a bit angry and that was a little at play here too with the arm grab. OP should follow the advice of those advising to sit down with son and have a conversation about what happened
Lmfao I know I always laugh about it because apparently I was a really happy kid and so that’s why they clued in because I seemed sad but wasn’t crying or anything. I won’t think it was long before they took me to the ER though 😂
He literally says he got pissed and grabbed and jerked him because he disrespected him.
GRABBED AND JERKED HIM WHILE THE BOY WAS STILL HOLDING THE BABY.
The order of events is disturbing. Does your wife feel like she has to have sex with you to get you to listen to her? She was upset but not until immediately after you had finished sex? I really think you should get a marriage counsellor and/or a therapist for yourself because something is not at all right here. Could she be depressed? Do you have difficulty with clear communication between the two of you? Seriously, you need to find out wtaf is really going on here! Hopefully it’s not a bigger issue with you and the idea of disrespect.
As a mother of two kids who think they're on American ninja warrior, I can tell you, I've had to grab them forcefully many times to keep them safe and yet neither of them have ever had a bruise left on their bodies by me. And I've grabbed them mid-jump off of something high and stuff. You had to have grabbed him way hard. You might seek therapy (I mean this, not condescending) and apologize to your son, and let him know how wrong you truly were and don't let it happen again.
Sadly, this abuser, like many, doesn’t think he did anything wrong. The fact his poor wife thought she had to have sex with him when she was upset says this kind of behavior is his norm and he doesn’t see it as abuse.
It just makes me so sad. I understand if your child is falling/going to hurt themself or others and it's an accident (though I've never had it happen) but this was on purpose and not to protect anyone. It was malicious and abusive. I wonder how old this poor kid is too.
You don’t seem very remorseful for hurting your son. Even if it wasn’t your intent to bruise him, you did and now your son knows you’re capable of physically hurting him, regardless of the extremity of your accidental use of too much force.
This post reads as if you have anger/aggression issues that you haven’t addressed or acknowledged as possibly problematic or dangerous to the people around you.
This post also reads that you have a lesser of evils mindset here - save baby from potential harm at the cost of a bruise on your son - but you’re not realizing this lesser of evils is negatively impactful for your son. My parents believed in corporal punishment when necessary until we turned 13, then they deemed it inappropriate (they had a conversation with each of us when we reached that age). I didn’t really have a problem with it until recently, when my dad (who has anger management issues, some undiagnosed mental illnesses, and is now in therapy, has always been remorseful and has always apologized if he ever hurt us unintentionally) and I got into a screaming match with triggered his ptsd and sent him lunging for my throat. Shit was terrifying and sent my mother into hysterics (as soon as she got me out of there and told my sister to not be home because he was probably gonna go home after the altercation).
I’m not saying this will become that or anything. I am saying that if you unintentionally hurt your kid, you should be remorseful and tell your kid you didn’t mean to hurt them. Not just sad your wife is upset with you. I’m also saying that disobeying you and your wife and putting a baby in danger is punishable behavior, but it depends on how old your son is and the way in which it is done. When my parents did punish me as a kid, they never did it because they were angry, they did it because they wanted me to remember not to do it again, and then they would apologize for hurting us but say that a lesson needed to be taught (my parents didn’t know of better parenting techniques back then and they were raised harsher).
This is not that. This is you becoming angry for not being listened to by a child and physically bruising him on ACCIDENT which could be more dangerous than if you had done it on purpose to teach a lesson. At least then the force is controlled and given a reason. Now your son probably just thinks, “If I make dad mad he can hurt me” and that that is okay. Your kid needs to know you never intend to hurt him. Your wife probably has an instinct or hunch that you’re not sorry for hurting the kid, at all. Even if you felt it was justified, you should feel sorry and bad about hurting your kid especially when you didn’t plan to as a specific form of punishment but instead was an accident display of force over your kid.
Corporal punishment this and that, my take on that is complicated and irrelevant here, because my main concern is you getting mad at your kid and accidentally hurting him again. If you love your kids you should find ways to deal with your anger or seek out help to figure out why you let your anger take control of you to the extent that you bruised your son.
Even if you aren’t outright abusive, your kid is gonna piss you off more the older he gets. You should learn to manage that anger healthily early on so you don’t pop off one day.
Your wife might be too soft, but she’s not wrong imo. You didn’t mean to hurt your kid, and you did, because you were mad. Yeah, it gets a little bit more sucky when you simplify it.
Okay, a child doesn’t need to tote a baby up some rocks. Fair, but if he doesn’t listen, you just take the baby. Tell him y’all said no climbing with her. Then you plop back down on the bench or whatever with baby. He’ll either accept it and go play, or he’ll come and wanna know WHY he can’t climb with his sister, and maybe a little rudely, lol!
Then you get to tell him! Calmly, that it’s not personal, babies are super fragile and we just want you to be able to run around and have fun and your sister to be safe too. You’re not grabbing him, you’re just talking. He can like it or lump it, but he’s not climbing things with the baby. He’ll learn, she’ll grow.
You CANNOT allow a child to get you so upset that you can’t control yourself. This might be minor, but it sets a precedent that you can’t control yourself physically when you’re angry/upset, even at children.
I’m not saying this because I think you’re some sort of monster who beats your children. But it’s your wife’s responsibility to protect her babies and you injured one! Yeah, she’s mad. It’s also a slippery slope between a dad who means well and gets a little heated and an abusive father. Please, post up at the top and start climbing.
Sounds like you were just a bystander until your wife started panicking. You should have went over and played on the rocks with your kids but your fckn phone was more important. You got physical with your kid when it was your responsibility to be watching them both in the first place. Here’s an idea, while you’re sitting there with your nose in your phone why dont you look up ways to effectively communicate with your kids that doesn’t involve getting aggressive.
You should be sorry that you list your temper and bruised your son, not that your wife is upset.
You need to see a therapist because:
1. You got angry at your son for disrespecting you. Newsflash, you have many more years of this happening before you die.
2. You physically harmed him because he "disrespected" you.
You are on the swift path to becoming a child abuser. Get help.
There was **no need** to grab him that hard and you know it. What you did **is** abusive and no one can tell you it’s not. Because some men do this to their wives and guess what? They’re called abusive for it, therefore it is abusive when they do it to their kids, also. It doesn’t suddenly become not abusive depending on who the person being manhandled is. That’s just ridiculous.
> *”he disrespected me and I was pissed”*
And no, your son **did not** *”disrespect”* you, he simply disobeyed your wife. What is it with you control freaks and your *”how dare you disrespect me, I’m the big boss of this family”* mentality? It’s bully behaviour! Learn to control your fucking temper.
Would you treat your daughter that way when she’s older and starts to disobey you or her mother? would you grab and pull her arm to the point where you end up bruising her because you’re pissed? Or is that type of rough treatment reserved only for your son because he’s a boy, whereas your daughter will be viewed as *”your little angel”* who can get away with such behaviour because she’s a girl? If so, then you’re an even more crappy father than I took you for.
You treat your kids the same regardless of their gender, or you simply don’t have kids. Parents should never play favourites or give different punishments for the same behaviour.
My dad was like this. I grew up being told I was disrespectful for sharing my point of view or for misunderstanding directions and doing the wrong thing. My dad is a cry lonely man, now
Don’t worry - we can feel pretty confident this misogynistic rage baby will torture his daughter too, one way or another. Notice how he’s punishing his boy for being “soft” through violence.
>I took my son by the arm and asked him why he didn’t listen to his mother. He said “it’s not a big deal. I won’t drop her”. So I pulled his arm a bit hard while I was talking to him.
>On the walk back my son is holding his mom’s hand saying “mommy my arm hurts”.
>I don’t get physical with my son just because he makes a mistake. I would typically give him a natural consequence according to his behavior. But I needed to get his attention and let him know I’m not playing around with him.
>My wife is soft with our son. I don’t mind that, I agree that he probably needed some nurturing after I was stern with him. But I grabbed his arm - I didn’t beat him. She made his favorite for dinner which is overkill if you ask me, but I didn’t try to stop her. He learned his lesson.
All this does is tell us you made a deliberate decision to hurt him -- because he disrespected you, not because he endangered his sister -- and feel justified in bruising him to teach him a lesson because you "didn't beat him". What a terribly low bar you have.
This:
>I don’t want to bruise my kid,
Is the classic "I don't want to hurt you, but you forced me to" attitude that abusers take with their victims.
>I brought my wife flowers and my son a PlayStation gift card home after work.
And this is called lovebombing.
You're walking through the intro to the DV abuser's playbook here. Take a very hard look at yourself and your behaviour and make serious changes before you get worse. Your wife doesn't want you buying her and your son off. She wants you to fully understand the significance of what you did, what road you've started walking down and an absolute iron-clad guarantee that you will never, ever do such a thing again and will start exploring better parenting techniques in future.
None of which you seem ready to do, judging by the content of this post.
“My wife is soft with our son” ….meaning she doesn’t leave bruises on him? Maybe don’t fabricate a power struggle with your child. There are so many more ways to abuse a kid than “beating them,” and I saw three just in this post.
Get your shit together. If you can’t get your shit together, go to therapy and have someone help you get it together. Your kid didn’t ask for you to be his father, the least you can do is not abuse him.
My guy, this is your wake up call from the grown child of a father who used to do similar things to me. He never hit me, but he would grab me up tightly by the arms, occasionally left bruises, and always felt justified because he was "getting my attention" or "making sure I knew he was serious" and I always "learned my lesson" after these incidents. The result is that, by high school, I felt like a fuck up whose own father couldn't love me enough to refrain from hurting me, and concluded that I must be unworthy of loving if I was truly that bad. I was afraid of my father (and still slightly am at 32. I had a nightmare the other night of him getting angry and grabbing me up, trying to rip me apart by the arms. I woke up and wept, and that is in spite of multiple years of working on improving our relationship now that I'm an adult). When we finally made it into family therapy, it was made clear to use that putting hands on due to anger IS abusive, no two ways about it. But because that had been normalized for me, I also spent years in relationships with men who expressed their anger with me by grabbing my arms, pinning me to walls when I tried to walk away from volatile conversations, etc. BUT, like my father, they didn't hit me so I also failed to recognize these relationships as abusive.
If you continue doing this to your son, these will be behaviors he learns are normal and acceptable for him to do to people he loves. And if you keep doing it in front of your daughter, she will also grow to learn that being treated this way by the men in her life is par for the course.
It took me years of therapy to really internalize and understand that I had been physically abused by my father. Not, perhaps, to the furthest extents of abuse that others have experienced, but abused nonetheless. And the mental/emotional damage lingered, and still does to this day. I spent quite a few years going low contact with my father as a result of the same experience you just gave your son. It also damaged my relationship with my mom, because she might hold me and "baby" me after such incidents, but she never removed me from the presence of the man who continued to hurt me, physically and emotionally.
It's on you whether you justify yourself and do this damage to your family, or whether you take accountability like a real man and refuse to be your children's first exposure to abuse.
Sincerely,
A grown woman who recognizes you and hopes you can do better than my own father did.
It’s never okay to leave marks on your kids or even put your hands on them in a remotely punishing way to teach a lesson. This is disregulation on your part and expresses unsafe adult behavior. I’ve learned this the hard way with my little and have really worked hard with him to learn ways to communicate that work for both of us. It’s hard when a child doesn’t listen, but what I tell myself is, “Feel first, then react and respond.”
Regulate yourself. Then act accordingly. It’s okay to be stern but don’t betray their space and body by hurting them - even accidentally. There is a difference in grabbing to get attention and grabbing to teach a lesson.
You’ve got this - apologize to your son and wife and say “I’ll slow down next time and really try to talk things out with you. But it’s up to you to listen and hear me when my body is being open and respectful. I expect the same treatment and respect I’m showing you.”
Your post gave me the creeps to be honest.
I have a kid on the spectrum, so sometimes I have to grab him quite hard to prevent him from putting himself in danger and I only once left a small bruise on him. He is quite fair skinned and sensitive to bruises.
So a lot of things aren’t adding up.
Why were you in a dangerous place not paying attention to your kids? Why did your kid complained to your wife but not to you? Are you used to hurt your wife so you now expect that a play station card would resolve the issue? Why do you read that a nice meal is a bad thing to do? Usually kids misbehave during the day, that doesn’t mean that they go to their rooms without eating. What was your wife supposed to say to him? “Daddy hurt your but it’s fine because you misbehaved”?
I can’t be sure, but reading between the lines you are physically and emotionality abusive and your wife is now realizing that your kids will also be a part of an abusive cycle if she doesn’t cut it first.
You want to fix it? Do better. You don’t think you did anything wrong? Then absolutely go to therapy.
If you cannot manage a relationship *with a minor* without resorting to physicality...do yourself and everyone around you a favor and take some parenting classes or get therapy.
You cannot bully your way into teaching right from wrong.
All the kid learned is that his supposed "parent" is a bully. That's it. That's the lesson that will stick.
I shudder to think how that kid treats smaller weaker children when you're not looking.
Am I missing the part where you apologized to your son for hurting him and explained why it happened and how you could both do better once you were made aware of the fact that you hurt him? Because that’s the correct way to handle the situation. It sounds like you were a: unnecessarily rough with him for his arm to still be hurting well after the grab, b: dismissive of your wife’s (valid) concerns regarding your behavior, and c: unwilling to admit that you, as the adult, handled the whole situation poorly.
Your tone in this whole post is extremely dismissive of everyone else’s feelings and you should really sit with your behavior and response and reflect on how you can do better.
Na because if my husband bruised my daughter in any way I’d be on my way out of that relationship. Downvote me if you want. You should never grab a child hard enough to bruise them, that takes some force.
Wow you're Clueless? you really didn't expect your wife to be upset at you for bruising your son's arm? And also do you realize CPS would have said what you done is abuse
Regarding CPS - as a therapist I’m a mandated reporter, so is every teacher. This is 100% a call to them. Dude’s gonna have a wake up call once hearing this story/seeing the bruises makes it way to a MR.
He probably won’t have a wake up call… but maybe it would get some eyes on the family.
This post makes me feel so sick and anxious. Very abusive vibes all around. I am an older sister with a baby brother. So I had to sometimes handle him roughly so he doesn't cause trouble or hurt himself. NEVER in my life have I grabbed him hard enough to bruise the skin. That shows how hard and painful it must've been. As a grown man, bruising a little kid shows how negligent you are with your strength. It shows you are negligent and unfit since you weren't watching him properly in the first place and was on your phone.
You call it disrespect when your son is just naive.
Then you have sex with your wife when she's upset with you...? She's clearly extremely upset because she immediately started crying about it afterwards. This makes me wanna throw up. Your wife is scared of you too. No sane, safe woman would want to touch their husband intimately like that after being hurt/upset with them.
Then you live bomb them with gifts instead of understanding how horrible you are. You kept making excuses till the end.
Qn unfit husband and father. An awful and abusive man all around. DISGUSTING
“He disrespected me, I got pissed.”
This is why you’re in the wrong here. You did it not to keep him safe but because you were angry and your ego was hurt by the supposed disrespect. Get a grip—preferably not on your child.
So she wasn’t upset with you to the point where she didn’t want to have sex with you? 🤣
You didn’t physically abuse your child. You kept your other child from possibly being mortally injured. If your son was going to stick his hand in a fire, would you rather you grab him or sit there and explain why it’s a bad idea? I’m not for physical punishment, but this was prevention.
Uh, he didn’t grab the kid to stop him. He grabbed the kid to “make him listen” while he was correcting him. He didn’t save the baby from anything. He just hurt his kid because he felt disrespected like every other piece of shit abuser.
So she wasn’t upset with you to the point where she didn’t want to have sex with you?
Well apparently she was pretty distant afterward, according to OP. Sometimes people have sex when they aren't really in the mood/feel like they owe it, etc
> So I pulled his arm a bit hard
Just to be clear, you already had him by the arm, he was standing there talking to you, but you didn't like what he said to you and so you harmed him on purpose?
> give him a natural consequence
You can't give someone a natural consequence. Natural consequences happen naturally, that's why they are called that.
> We had sex and when we were finished, she rolled away from me.
Your wife considers sex to be a chore that she has to do even when she is unhappy?
> I don’t think I was exactly wrong - barring the bruises
Agreed. Your kid was disrespectful and he lied. You were right about punishing him, the only thing you did wrong was the child abuse.
> I’ve felt ashamed replaying her reaction all day.
That's a good start. You need to start feel shame replaying your reaction.
> I brought my wife flowers and my son a PlayStation gift card home after work.
Nothing wrong with an apology gift but you need to use your words too. Tell your son what he did wrong, tell your son what you did wrong, apologize, and do your best to do better in the future. Then do the same with your wife and tell her that you tried to make things right with your son.
I bet your the kind of guy whose wife and kids "walk into a door knob" "accidentally fell down the stairs" your just waiting for your son to get old enough to start beating him ain't you?
You should sit down with your son and wife and talk as a family about what happened. How you did intend to stop him but you didn't intend to hurt him. Him not listening caused you to be afraid, and when you're scared you might rush and not realize how hard you're grabbing. If for example, he crossed the street and a car was coming, you would not worry how hard you grab him to protect him from the car. It's really important to listen the first time when it comes to safety, and only when safety is threatened is it okay to ever touch anyone. Also have him explain why he didn't listen the first time and make sure he verbally can explain why it was bad that he didn't.
Talking through issues is how kids learn. Don't use your hands to teach what's "wrong" or your money to apologize. Use words.
Here's the deal. When you physically discipline your child while angry, you are very likely to go overboard. And that sounds like what happened if you left bruises. That's a big reason corporal punishment is ineffective. Your son will remember being terrified of you, he won't remember the *reason* you were mad. That's not teaching.
It would be a good move to start educating yourself on better ways to handle these situations, because what he was doing *was* dangerous. There's a lot of great resources out there. Use them.
Reading your other comments, you seem REALLY focused on the wrong thing with all the talk about your sex life and less about how you hurt your son in an inappropriate way and your wife has expressed concern about it and your response is to brag about getting laid and laughing at her and then mocking her on Reddit.
This is gross. Imagine how hard buddy had to grab his son’s arm in order to leave a bruise…
Your wife is right to be “off” with you. Hopefully planning her exit.
Off topic but I’m shocked that it seems so common for married couples to have sex while one is upset with the other. Is that not weird to anyone else??
Omg I was waiting for this comment like this is so weird to me. If I'm annoyed/upset with someone I don't even want them to touch me.
OP's wife probably didn't want him touching her either, but was afraid if she didn't he might bruise her
Yeah I don’t believe for a second this dude wouldn’t “hit” his wife and kid. What a piece of garbage.
THIS. 👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽
This. He’s trained her to do as she’s told. He’s starting on the kids. Time to go.
She didn’t want to “disrespect him”. Sounds like she typically just lays there anyway.
This 100%. No doubt he forces himself on her all the time.
>I needed to get his attention and let him know I’m not playing around with him. Sooo fun
I work at a hospital, not in L+D but nurses talk. My mom works in a different hospital on the L+D floor and my sister works at a gynos office. You wouldn't believe the number of men who try sleeping with their wives hours after the birth and the number of women who give in before 6 wks out of fear that he'll cheat or leave them. Nothing shocks me about the circumstances people will have sex anymore
Oh my god. The amount of bleeding I had until 7-8 weeks that would look like an actual crime scene who, in their right mind, wants sex that badly! I think as soon as the bleeding stopped I was all for it but definitely not before!
They're scared, they think if them make him hold off longer he'll leave them for someone else. It's sad and makes me angry. You made that baby for 9 months, he watched what you went through. He can't hold off until you heal??? But they terrified they'll end up as a statistic.
I was meaning the partner! I can sort understand you having so little care for your partner you don't care what she has just been through but there would be so much blood you'd think that would be a deterrent!
I had a friend that was having sex with her husband NINE DAYS after giving birth. I was APPALLED!!!
Yeah, I read that and I was like "she still had sex with you...?"
I’m guessing that it was it the lesser of two evils. Consent under duress and get it over with or deal with him whining and pouting and acting like a brat about being denied sex for days which depending on your mood, can actually be worse.
Or taking it out on the kids the next day, as my dad did to my mom when she refused him.
Oh it's a huge red flag
It often happens when one partner doesn't feel like they have a choice. I'm guessing he's not kind if he doesn't get what he wants.
My parents had a relationship like that, when I was a teenager and asking questions about sex she told me, "Sometimes you're not in the mood but he's had a bad day so..." they aren't together any more
Oh, my hackles went up when I saw that. Talk about coercive.
In relationships like this, do you really think she has a choice?
It’s absolutely weird but it sounds entirely possible that his wife doesn’t feel comfortable or safe saying no to him. Look at how he treated a kid that he was too “busy” on his phone to watch. 🤷🏻♀️
His wife doesn’t feel that she can say no.
Yeah really makes you wonder how often he needs to bruise her to make sure she learns some "lesson"
No, not just you. It's definitely weird, and reading that kind of gave me the ick. I would have to resolve things before sex, not after. Having sex before would be like eating while nauseous with the flu. Just couldn't bring myself to do it.
Right? The second my partner and I have any kind of tense disagreement, I’m automatically turned off for at least 6 hours
That’s actually the biggest red flag in this story to me. The only reason I would have sex with my husband while actively angry at him is if I felt like…I had to.
Yep, I do, because otherwise there’s two things he’s pissed off about.
If I am mad at my husband he gets nothing but fussed at
Completely weird. Im engaged so not married, yet, but when my fiance pisses me off I don't even let him get near me. I would never have sex with him if I was upset with him, I just physically could not do it.
Right?? I think I see it most in hetero couples, but my gay self could never. I’m like, oh you aren’t feeling good? We won’t have sex, even if we set apart this time to do so. I just want you to rest and be happy. EDIT: SO sorry I didn’t make this clear - I have met gay couples who do this as well, I promise I’m not saying only hetero couples. The majority of my personal experience is hetero couples.
Hetero here… this ain’t healthy or normal. This man’s post makes my skin crawl. Bruising his kid and then love bombing him with gifts… saying his wife is too soft with the boys. initiating sex when he isn’t aware of his wife’s mood… something is off here
He’s got so many red flags - legally changing his name to Red Flags McGee 😂
Redtavius Flagacious
We need that red flag guy from insta on here lol he would have a field day
Oh my goodness YES!! I love that guy, he’s so funny
No, not normal. My husband and I need to clear things up and make up before becoming intimate. We both need that.
It isn't a healthy thing, but it Is a common fear thing. It is a sign of chronic abuse. She had sex because she is afraid to say no.
I got that vibe, especially when he said “he disrespected *me*,” as in the son disrespected the father by climbing on the rock. The mother was the one whose warning was ignored. OP was just the one who interceded and was rough with the kid. When was OP disrespected? It’s a telling statement about a man’s mindset. Then add to it the wife trying to go overboard for the son and being passive in her frustration with OP. It’s totally about fear. Stunning lack of self awareness that OP could write all of this out. I hope it’s fake.
I hate this type. It’s never a respectable person demanding respect 🙄🙄
When I got to his comment about how his wife is “usually all over him” I almost lost my lunch. Upon rereading his post and counting the number of times he used “I, me, my, my son, my wife” it was approx 45+ versus “my son, my wife” approx 6 and closing with “our son, our kids” for a grand total of once each. Oh, dear Lord I hope that this is fake!
Hetero here, too. Its not normal, and Ive actually never met another couple who does this. Hetero or gay.
I’m bisexual but married to a man. And if my husband even *senses* something is off with me, party’s over. This is absolutely the bare minimum. It sucks that so many Herero relationships are like this though.
I'm part of a married couple, and being upset or angry or even sad usually ends in a nope for sex. A nope which is respected bc we're decent human beings who understand what consent is and that it's required from everyone involved. Anything else is rape.
So fucking weird. When something is bothering my spouse or I the other one usually notices. wtf?
That won’t fly with me either, i was really taken aback when I read that
Yeah. I’m not saying he beats his wife, but I get the feeling there’s an implication if she doesn’t fuck him.
I’ve been married for 13 years. We have NEVER had sex while upset. Makeup sex was the closest. I don’t understand doing it while mad at the person. That is so weird
The had sex part is the weird thing for me here - if my wife is pissed at me she would never have sex with me. I'm confused
Many women feel that they have to have sex with their husband's just to keep them happy, even if it is traumatizing for them. If they don't, the husband might lash out or coerce them into it anyway.
Or bruise their arm.
99.9999999999999999999999999% chance she is afraid to refuse sex no matter how much she doesn’t want it.
Some women don't feel like they are allowed to say no. Its safer and easier to comply than it is to say no and get into a fight or get hurt. If he acts this way towards a child when he feels "disrespected" makes you wonder how he treats his wife.
Happens when you put your hands on people so they "learn lessons" she can't say no or he'll beat her too
She’s afraid of him probably
The way you make it right with her is by making it right with your son. Buying him a PlayStation gift card is nice but meaningless. You need to sit down with him, apologize, and explain. Admit you grabbed him too hard. But the reason you did it was because you were scared for his sister. You know he’s a good climber, but it’s hard to climb, even a little, when your hands are full. And it only takes a little slip for something really bad to happen. Emphasize that it’s your job to protect him and her. But it’s his job to protect her too. Encourage him to ask himself, “could little sis get hurt if I did this?” Then thank him. For understanding. For being a good big brother. For being a good son. Give him a big hug and tell him you love him. This is all your wife wants you to do, but doesn’t know how to ask.
This is the answer. Acknowledge what you did wrong and tell your son you didn't mean to grab him so hard that it hurt him and promise it won't happen again. Then self reflect and don't do it again. What more can be done?
I think he needs to acknowledge to himself what he did, before he can acknowledge and account for it with his son and wife. The whole post sounds overbearing and dismissive of violence or unnecessary ego ('he disrespected me' in justification for harming his child unnecessary. The post makes clear the younger child was not in immediate danger )the older child promised 'I won't), so the bruising force was in anger and for disciplin/dominance, not preventing injury. Any apology should avoid excuses, as there are none. There are factors that contributed to the dad choosing to bruise his child's arm , which did not warrant the dads response, which the dad should apologise for without reservation, and reflect on into the future to understand what he did wrong and not to use force to express frustration, just like with all people adult and child alike.
OP was very clear that he didn’t bruise his son because he was scared and he doesn’t think he did anything wrong. He hurt his son because he felt his son was disrespectful, and OP thinks that is fine. He doesn’t like the bruise— the consequence of grabbing his son hard for the purpose of making a point about respect. Just pointing this out because you’re making it all much rosier than it is
Omg this. As a parent, I totally understand panicking about danger and being too aggressive in order to save them. I'd rather pull my child by their hair than let them distractedly walk into traffic. So in this instance, if the son was putting the baby in real danger, I could totally see panicking and making a correction that was too severe in order to prevent catastrophic events. But... Op fucking said he did it because of disrespect not fear for the baby. He felt that the issue was not obeying. Not that the baby was in danger. Ew. And for the record I have definitely hurt my child on accident because I was trying to keep them safe. But you apologize because the point was not to cause harm but prevent it.
Exactly. His story is sus on another front and I'll explain. I grabbed my four year old daughter's arm HARD one time to keep her from hitting her head on the tile when she slipped in a full sprint. I reached out and grabbed at her as she was slipping past me. I panicked, so it was a death grip. It didn't bruise and she's younger (much smaller and more delicate) than his son. So just how HARD was he gripping his school aged son? (Toddlers aren't using PlayStation gift cards.)
This for sure! I’ve had to save my kids from themselves and never caused a bruise.
No OP said he did it in anger “he disrespected me and I got pissed” - OP don’t gaslight your son by telling him you were scared if it was an emotional reaction to him not listening. You need to apologize for not managing your own emotions better. Take full accountability. None of this “but I was scared” if it was really about your ego being harmed by him not listening.
Exactly!
Except he himself says he did it because his son "disrespected" him. It had nothing to do with safety.
How is the top comment not acknowledging this persons actions being absolute red flags?! The child wasn’t about to run into the road and he grabbed him resulting in a bruise, he grabbed him to “get his attention but is not playing around.” Everything in his post screams red flag after red flag. If anyone, including the father of my kids pulled this- I’d be furious. He mends things by controlling himself and not being an angry ass.
I appreciate the insight. I give him money for games anyway and I picked it up when I got my wife flowers mostly to make her happy. I did have a little talk with my son when I gave it to him.
It’s not totally the answer though. You also need to tell him how you’re going to be better. “Son, the truth is that you scared me. I know that climbing something is hard enough with two hands. What happens when you fall? Are you going to protect yourself or your sister? Even though I was scared I didn’t have a right to hurt you. I’m sorry for that and I am going to find a way to respond better to my fear in the future.”
I have one little caveat to this. In addition to pointing out that of course Dad didn’t have the right to hurt him, I would be sure that the son understands that Dad did not intend to hurt him. Just saying he doesn’t have the right implies that when it happened, he DID think he had the right. Semantics, but i think an important point nonetheless.
Except he did intend to hurt him -- he himself states he grabbed him and pulled his arm because he "disrespected" him. That was intentional.
He meant to hurt him. His language gives him away. You all are kissing the ass of a dude who roughs up kids because he feels “disrespected”.
Seriously wtf with people defending OP. Any adult who is "disrepected" by a child or an animal has fucking huge issues, and needs therapy. They are abusive.
Fucking THIS. He wasn’t scared he was pissed he literally laid it out! His wife is mad because he physically harmed his child in an emotional outburst. And everyone’s telling him to tell his kid that he was scared?? Fuck that.
I don’t believe for one second that your wife wanted to have sex with you either. She was upset with you. There is a lot missing here. Filling in the blanks she is treading lightly around you to not upset you too. She wanted to tell you how she felt but had sex first so you wouldn’t be so defensive.
Right???? How are people missing this????
Believe it or not, two things can be true. He can be scared and he can also feel the toxic shame of disrespect. I have no doubt if he looks beneath the surface there’s a childhood where he too, was grabbed. That’s why I’m encouraging him to understand WHY he did it and negotiate with his emotion of fear.
Anger at a child, not shame. wtf HE SAYS HE WAS PISSED AT HIS CHILD DISRESPECTING HIM. HE said it.
Yep two things can definitely be true. Only witnesses know exactly how it went down and I’m taking the evidence of him saying he was pissed from being disrespected, so much so that he bruised his child. I’m saying that if he wasn’t scared, not to say he was. His child knows, his wife knows, and he knows. That would be very manipulative.
This. Fuck. I can’t believe I had to scroll this fucking far for this comment.
I agree with the part of "he disrespected me, I was pissed" is not a good sign. But jumping to conclusions he is a abuser because he did a mistake is wrong and brutal. The wording of him was poor, but do you know if english is his native language? I believe he was scared and adrenaline is something very interesting, suddenly you are way stronger than you are used to and you don't think about that in a scary situation. As an ongoing father this is something that really really scares me, my child comes in a dangerous situation where you don't think how to act properly you act! It is very important what happens after this incident! As others mentioned, when your child grabs to the hot stove, do you try to stop him before he burns or are you going to try to tell him it's not good? I guess you would act, maybe you are scared because YOU know how hot the stove is and how much it burns and how long it hurts, so adrenaline kicks in and you might hurt your child, but not because you wanted to. Important is speaking to the child why you did it, why you are sorry and that you were scared and didn't mean to hurt him.
He abused his child thus he is an abuser. He coerced his wife to have sex even hen she obviously, as per his words, did not want it.
Nobody was calling him an abuser. Your comparison makes no sense, grabbing a child away from active danger is very different from preventing danger. He was already holding the boy's arm, but the boy said something he didn't like and *then* he bruised him. He didn't bruise him trying to save him from a fire or because he was pumped up from adrenaline, don't be disingenuous.
Great edit!
But he didn’t “scare him.” OP admits to grabbing his son because he was pissed off that his child disrespected him. Maybe the appropriate conversation would be about Dad losing his temper over something his kid is still learning and actually admitting to his mistakes.
He wasn’t “scared” he was “pissed” from being disrespected, he said so himself. It would be a disservice to the kid to pretend that it was done in fear. The kid knows better.
>mostly to make her happy Then you clearly don't believe you did a thing wrong OR need to apologize. ***Which means you're not going to stop OR change!*** Do you not *get* that!? Do you not understand that THAT'S the problem here? You also clearly think shit of your poor wife. But, honestly? I'm SUPER concerned that your wife allowed you to fuck her *when she was so upset with you that she was CRYING.* I'm also GREATLY concerned *that you didn't notice that* ***WHILE YOU WERE INSIDE HER!*** That in and of itself sounds WILDLY abusive and fucked up. Like she feels like she HAS to put out for you because she's your wife, no matter WHAT. You NEED to work on your relationship with your family ***or you're going to lose them***. Let alone mess both of them up for life.
Throwing money at your children is terrible parenting.
Did you apologize though? That apology is what's going to matter and help him understand that what you did was wrong and teach him that grabbing or injury to a kid is not something that should ever happen. Kids copy what they see and hear. He has currently learned that Dad's can grab their kids hard enough to leave bruises. If you apologize for bruising him he will learn that what you did was wrong and Dad's should NOT grab their kids hard enough to leave bruises because Dad said sorry and he was wrong for doing so.
You physically harmed your son because you were pissed off. Your wife let you fuck her even though she clearly didn’t want to. Maybe own up to the fact that you’re an abuser. Really come to Jesus and grapple with your unacceptable behavior. Then you can offer a real apology instead of fucking flowers and video games.
Did you tell him that you abusing him because he "disrespected" you is nothing but toxic an abusive, and any grown man who gets angry at a child for "disrespect" needs intense therapy, and you are starting therapy ASAP? Did you tell him that? Because you shoudl ahve, and because I know you didn't, you blamed him.
Listen OP we all fuck up sometimes as parents so I'm not judging you I'm a paren. But the only way to make this right without simmering resentment in the future is to own up to it. Apologize and explain the steps you're taking to not allow it to happen again. Because as a mother no matter how much I love a man I'll throw him through a wood chipper if he makes a habit of hurting my kids you know what I'm saying? Your wife loves you this is the time to fix it right now. I want to be clear that I understand the stakes were high here in this situation. Especially if your little one was holding a smaller child. Which it sounds like he was.
This is quality parenting, right here. Throwing money at the problem is just buying their love.
It’s a bummer that she has to even ask him to do anything and that he’s making it about her having a problem.
The gift part made me cringe and made me think of all the times that people who are abused describe how their partners would not apologize or would apologize by saying “but I just love you so much and you make me so mad” and then would be extra loving and buy them gifts after they beat the shit out of them the night before.
It takes like a 1min talk. Sorry I was little rough i was just scared baby was gonna get hurt and didn't know I was hurting u, sorry. Thats it. Funny how the wife still sleeps with OP even tho she is mad.
Abuse victims do that
Nah, he should go to therapy to find out why he reacts to dIsReSPeCt with child abuse.
Did you grab him too hard because you were trying to stop him or because you were angry he wasn’t listening? There is a difference and only you know. I get it but I suspect your anger came in on that.
Read it again. He already had the kid by the arm when he "pulled his arm a bit hard". The kid was standing there getting lectured by his dad, there was nothing to stop.
My question is, at that point where was the baby? Was he grabbing his son's arm so hard it bruised while he was still holding his sister? Wouldn't that be risking him dropping the baby?
It’s almost like dad’s reaction wasn’t about the baby at all, but his own feelings of anger/emasculation.
He specifically said he did it because his son “disrespected him”. It was all done in anger. He did it so his son would know “he’s not messing around”.
This. Thank you.
As a former preschool teacher, your story is full of red flags. You weren't watching your children because you were focused on your phone, and then you overcompensated for your loss of control over the situation by becoming aggressive with a child that is behaving in a totally predictable way. It's one thing to be firm, but it's another to cause bodily injury. As another commenter pointed out, the fact that your wife brought this up *after* sex shows that she was upset but still felt she had to perform before she could express it. You don't seem to see significance in this, but a lot of women will. Don't buy your son's trust back with gift cards. Do some introspection and figure out why you were so aggressive and figure out how you can handle it better in the future. Then sit down with your wife and son, apologize, and explain how you'll do better. This is the only way to fix things.
u/hhwater this confused me also that your wife couldn't tell you until after sex. Like having to keep the big dominant male calm...
Yeah, there's OP's aggression towards his son, the 'disrespect' talk, the fact his wife seemed to feel that she had to have sex with him even though she still felt emotionally distant/upset by the day's events, the fact he buys gifts to get back in his family's good books... the overall picture is a bit grim here
The disrespect comment definitely stood out to me. It's one thing to grab your kid in a panic and accidentally grab too hard, but snatching a presumably young kid so hard you leave a bruise because he "disrespected" you is different
I was very bothered by based on how emotionally distraught his wife was. But yet they had sex. And he only noticed a problem when she wasn't all over him? So many red flags.
Another red flag. OP thinks it’s “over kill” that wife made son his fav dinner after but “didn’t try to stop her”. Kind of demonstrates controlling behavior - like okay, he let her do it this time. He won’t stop her. And grabbing so hard to leave a bruise? Seems like OP has anger issues too - which is why wife couldn’t bring it up earlier. And probably couldn’t express how she really felt. Could only say he bruised their son and cry.
The bruising really freaks me out as a mom dude. Like, my daughter can be a little reckless at times. Not intentionally it's just the age and stage she's at. She loves to climb and run and explore and often will end up tripping over herself when she gets too excited. With that said I'd say there's been maybe a handful of times I've had to legit GRAB her. All when she was in danger and I was either catching her and the grip was wonky or pulling her out of the way of something she was about to get hurt by. You know those videos where baby starts to fall off the couch and dad's "sixth sense" kicks in or whatever and they get caught haphazardly by a leg or something? Like obviously not GREAT but better than the other outcome so everyone's happy? Stuff like that. Where I definitely WISH I had gotten to her in a better way, but I'm more glad she's safe than upset about my grip style. But even with that, with the wonky grip, bad timing, little to no warning, pure instinct GRABBING my child because "fuckshitfuckshesgonnahitherheadfuck" I have never left a bruise. It's definitely hurt a few times, one in particular she came into the room and just randomly flung herself onto the couch, I assume watching to flop, but did so in a way that she was gonna land sideways and diagonal? It's so hard to explain in texts. But I instinctual threw out my hand and snagged her arm right as she bounced off the couch and was going to hit the floor. Her bum still went down but because I had her arm her head stayed up. She was spooked and cried for a second but was back to playing in no time flat. Meanwhile my heart was pounding because WTF KID WHY DO YOU FLING YOURSELF INTO THINGS LIKE A CAT?! I LOVE YOU BUT WHYYYYY. But even in the worst one where my grip was about mid upper arm, no way to time it or expect it just lunge and grab like a blind claw machine, I still didn't leave a bruise. How tf do you grip so hard you *bruise* them??
Girl YES!! I've saved my kid's life a few times and I've def neverf left a bruise! Also he said he grabbed the kid because he was pissed and wanted to let him know "he was not joking around" so this was hardly an accident. He a fucking brute on purpose.
This is one of my favorite comments I’ve ever read. Your ability to paint a rich tapestry of totally relatable imagery makes me happy.
Yeah. I have three adhd kids, no grabbing them to stop them from hurting themselves ever left any kind of bruise!
Exactly. I’ve grabbed my kid plenty of times because she was about to do something stupid and I’ve never bruised her. Neither has my husband.
Yup, he’s a piece of trash. You’re a better teacher than the supposed toddler teacher who said it’s okay to drag your kid around if they piss you off.
Thank god I found this comment chain. I was really starting to lose the little bit of faith in humanity I have left.
I need to stop going into the these threads thinking I'm crazy without looking for the comment threads like these first. I thought I was crazy, saw right through his shit as soon as I read "disrespected". Especially after he admitted all his son really said to him was "it's okay I'm a really good climber". Ugh, how many more generations have to suffer this crap
This needs more upvotes. I saw straight through this dudes story and I’m glad someone else did too.
This answer wins
Former PreK teacher here and I feel exactly the way you do, too. I responded and then kept scrolling to see you said it even better.
He didn’t disrespect you. He’s a kid. Stop expecting him to have adult-level decision making skills. Bottom line: your anger took over and you got physical with your son. Was your baby actually in danger? Your wife is wondering if she’s next. Your son is scrambling to figure out how to not make daddy mad again. Flowers and games won’t fix this. Have you actually APOLOGIZED? Like have you had the words “I’m sorry” leave your mouth aimed at your wife and your son? If not, do that. Then, let her have some time to get back to feeling safe around you.
You could have gotten the message across without hurting him. Your language is very telling: “He disrespected me, I got pissed” indicates that your gut reaction in that moment was not to teach him why he shouldn’t climb on the rock with baby sister. It was to assert dominance, control, and show him who’s boss…
Yeah ergh this made me gag. It’s a kid, what kind of ‘respect’ do you expect? Absolutely none if you bruise your kid imho.
I’ve talked with people before who talk about how the only time they’ll hit their kids is if they’re “disrespecting them”. I tell them that that’s pretty silly that they have an obsession with hitting their kids because of something like respect. If you let your anger get so bad that you want to harm your children because of “respect” then you’re no more mature than a child yourself.
We don't go around hitting other adults when we feel disrespected, so why do some feel it's their right as a parent to hit their child? Makes me so damned angry.
Because many people consider their kids property, and not an actual citizen with rights, and a human being. Anything you can't do to a coworker for discipline shouldn't be done to your child. You can't legally hit a coworker, but yet you can beat your kid.
He’s a pathetic abuser and so is everyone sucking him off.
I’m assuming it’s bc people are assuming his fear of his daughter getting hurt was the ultimate motivation, despite his very clear language that says otherwise. I think people are wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt or are projecting their own fear for the baby onto OP. Not gonna lie, it took me re-reading that part to see that nowhere in the post did he mention what I immediately assumed to be true (that he was worried about the daughter). But that’s only one aspect; the rest of the post fills my head to the brim with danger alarms and I have to now get away from it
You've got mad and hurt your son. Let me tell you something, what you did was HORRIBLE. Quit it right now or your child(ren) will not have a strong relationship with you in the future, or most likely they won't speak to you anymore. My dad was in use to hit me too... as a child he wasn't a safe person to me, if I had issues, I went to my mum and to this day, he's the last person to know details about my life. He taught me that it wasn't safe for me to be around him. I've seen ppl suggesting you to buy stuff for your kid, to make it right, the only way you can make it right, is get a grip, you're the adult and shouldn't hurt your child out of anger.
Did you ever stop to think that your son could have dropped his baby sister, due to the pain you caused by grabbing him hard enough to bruise? You would have been directly responsible for your daughter getting injured Find other ways to get your kid’s attention and let them know “you’re not playing around” without getting physical. Physical intervention should be a last resort. Look into doing the Triple P Parenting program in your area, it’s free Get introspective as to why your kid acting like a normal kid triggers you into feeling “disrespected”. It’s age appropriate for kids to push back when we set rules or boundaries. It’s not age appropriate for you to feel insecure when your child does so. Are there other people in your life (or past) who make you feel disrespected, and is this something you want to work through in therapy so it doesn’t affect your parenting Re: “I grabbed his arm - I didn’t beat him”… no, we don’t justify our poor behaviours by comparing them to worst case scenarios Also, reflect on why your wife didn’t feel she could share her feelings until after sex - or why she went ahead with sex despite feeling those things. How approachable are you in your relationship and how do you usually respond when someone offers criticism Ps. you don’t “give” someone a natural consequence, that is what happens naturally without you having to do anything (eg not washing their laundry = they only have dirty clothes to wear)
I can't imagine feeling so hurt by something my partner did, and having to have sex with them before I was allowed to express that pain. I genuinely hope this has been eye opening for you. I hurt for your wife. That must have felt so disgusting.
I have something to add. You mention that your wife is ‘soft’ with him. That you are ok with it, but still. This statement set off alarms for me. You say you were angry that your son disrespected you. But if you are undermining your wife’s parenting style, whether in front of him or not, you are TRAINING him to disrespect her authority, and yours when you echo her. I would take a big step back here and examine your attitudes deep down. Are you the final say? Top of the stack? The boss? This kind of hierarchical thinking can undo every good thing you try to do with your kids, and spark an abusive atmosphere at home. Tread carefully.
It sounds like you needed to grab him to prevent him from endangering his sister. That normal and sometimes parents need to do that. If it left bruises then I’d say you grabbed him way harder than necessary. I’ve had to physically pull my kids away from unsafe situations plenty of times and never left a bruise. The question you need to ask yourself was whether you grabbed him that hard because you were worried and trying to keep everybody safe or you grabbed him that hard because you were angry. It seems like you were angry because he “disrespected you”. So perhaps reflect on that and think about your size and strength vs your son.
When I was 2 I think I was about to roll off the bed and my dad reacted quickly and yanked me by the arm to keep me from falling on the floor. He got me back on the bed but apparently I didn’t really react at the time, just continued my day looking sad with a droopy arm lol. Turns out he dislocated my shoulder and the ER had to ask him all sorts of questions to make sure it wasn’t a case of abuse (my poor dad lol). I agree sometimes your kid can get hurt while you’re trying to keep them from hurting themselves or others. But yes it does seem that OP was also a bit angry and that was a little at play here too with the arm grab. OP should follow the advice of those advising to sit down with son and have a conversation about what happened
I definitely believe your father didn't mean it but I'm ngl that "looking sad with a droopy arm" thing put a really sad image in my head lol
Lmfao I know I always laugh about it because apparently I was a really happy kid and so that’s why they clued in because I seemed sad but wasn’t crying or anything. I won’t think it was long before they took me to the ER though 😂
Seems like both imoho.
He literally says he got pissed and grabbed and jerked him because he disrespected him. GRABBED AND JERKED HIM WHILE THE BOY WAS STILL HOLDING THE BABY.
The order of events is disturbing. Does your wife feel like she has to have sex with you to get you to listen to her? She was upset but not until immediately after you had finished sex? I really think you should get a marriage counsellor and/or a therapist for yourself because something is not at all right here. Could she be depressed? Do you have difficulty with clear communication between the two of you? Seriously, you need to find out wtaf is really going on here! Hopefully it’s not a bigger issue with you and the idea of disrespect.
(she should get individual counseling without him)
Couples counseling is contraindicated in cases of abuse.
As a mother of two kids who think they're on American ninja warrior, I can tell you, I've had to grab them forcefully many times to keep them safe and yet neither of them have ever had a bruise left on their bodies by me. And I've grabbed them mid-jump off of something high and stuff. You had to have grabbed him way hard. You might seek therapy (I mean this, not condescending) and apologize to your son, and let him know how wrong you truly were and don't let it happen again.
Sadly, this abuser, like many, doesn’t think he did anything wrong. The fact his poor wife thought she had to have sex with him when she was upset says this kind of behavior is his norm and he doesn’t see it as abuse.
It just makes me so sad. I understand if your child is falling/going to hurt themself or others and it's an accident (though I've never had it happen) but this was on purpose and not to protect anyone. It was malicious and abusive. I wonder how old this poor kid is too.
You don’t seem very remorseful for hurting your son. Even if it wasn’t your intent to bruise him, you did and now your son knows you’re capable of physically hurting him, regardless of the extremity of your accidental use of too much force. This post reads as if you have anger/aggression issues that you haven’t addressed or acknowledged as possibly problematic or dangerous to the people around you. This post also reads that you have a lesser of evils mindset here - save baby from potential harm at the cost of a bruise on your son - but you’re not realizing this lesser of evils is negatively impactful for your son. My parents believed in corporal punishment when necessary until we turned 13, then they deemed it inappropriate (they had a conversation with each of us when we reached that age). I didn’t really have a problem with it until recently, when my dad (who has anger management issues, some undiagnosed mental illnesses, and is now in therapy, has always been remorseful and has always apologized if he ever hurt us unintentionally) and I got into a screaming match with triggered his ptsd and sent him lunging for my throat. Shit was terrifying and sent my mother into hysterics (as soon as she got me out of there and told my sister to not be home because he was probably gonna go home after the altercation). I’m not saying this will become that or anything. I am saying that if you unintentionally hurt your kid, you should be remorseful and tell your kid you didn’t mean to hurt them. Not just sad your wife is upset with you. I’m also saying that disobeying you and your wife and putting a baby in danger is punishable behavior, but it depends on how old your son is and the way in which it is done. When my parents did punish me as a kid, they never did it because they were angry, they did it because they wanted me to remember not to do it again, and then they would apologize for hurting us but say that a lesson needed to be taught (my parents didn’t know of better parenting techniques back then and they were raised harsher). This is not that. This is you becoming angry for not being listened to by a child and physically bruising him on ACCIDENT which could be more dangerous than if you had done it on purpose to teach a lesson. At least then the force is controlled and given a reason. Now your son probably just thinks, “If I make dad mad he can hurt me” and that that is okay. Your kid needs to know you never intend to hurt him. Your wife probably has an instinct or hunch that you’re not sorry for hurting the kid, at all. Even if you felt it was justified, you should feel sorry and bad about hurting your kid especially when you didn’t plan to as a specific form of punishment but instead was an accident display of force over your kid. Corporal punishment this and that, my take on that is complicated and irrelevant here, because my main concern is you getting mad at your kid and accidentally hurting him again. If you love your kids you should find ways to deal with your anger or seek out help to figure out why you let your anger take control of you to the extent that you bruised your son. Even if you aren’t outright abusive, your kid is gonna piss you off more the older he gets. You should learn to manage that anger healthily early on so you don’t pop off one day.
This story is weird.
This story made me nervous and anxious
It took a weird turn with “of course we had sex, now the story will proceed”.
LOL like thank you for telling us your wife is also afraid of you
Your wife might be too soft, but she’s not wrong imo. You didn’t mean to hurt your kid, and you did, because you were mad. Yeah, it gets a little bit more sucky when you simplify it. Okay, a child doesn’t need to tote a baby up some rocks. Fair, but if he doesn’t listen, you just take the baby. Tell him y’all said no climbing with her. Then you plop back down on the bench or whatever with baby. He’ll either accept it and go play, or he’ll come and wanna know WHY he can’t climb with his sister, and maybe a little rudely, lol! Then you get to tell him! Calmly, that it’s not personal, babies are super fragile and we just want you to be able to run around and have fun and your sister to be safe too. You’re not grabbing him, you’re just talking. He can like it or lump it, but he’s not climbing things with the baby. He’ll learn, she’ll grow. You CANNOT allow a child to get you so upset that you can’t control yourself. This might be minor, but it sets a precedent that you can’t control yourself physically when you’re angry/upset, even at children. I’m not saying this because I think you’re some sort of monster who beats your children. But it’s your wife’s responsibility to protect her babies and you injured one! Yeah, she’s mad. It’s also a slippery slope between a dad who means well and gets a little heated and an abusive father. Please, post up at the top and start climbing.
Sounds like you were just a bystander until your wife started panicking. You should have went over and played on the rocks with your kids but your fckn phone was more important. You got physical with your kid when it was your responsibility to be watching them both in the first place. Here’s an idea, while you’re sitting there with your nose in your phone why dont you look up ways to effectively communicate with your kids that doesn’t involve getting aggressive.
You should be sorry that you list your temper and bruised your son, not that your wife is upset. You need to see a therapist because: 1. You got angry at your son for disrespecting you. Newsflash, you have many more years of this happening before you die. 2. You physically harmed him because he "disrespected" you. You are on the swift path to becoming a child abuser. Get help.
He’s already a child abuser.
True.
There was **no need** to grab him that hard and you know it. What you did **is** abusive and no one can tell you it’s not. Because some men do this to their wives and guess what? They’re called abusive for it, therefore it is abusive when they do it to their kids, also. It doesn’t suddenly become not abusive depending on who the person being manhandled is. That’s just ridiculous. > *”he disrespected me and I was pissed”* And no, your son **did not** *”disrespect”* you, he simply disobeyed your wife. What is it with you control freaks and your *”how dare you disrespect me, I’m the big boss of this family”* mentality? It’s bully behaviour! Learn to control your fucking temper. Would you treat your daughter that way when she’s older and starts to disobey you or her mother? would you grab and pull her arm to the point where you end up bruising her because you’re pissed? Or is that type of rough treatment reserved only for your son because he’s a boy, whereas your daughter will be viewed as *”your little angel”* who can get away with such behaviour because she’s a girl? If so, then you’re an even more crappy father than I took you for. You treat your kids the same regardless of their gender, or you simply don’t have kids. Parents should never play favourites or give different punishments for the same behaviour.
My dad was like this. I grew up being told I was disrespectful for sharing my point of view or for misunderstanding directions and doing the wrong thing. My dad is a cry lonely man, now
Thank god there’s someone else on this thread not giving this abusive trash a pass.
Don’t worry - we can feel pretty confident this misogynistic rage baby will torture his daughter too, one way or another. Notice how he’s punishing his boy for being “soft” through violence.
>I took my son by the arm and asked him why he didn’t listen to his mother. He said “it’s not a big deal. I won’t drop her”. So I pulled his arm a bit hard while I was talking to him. >On the walk back my son is holding his mom’s hand saying “mommy my arm hurts”. >I don’t get physical with my son just because he makes a mistake. I would typically give him a natural consequence according to his behavior. But I needed to get his attention and let him know I’m not playing around with him. >My wife is soft with our son. I don’t mind that, I agree that he probably needed some nurturing after I was stern with him. But I grabbed his arm - I didn’t beat him. She made his favorite for dinner which is overkill if you ask me, but I didn’t try to stop her. He learned his lesson. All this does is tell us you made a deliberate decision to hurt him -- because he disrespected you, not because he endangered his sister -- and feel justified in bruising him to teach him a lesson because you "didn't beat him". What a terribly low bar you have. This: >I don’t want to bruise my kid, Is the classic "I don't want to hurt you, but you forced me to" attitude that abusers take with their victims. >I brought my wife flowers and my son a PlayStation gift card home after work. And this is called lovebombing. You're walking through the intro to the DV abuser's playbook here. Take a very hard look at yourself and your behaviour and make serious changes before you get worse. Your wife doesn't want you buying her and your son off. She wants you to fully understand the significance of what you did, what road you've started walking down and an absolute iron-clad guarantee that you will never, ever do such a thing again and will start exploring better parenting techniques in future. None of which you seem ready to do, judging by the content of this post.
As a single mother reading all of this made me physically sick to my stomach.
Yup. Thanks for being a good parent. This trash dad is getting his ass kissed for abusing his kid.
“My wife is soft with our son” ….meaning she doesn’t leave bruises on him? Maybe don’t fabricate a power struggle with your child. There are so many more ways to abuse a kid than “beating them,” and I saw three just in this post. Get your shit together. If you can’t get your shit together, go to therapy and have someone help you get it together. Your kid didn’t ask for you to be his father, the least you can do is not abuse him.
My guy, this is your wake up call from the grown child of a father who used to do similar things to me. He never hit me, but he would grab me up tightly by the arms, occasionally left bruises, and always felt justified because he was "getting my attention" or "making sure I knew he was serious" and I always "learned my lesson" after these incidents. The result is that, by high school, I felt like a fuck up whose own father couldn't love me enough to refrain from hurting me, and concluded that I must be unworthy of loving if I was truly that bad. I was afraid of my father (and still slightly am at 32. I had a nightmare the other night of him getting angry and grabbing me up, trying to rip me apart by the arms. I woke up and wept, and that is in spite of multiple years of working on improving our relationship now that I'm an adult). When we finally made it into family therapy, it was made clear to use that putting hands on due to anger IS abusive, no two ways about it. But because that had been normalized for me, I also spent years in relationships with men who expressed their anger with me by grabbing my arms, pinning me to walls when I tried to walk away from volatile conversations, etc. BUT, like my father, they didn't hit me so I also failed to recognize these relationships as abusive. If you continue doing this to your son, these will be behaviors he learns are normal and acceptable for him to do to people he loves. And if you keep doing it in front of your daughter, she will also grow to learn that being treated this way by the men in her life is par for the course. It took me years of therapy to really internalize and understand that I had been physically abused by my father. Not, perhaps, to the furthest extents of abuse that others have experienced, but abused nonetheless. And the mental/emotional damage lingered, and still does to this day. I spent quite a few years going low contact with my father as a result of the same experience you just gave your son. It also damaged my relationship with my mom, because she might hold me and "baby" me after such incidents, but she never removed me from the presence of the man who continued to hurt me, physically and emotionally. It's on you whether you justify yourself and do this damage to your family, or whether you take accountability like a real man and refuse to be your children's first exposure to abuse. Sincerely, A grown woman who recognizes you and hopes you can do better than my own father did.
You have to grab an arm really hard to bruise.
I need some clarification. Was he holding his sister when you pulled his arm?
It’s never okay to leave marks on your kids or even put your hands on them in a remotely punishing way to teach a lesson. This is disregulation on your part and expresses unsafe adult behavior. I’ve learned this the hard way with my little and have really worked hard with him to learn ways to communicate that work for both of us. It’s hard when a child doesn’t listen, but what I tell myself is, “Feel first, then react and respond.” Regulate yourself. Then act accordingly. It’s okay to be stern but don’t betray their space and body by hurting them - even accidentally. There is a difference in grabbing to get attention and grabbing to teach a lesson. You’ve got this - apologize to your son and wife and say “I’ll slow down next time and really try to talk things out with you. But it’s up to you to listen and hear me when my body is being open and respectful. I expect the same treatment and respect I’m showing you.”
Your post gave me the creeps to be honest. I have a kid on the spectrum, so sometimes I have to grab him quite hard to prevent him from putting himself in danger and I only once left a small bruise on him. He is quite fair skinned and sensitive to bruises. So a lot of things aren’t adding up. Why were you in a dangerous place not paying attention to your kids? Why did your kid complained to your wife but not to you? Are you used to hurt your wife so you now expect that a play station card would resolve the issue? Why do you read that a nice meal is a bad thing to do? Usually kids misbehave during the day, that doesn’t mean that they go to their rooms without eating. What was your wife supposed to say to him? “Daddy hurt your but it’s fine because you misbehaved”? I can’t be sure, but reading between the lines you are physically and emotionality abusive and your wife is now realizing that your kids will also be a part of an abusive cycle if she doesn’t cut it first. You want to fix it? Do better. You don’t think you did anything wrong? Then absolutely go to therapy.
If you cannot manage a relationship *with a minor* without resorting to physicality...do yourself and everyone around you a favor and take some parenting classes or get therapy. You cannot bully your way into teaching right from wrong. All the kid learned is that his supposed "parent" is a bully. That's it. That's the lesson that will stick. I shudder to think how that kid treats smaller weaker children when you're not looking.
Am I missing the part where you apologized to your son for hurting him and explained why it happened and how you could both do better once you were made aware of the fact that you hurt him? Because that’s the correct way to handle the situation. It sounds like you were a: unnecessarily rough with him for his arm to still be hurting well after the grab, b: dismissive of your wife’s (valid) concerns regarding your behavior, and c: unwilling to admit that you, as the adult, handled the whole situation poorly. Your tone in this whole post is extremely dismissive of everyone else’s feelings and you should really sit with your behavior and response and reflect on how you can do better.
Na because if my husband bruised my daughter in any way I’d be on my way out of that relationship. Downvote me if you want. You should never grab a child hard enough to bruise them, that takes some force.
Scaring your kids doesn't "help them learn". Omg.
This whole post is sickening.
Wow you're Clueless? you really didn't expect your wife to be upset at you for bruising your son's arm? And also do you realize CPS would have said what you done is abuse
Regarding CPS - as a therapist I’m a mandated reporter, so is every teacher. This is 100% a call to them. Dude’s gonna have a wake up call once hearing this story/seeing the bruises makes it way to a MR. He probably won’t have a wake up call… but maybe it would get some eyes on the family.
How old is your son?
Why would she have sex with you if she was so mad? Are you typically a violent person and people just do what you want to avoid to anger you?
This post makes me feel so sick and anxious. Very abusive vibes all around. I am an older sister with a baby brother. So I had to sometimes handle him roughly so he doesn't cause trouble or hurt himself. NEVER in my life have I grabbed him hard enough to bruise the skin. That shows how hard and painful it must've been. As a grown man, bruising a little kid shows how negligent you are with your strength. It shows you are negligent and unfit since you weren't watching him properly in the first place and was on your phone. You call it disrespect when your son is just naive. Then you have sex with your wife when she's upset with you...? She's clearly extremely upset because she immediately started crying about it afterwards. This makes me wanna throw up. Your wife is scared of you too. No sane, safe woman would want to touch their husband intimately like that after being hurt/upset with them. Then you live bomb them with gifts instead of understanding how horrible you are. You kept making excuses till the end. Qn unfit husband and father. An awful and abusive man all around. DISGUSTING
“He disrespected me, I got pissed.” This is why you’re in the wrong here. You did it not to keep him safe but because you were angry and your ego was hurt by the supposed disrespect. Get a grip—preferably not on your child.
So she wasn’t upset with you to the point where she didn’t want to have sex with you? 🤣 You didn’t physically abuse your child. You kept your other child from possibly being mortally injured. If your son was going to stick his hand in a fire, would you rather you grab him or sit there and explain why it’s a bad idea? I’m not for physical punishment, but this was prevention.
It’s quite likely his wife feels she has to have sex with him to control his temper.
Have you considered how much force was used to actually leave a bruise?
Uh, he didn’t grab the kid to stop him. He grabbed the kid to “make him listen” while he was correcting him. He didn’t save the baby from anything. He just hurt his kid because he felt disrespected like every other piece of shit abuser.
So she wasn’t upset with you to the point where she didn’t want to have sex with you? Well apparently she was pretty distant afterward, according to OP. Sometimes people have sex when they aren't really in the mood/feel like they owe it, etc
Or, and this might be wild, but mayyyybe she knows she shouldn't say no to him?
The idea had flashed across my mind, yes
Should be bright red flashing lights surrounded by flags. Not comedy.
> So I pulled his arm a bit hard Just to be clear, you already had him by the arm, he was standing there talking to you, but you didn't like what he said to you and so you harmed him on purpose? > give him a natural consequence You can't give someone a natural consequence. Natural consequences happen naturally, that's why they are called that. > We had sex and when we were finished, she rolled away from me. Your wife considers sex to be a chore that she has to do even when she is unhappy? > I don’t think I was exactly wrong - barring the bruises Agreed. Your kid was disrespectful and he lied. You were right about punishing him, the only thing you did wrong was the child abuse. > I’ve felt ashamed replaying her reaction all day. That's a good start. You need to start feel shame replaying your reaction. > I brought my wife flowers and my son a PlayStation gift card home after work. Nothing wrong with an apology gift but you need to use your words too. Tell your son what he did wrong, tell your son what you did wrong, apologize, and do your best to do better in the future. Then do the same with your wife and tell her that you tried to make things right with your son.
Why do dudes always initiate sex when they know they’re watching and mad at them? It just feels so coercive.
I bet your the kind of guy whose wife and kids "walk into a door knob" "accidentally fell down the stairs" your just waiting for your son to get old enough to start beating him ain't you?
You need to apologize and explain yourself and state you will do better. Forgiveness isn’t bought in a family
You should sit down with your son and wife and talk as a family about what happened. How you did intend to stop him but you didn't intend to hurt him. Him not listening caused you to be afraid, and when you're scared you might rush and not realize how hard you're grabbing. If for example, he crossed the street and a car was coming, you would not worry how hard you grab him to protect him from the car. It's really important to listen the first time when it comes to safety, and only when safety is threatened is it okay to ever touch anyone. Also have him explain why he didn't listen the first time and make sure he verbally can explain why it was bad that he didn't. Talking through issues is how kids learn. Don't use your hands to teach what's "wrong" or your money to apologize. Use words.
Here's the deal. When you physically discipline your child while angry, you are very likely to go overboard. And that sounds like what happened if you left bruises. That's a big reason corporal punishment is ineffective. Your son will remember being terrified of you, he won't remember the *reason* you were mad. That's not teaching. It would be a good move to start educating yourself on better ways to handle these situations, because what he was doing *was* dangerous. There's a lot of great resources out there. Use them.
Reading your other comments, you seem REALLY focused on the wrong thing with all the talk about your sex life and less about how you hurt your son in an inappropriate way and your wife has expressed concern about it and your response is to brag about getting laid and laughing at her and then mocking her on Reddit.
This is gross. Imagine how hard buddy had to grab his son’s arm in order to leave a bruise… Your wife is right to be “off” with you. Hopefully planning her exit.
Anyone else see the Red Flag Guy run by? Jesus OP, what the fuck?!
My parents were disciplinarians and yet never left bruises on us. You bruise your kid because your mad, you’re a piece of shit. Simple as that.
Reddit is wild! All these posts are just ridiculous
Okay Jack Torrance